Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs” • Hacker News Board

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#101

Post by aaronblohowiak » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #39

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…

This was the most self serving, disingenuous, logically unsound sentence I've read in the past few days. Firstly - "isn't necessarily a competition". A half truth. The rest of the time it is a competiton and is bloody damned important. In classes graded on a curve? Percentile based rankings? What about a country like India or Japan or any country where competitive exams determine your chance to gain an extremely comp…

You're conflating Malthus with Darwin.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#102

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:11 PM UTC

sillysaurus wrote: post #90

maxerickson wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, the page does say "However it has been suggested that about 5–15% of users fail to make a complete recovery from the psychosis in the long term."

And there are other statements suggesting that people that have suffered from acute psychosis are prone to relapses (if a chronic user has more problems than a dabbler, that at least suggests accumulated damage).

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#103

Post by mahyarm » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:12 PM UTC

acuozzo wrote: post #42

paborden wrote: post #38

Please, please, please ... Be careful with Nootropics. I'm a bit of a consciousness-naut and self-experimenter who's obsessed about increasing productivity. I've experimented a lot with Nootropics. My thoughts? Modafinil. Stay away from it. The stuff is wickedly addictive and many people have experienced significant long-term side effects, especially if they try to go off it. Piracetam. Does a lot to reduce ADD and h…

> If you want to increase productivity and focus there are a ton of other things you can do, starting with the basics of exercise, proper nutrition, and meditation. ... and what do you do when all of that's already taken care of?

Get 8 hours of sleep a day. I bet that can be somewhat difficult for a typical HN reader.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#104

Post by napillo » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #65

systemtrigger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question his motives because he recommends Piracetam daily dosage of 3 to 5 grams and said it may take up to 6 weeks to realize the effects. I bought Piracetam on Amazon after someone here on HN recommended it, and for the past 2 months have been taking 800 mg per day. I often skip a few days and have not noticed any addiction symptoms. I doubled my dosage one day, so took 1600 mg that day, and felt sick to my stom…

Since you are self experimenting, may I recommend a blind, crossover test, with wash-out?

I've done it myself - it's the same as if I skip coffee for a couple days. I take piracetam at about 5 grams a day. It's recommended dosage is between 75 to 125 mg per kg. I take it three doses five hours apart, since that's the half-life of it.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#105

Post by jes5199 » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:25 PM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #59

paborden wrote: post #38

Please, please, please ... Be careful with Nootropics. I'm a bit of a consciousness-naut and self-experimenter who's obsessed about increasing productivity. I've experimented a lot with Nootropics. My thoughts? Modafinil. Stay away from it. The stuff is wickedly addictive and many people have experienced significant long-term side effects, especially if they try to go off it. Piracetam. Does a lot to reduce ADD and h…

>Modafinil. Stay away from it. The stuff is wickedly addictive and many people have experienced significant long-term side effects, especially if they try to go off it. I have known quite a number of people who have taken modafinil, and none of them experienced more than minor side effects. I have several friends who stopped using it for long periods because they built a tolerance (tolerance != addiction), but none e…

I've tried adrafinil, too, and it has a side effect for me that makes me almost completely dysfunctional: I get really, really cranky and angry. The first time I tried it I couldn't resist trading insults with my boss - at this point, I don't dare take it if I'm going to be around other human beings at all.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#106

Post by 31reasons » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:29 PM UTC

The best smart "drug" you can take is Omega-3. 90% of the population is deficient in it. Its also the #1 supplement to control ADHD.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#107

Post by simonsarris » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:30 PM UTC

philh wrote: post #41

Permit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Would you take a pill wich makes you a prodigy but shortens your expected lifetime with 5 year? Absolutely. Perhaps it's the naivety of youth speaking, but I'd gladly trade 5 of the worst years of my life to improve the rest of them. > What would you think about the same decision if the former prodigy level becomes the new average in your field because of the widespread use? I'd argue the world would be a much bette…

> The real question you might want to ask is what if these drugs become expensive and only the upper class can afford them. It might lead to a sort of catch 22 by which no one was interested in hiring less intelligent or less capable people who couldn't afford such drugs. Unless government regulations get in the way, I would expect employers to start paying for their employees' drugs. If they don't produce enough of…

> Unless government regulations get in the way, I would expect employers to start paying for their employees' drugs.

Well, every place I've worked at has offered free coffee, which is a well-studied (albeit minor?) nootropic.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#108

Post by strlen » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:57 PM UTC

charlieflowers wrote: post #96

strlen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you have the time, some links would be greatly appreciated. I'd love to see those studies.

Not specifically about Down Syndrome, but here is one study with children with IQ below 75:

http://books.google.com/books?id=bNfuX26mSsAC&pg=PA151&#...

Note, however, that an IQ below 75 falls in the bottom 5% of cognitive ability. I highly doubt that it's possible to infer impact of these drugs on individuals in the upper 5% of cognitive ability (exactly the folks that are the most interest in boosting their intelligence to stay competitive -- software engineers, medical/graduate students, etc...) from these studies.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#109

Post by goo » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

tryitnow wrote: post #79

pdog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracetam and choline have been studied in an extensive number of clinical experiments. Their effects aren't poorly understood.

If you've got the time, any references would be appreciated.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v6t6k526405vm570/?MUD=MP

Reading the Wikipedia entry for Piracetam exposed this double blind placebo controlled study.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#110

Post by awolf » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

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…

Yes, GP's closing paragraphs were absolutely baffling to me:

>To sum up, I am willing to do a mental test (memory, or IQ, as the smart drug promoter chooses) duel with anyone who claims that smart drugs have helped him become smarter.

Wait, what? He spent 1000 words explaining to us all of the ways in which research around nootropics is lacking and then closes by proposing a ridiculous test fraught with a glaringly obvious confounding factor (the test subject's baseline intelligences). Baffling.