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Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

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Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#81

Post by tryitnow »

danneu wrote: post #51
stephengillie wrote: post #4

Unlike in athletics, academics isn’t necessarily a zero sum game. While in a race there is necessarily a winner and a loser, nobody in academics is held back if another student is better able to retain their information. No, but the doped student's advantage could cause her to be selected over another (undoped) student in college entrance exams, program entrance exams, and other educational competitions. Does this me…

Whenever the topic of nootropics comes up, especially when comments come critique, people seem to forget about the second most traded commodity in the world. The majority of people reading these very words are doped up on stimulants, probably from the ubiquitous stimulant machine down the hall.

Yes. Both critics and proponents of nootropics give caffeine short shrift. Critics don't want to admit to chemical enhancement of mental function and proponents are always eager to propagandize the latest fad nootropic.

This is true in general. I haven't noticed these behaviors among the brighter critics and supporters (e.g. many comments here on HN are pretty thoughtful).

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#82

Post by matznerd »

Tooluka wrote: post #33

> No one talks about this stuff! Yeah, right. Probably in some other internet. You can't find a site today where there they weren't discussed at least once. Personally I won't take them without prescription from a doctor. Yes, downsides are pretty obscure and rare but the same are benefits. Based on reviews they are not some magic pills like in Limitless. Closer to placebo actually.

They are not some magic drug like Limitless, but they are closer to that than to placebos. Do you not notice a difference in your mental and physical state when you take caffeine? Caffeine is a Nootropic and it works, but Caffeine is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#83

Post by ConceptJunkie »

makmanalp wrote: post #6
stephengillie wrote: post #4

Unlike in athletics, academics isn’t necessarily a zero sum game. While in a race there is necessarily a winner and a loser, nobody in academics is held back if another student is better able to retain their information. No, but the doped student's advantage could cause her to be selected over another (undoped) student in college entrance exams, program entrance exams, and other educational competitions. Does this me…

> A study in Nature found that an average of 7% (with a range up to 25%) of US college students have used a nootropic at some point in their careers. http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/06/should-students-be-test... What would you bet that ivys have a higher rate than average too? :)

Seeing as how the article considers (and rightly so) caffeine as a nootropic, I'd say the numbers are probably more like 70% rather than 7%.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#84

Post by ConceptJunkie »

gubatron wrote: post #29

"it's a mobile OS powered by JavaScript!" fail. I hope you can code in something else than javascript. We have to DEAL with Javascript on the browser because browser vendors haven't bothered supporting other more superior languages, wouldn't it be nice to have type="text/python", type="text/ruby" as options, have threads, native datatypes, real OO, logical variable scoping, better numeric precision and all the things…

Is this generation any different than the generation of moronic programmers raised on Java?

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#86

Post by strlen »

matznerd wrote: post #72
tokenadult wrote: post #50

The article begins with "It’s a lengthy read, but don’t let the wall of text dissuade you." That's scary right there. Anyone who is scared off by this short, popular fluff piece needs a lot of help in reading (or is not a native speaker of English). To learn to read a piece like this thoughtfully and critically mostly takes practice in reading, not the latest "smart drug." I've been hearing people tout smart drugs fo…

There is a lot of evidence supporting the use of Nootropics and other related supplements. Unfortunately, due to many of the issues brought up in the article, such as the inability to patent any of these substances, there is not a lot of direct research studying improving cognitive ability from a normal state. That being said, there is plenty of research on these substances, but most of the research is related to stu…

I've seen several studies related to use of Piracetam in children with Down Syndrome as well, leading to a statistically significant IQ improvement.

Problem is that I don't believe intelligence always works this way, e.g., if having less of Y causes lower than average IQ, it doesn't imply that having more of Y will raise IQ in subjects with average/above-average IQ.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#87

Post by stephengillie »

Permit wrote: post #62
tokenadult wrote: post #50

The article begins with "It’s a lengthy read, but don’t let the wall of text dissuade you." That's scary right there. Anyone who is scared off by this short, popular fluff piece needs a lot of help in reading (or is not a native speaker of English). To learn to read a piece like this thoughtfully and critically mostly takes practice in reading, not the latest "smart drug." I've been hearing people tout smart drugs fo…

>Warning Sign D3: Too Few Subjects >The author advertising smart drugs doesn't describe any careful studies, so of course he doesn't mention the number of subjects in any studies. Most so-called studies of smart drugs have been far too small to have any statistical power. Neither yourself, nor Peter Norvig suggested an appropriate number of subjects for tests like these. So I'm curious, what would be an appropriate n…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_size#Required_sample_si...

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#88

Post by majormajor »

danneu wrote: post #58
tokenadult wrote: post #50

The article begins with "It’s a lengthy read, but don’t let the wall of text dissuade you." That's scary right there. Anyone who is scared off by this short, popular fluff piece needs a lot of help in reading (or is not a native speaker of English). To learn to read a piece like this thoughtfully and critically mostly takes practice in reading, not the latest "smart drug." I've been hearing people tout smart drugs fo…

You spent the entire comment condemning the lack of experimentation protocol, yet your final challenge is the most trivial of all. What conclusion could you draw from your proposed duel? If someone can't beat you in a standardized IQ test after ingesting 20mg of amphetamine? Or a cup of coffee? Or 5g of a racetam? Seems to me your conclusion would be "I perform better than you even when you're mentally stimulated". O…

Yeah, the reason I take Adderall is best summed up by the difference in my college GPA that occurred after being prescribed Adderall midway through. (Not to mention all the depression-like symptoms that came from underachieving constantly and knowing it and wanting to change that on my own but failing over and over.) And in the years since then I've gone a few months at a time without it to try to see if, now that I've got more interesting jobs, I still need it to focus. Sadly, it seems like I do.

But there are tricks to it. It has something of a threshold for me: after a certain level, higher dosages don't seem to help any more (other than the first day or two right after the switch), as my body builds some tolerance. The just make the side effects worse. And the side effects are unpleasant at best, even at the relatively low dosage my doctor and I have gotten myself down to. I would absolutely not take it regularly if I felt like I could get stuff done at a sufficient level without it. Some people need their coffee, I need something a bit stronger. Sucks, but I'm stuck with it for now.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#90

Post by sillysaurus »

maxerickson wrote: post #85
sillysaurus wrote: post #78

[Taking stimulants] can, over time, permanently impair your mental faculties. Does anyone have citations for that claim? (Any non-anecdotal evidence.)

It isn't an obscure claim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis

Hey, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

Stimulant psychosis is unrelated to long-term permanent cognitive impairment; it's temporary, for example.

I was hoping to find out more about the medical basis for the "permanent gradual decline of mental abilities" assertion, because it seems hard to believe that our current knowledge of the human brain is sufficient to make such a broad claim with any degree of accuracy.

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