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Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

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Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#61

Post by steveplace »

gaius wrote: post #54
steveplace wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are sooo many downsides to anabolic steroids. Especially if you take them when you're young. And cortisol is technically a steroid, but not the body-enhancing type that everyone refers to. And steroids do allow you to train harder and recover quicker, but you still have to cycle off after 6-8 weeks... and then you go back to your original strength.

There are downsides to the pro athletic lifestyle, full stop. Why do you think there are so many teenagers in Olympic gymnastics? This is what I mean when I say hypocrisy; no-one has any problem with a 14-year-old winning their country a medal, who even remembers them when they're 24? The puritanical attitude towards steroids is inconsistent.

Sure, that may be bad, but steroids have much, much more downside relative to the other examples you have given.

Hard training at a young age can lead to amenorrhea and slowed hormonal development, but anabolic steroids cause irreprable damage to your liver and kidneys. And will ruin your joints.

There is no inconsistency here. It's not binary, it's on a gradient.

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#62

Post by gaius »

steveplace wrote: post #61
gaius wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are downsides to the pro athletic lifestyle, full stop. Why do you think there are so many teenagers in Olympic gymnastics? This is what I mean when I say hypocrisy; no-one has any problem with a 14-year-old winning their country a medal, who even remembers them when they're 24? The puritanical attitude towards steroids is inconsistent.

Sure, that may be bad, but steroids have much, much more downside relative to the other examples you have given. Hard training at a young age can lead to amenorrhea and slowed hormonal development, but anabolic steroids cause irreprable damage to your liver and kidneys. And will ruin your joints. There is no inconsistency here. It's not binary, it's on a gradient.

There isn't any medical evidence for that. Overuse of anything is bad for you. There is no medical reason that, if used under proper supervision, steroids should result in any long-term physical damage. In fact, as is the case with cortisone, steroids can improve an athletes chances of recovering from an otherwise career-ending injury. These aren't drugs remember, just more of what your body produces naturally. If you want to ban people from adjusting their hormonal systems in support of their lifestyle choices, you'd have to ban the Pill too.

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#63

Post by chris11 »

jimbokun wrote: post #20

"But she said she was concerned that wider use of stimulants could lead more people to become addicted to them. That's what happened decades ago when they were widely prescribed for a variety of disorders, she said. "Whether we like it or not, that property of stimulants is not going to go away," she said." So, substances with a known history of addictive behavior. This is what we call burying the lede (quote from pa…

I don't know how addictive stimulants can be if used properly, but stimulants like ritalin can be abused. http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Pharms_Methylphen...

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#64

Post by asdflkj »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #52
asdflkj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sell half as much stuff as others, it means you're costing the store customers, because presumably you approached close to the same number of customers as the other sales agents approached, but more of your customers decided to take their business elsewhere. This not an issue in a programming job. Let's not "take this to the extreme", and instead be realistic. Your "ticking bomb" would be the first in history.…

Tobacco.

Tobacco causes severe side effects which get progressively worse before the "big stuff" kicks in. That's a pretty good cue that you're poisoning yourself. Not so with Provigil.

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#65

Post by kragen »

silentbicycle wrote: post #45
kragen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modafinil is effective in small enough doses that you could put it into just about any beverage you like, just like amphetamine, piracetam, and so on, and unlike ethanol. You may enjoy quaffing toxic organic solvents like ethanol, but I don't particularly fancy the idea myself.

You can't really put piracetam in "just about any beverage", both because of the taste and the sheer quantity . That would be like trying to hide a tablespoon of ground-up mothballs in your orange juice. (Aniracetam or oxiracetam, maybe.)

Oops! I was speaking from ignorance. Thank you for the correction!

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#66

Post by rsheridan6 »

asdflkj wrote: post #64
rsheridan6 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco.

Tobacco causes severe side effects which get progressively worse before the "big stuff" kicks in. That's a pretty good cue that you're poisoning yourself. Not so with Provigil.

If you want one that sneaks up on you, try fen-phen. No noticeable side effects and then you die of a heart attack.

As for modafinil, a quick look doesn't turn up any long-term safety studies (pub med is either down or even slower than usual today, which amounts to the same thing, so I might be missing something), except for one 9-week study. You could smoke for 9 weeks without being affected much.

It's not like it's a rare thing for drugs to turn out to be harmful. We'll just have to wait and see.

EDIT: given the lack of long-term safety studies, but also the lack of problems with short-term studies, I personally would use modafinil for finals week or a long car trip or something like that but not day-in day-out for years.

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#67

Post by randomwalker »

silentbicycle wrote: post #45
kragen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modafinil is effective in small enough doses that you could put it into just about any beverage you like, just like amphetamine, piracetam, and so on, and unlike ethanol. You may enjoy quaffing toxic organic solvents like ethanol, but I don't particularly fancy the idea myself.

You can't really put piracetam in "just about any beverage", both because of the taste and the sheer quantity . That would be like trying to hide a tablespoon of ground-up mothballs in your orange juice. (Aniracetam or oxiracetam, maybe.)

Once upon a time I bought a large can of piracetam powder from a random Internet site, wondering why the pills were so much more expensive than the powder. I found out with my first drink -- dear god, the bitterness! I drank a few gulps, gave up, and haven't tried it since.

Re: Brain-boosting drugs for healthy people

#68

Post by helveticaman »

Shamiq wrote: post #57
helveticaman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been prescribed Modafinil for Adult ADD.

That's an off-label usage. Not saying that it's illegal or bad in any sense, just that the drug wasn't approved for such usage. Also, I was on medication for about 2 months. Then I threw away the prescription -- it left me soulless. How is it treating you?

I was taking a huge dose and it had no real effect. In the end, I had to switch to another med.
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