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Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

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Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#131

Post by dlytle »

twmb wrote: post #116
dlytle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at gwern's nootropic page? I've seen articles from it posted on HN on occasion. He seems to be doing a pretty solid job of testing the potential effects of various nootropics on himself. His efforts to double-blind himself and using Dual N-Back for testing effectiveness indicate he takes this topic seriously, and is trying to be very scientific about it. (I say "trying to" because I'm absolutely cluel…

I just have to comment that in his page, I disagree on using dual n back as a measure of mental ability. As the mind repeats a task over and over it learns what to expect. I personally view n-back as any other repetitive task, only it is mostly in the mind; the more you whittle, the better you will be at whittling. If you look at the wikipedia page [1] you will see that there have been papers both for and against n-b…

True, n-backs don't necessarily represent cognitive improvements, but they are a method to identify changes in some kinds of mental processes.

For instance, if you do Dual 3-Back for 3 weeks with an identical supplement regimen, you can graph the progressive improvement over time. That'll give you a semi-baseline, and if all you change (in your life) is a supplement from that point, you can attribute the alterations in your typical N-Back to something supplement related.

I know, placebo effect, etc. It's not causation, just correlation. Just because correlation gets pimped out on the street corner by people with agendas doesn't mean we should ignore him. We should just be careful when we utilize his services.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#132

Post by Pongo_the_Great »

strlen wrote: post #130
Pongo_the_Great wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, do a simple bit of logic there (sorry; the study I had in mind is locked). From the age of 20 > 30, there's a quantifiable degradation of DNA replication, or as we call it "ageing". We can all agree that ageing seems to impair certain functions, and if these types of drugs improve "impaired" individuals, then... ? As stated: the greater the impairment, the greater the effect. Now, you might not want to spend $x…

It's fine if the paper is behind a paywall: can you at least give a citation (from a peer-reviewed journal) and an abstract? Additionally, please see tokenadult's posts: tokenadult is anything _but_ an idiot and has contributed much valuable insight to this community (often times with concrete citations). It's important to learn to disagree respectfully.

I'll show you mine when toeknadult shows me his: The original post had zero real references.

But, of course: most of the papers I can throw at you are about huge impairments...because humans at this point in time barely understand what's going on where there's a MASSIVE TUMOUR IN YOUR BRAIN or YOU'VE SUFFERED 8% LOSS OF FRONTAL CORTEX MASS and so we focus on fixing those.

Hint ~ we get to the good stuff by fixing the really obvious / awful stuff.

Racetams will help you if you're over 25, and have ever taken a drug that is known to damage your brain (ahem, alcohol) or you live in a city with noticeable air pollution, or you live in a society that adds various nasties to your food supply.

Hint: This is a large majority of the people living on Earth.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#133

Post by jongraehl »

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…

> I've been hearing people tout smart drugs for as long as I have been involved in online discussions (since 1992), and I have never seen any evidence of regular users of smart drugs doing anything smart.

That people doing smart things aren't busy talking about smart drugs (if true) does not imply that some smart drugs aren't helpful.

I've heard plenty about caffeine and modafinil use from people who do good work. I use caffeine and I do good work.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#134

Post by forensic »

trafnar wrote: post #117
matznerd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already many students who are prescribed Ritalin, Concerta, Adderal etc, and these drugs give those students an unfair edge. How are normal students supposed to compete with their peers who are on amphetamines?

Why should learning be a competition?

I didn't create the world, I just have to live in it.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#135

Post by forensic »

Alex3917 wrote: post #14
plantain wrote: post #2

There may be places out there to find reliable information on the efficacy and safety of prescription medication taken off-label, but a guest post from a seller of them certainly is not one.

Actually the good news is that it should actually be easier to find research on these drugs than your standard drugs because they're not being tested by big pharma, which means there should be much less of a file drawer effect. That said, you'd have to be kind of dumb to think that you can improve your brain function by taking the same cocktail of drugs every day. Taking low doses of different stuff on an intermitten…

why does it work with caffeine?

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#136

Post by Pongo_the_Great »

Pongo_the_Great wrote: post #129
strlen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I am not in a university, so I no longer have access to JSTOR and the like. I did dig around PubMed/Google and what I've been able to find were studies of impaired individuals. Citations would be useful -- for studies on healthy (or like you said, "naturally" unhealthy -- due to age, environment, lifestyle, etc...) adults.

Well, do a simple bit of logic there (sorry; the study I had in mind is locked). From the age of 20 > 30, there's a quantifiable degradation of DNA replication, or as we call it "ageing". We can all agree that ageing seems to impair certain functions, and if these types of drugs improve "impaired" individuals, then... ? As stated: the greater the impairment, the greater the effect. Now, you might not want to spend $x…

Reading the forum rules here, I'm at a loss why a user has gone through my posts on this thread and flagged each one, without a reason.. especially since the first rude post was the one that deserved nuking, not my responses, and didn't get one. Nuke the rude abrasive one, not the ones offering more, unless you've a reason?

The thread I responded to is still lacking in quality, esp. references ~ but I learnt down-thread s/he's a known poster, so I guess the rules don't apply.

Charming. ZZzzz.

[Edit: I'm having trouble finding the paper on this, for reference below, it's from a Welsh University ~ it might have been removed and/or hijacked for use for something else]

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#137

Post by xanados »

Pongo_the_Great wrote: post #136
Pongo_the_Great wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, do a simple bit of logic there (sorry; the study I had in mind is locked). From the age of 20 > 30, there's a quantifiable degradation of DNA replication, or as we call it "ageing". We can all agree that ageing seems to impair certain functions, and if these types of drugs improve "impaired" individuals, then... ? As stated: the greater the impairment, the greater the effect. Now, you might not want to spend $x…

Reading the forum rules here, I'm at a loss why a user has gone through my posts on this thread and flagged each one, without a reason.. especially since the first rude post was the one that deserved nuking, not my responses, and didn't get one. Nuke the rude abrasive one, not the ones offering more, unless you've a reason? The thread I responded to is still lacking in quality, esp. references ~ but I learnt down-thr…

Tone is important on Hacker News and you can get downvoted for that alone. Your tone throughout this conversation was dismissive and exaggerated, and HN generally rewards people who are clear and staid in their writing. If you offered evidence for your positions and argued clearly and convincingly for them, and without defensiveness, insult and exaggeration you could probably get many people to agree with you.

People who have been on the site a long time (note: not me) can downvote you, which is what happened to your posts, rather than them being flagged. If you are flagged it just goes to the admins and they delete it if it's counterproductive. Also, you don't seem to know how to use the formatting here, and you don't care enough to figure it out and fix your old posts, which some could take to be as disrespectful to a new community.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#138

Post by gwern »

twmb wrote: post #116
dlytle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at gwern's nootropic page? I've seen articles from it posted on HN on occasion. He seems to be doing a pretty solid job of testing the potential effects of various nootropics on himself. His efforts to double-blind himself and using Dual N-Back for testing effectiveness indicate he takes this topic seriously, and is trying to be very scientific about it. (I say "trying to" because I'm absolutely cluel…

I just have to comment that in his page, I disagree on using dual n back as a measure of mental ability. As the mind repeats a task over and over it learns what to expect. I personally view n-back as any other repetitive task, only it is mostly in the mind; the more you whittle, the better you will be at whittling. If you look at the wikipedia page [1] you will see that there have been papers both for and against n-b…

> I just have to comment that in his page, I disagree on using dual n back as a measure of mental ability. As the mind repeats a task over and over it learns what to expect.

So?

> I personally view n-back as any other repetitive task, only it is mostly in the mind; the more you whittle, the better you will be at whittling.

Progress in n-back is very slow. I'm up to 2400 rounds and still am only at 30-50% on D5B; a difference of 10% is perfectly noticeable.

> If you look at the wikipedia page [1] you will see that there have been papers both for and against n-back improving cognitive ability.

The Wikipedia page is completely useless compared to my FAQ, but yes. That's not relevant to whether it is a useful way to measure variations in mental ability.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#139

Post by Alex3917 »

forensic wrote: post #135
Alex3917 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the good news is that it should actually be easier to find research on these drugs than your standard drugs because they're not being tested by big pharma, which means there should be much less of a file drawer effect. That said, you'd have to be kind of dumb to think that you can improve your brain function by taking the same cocktail of drugs every day. Taking low doses of different stuff on an intermitten…

why does it work with caffeine?

There are a number of different possible answers to that question. One answer is that it doesn't, it just feels like it does. And if you look at studies of people who are caffeine dependent, they're not actually are more alert after drinking a cup of coffee than people who aren't caffeine dependent and don't drink coffee.

The other answer is that if you're using caffeine from plants then you're getting a different dose each day, and if you're not taking a lot and you're not doing it every day then tolerance will be less of an issue. Also, caffeine breaks down into multiple separate drugs when digested so that may also have some impact on tolerance.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#140

Post by bshock »

While I'm suspicious of the unsupported, anecdotal assertions in this article, I'm also confused by the author's use of the phrases "water soluble" and "fat soluble."

For instance, he states about Piracetam that "Being water soluble, it has a long half life in the system, but can take up to 6 weeks of daily dosing before full effects are apparent." And about Aniracetam, "A fat soluble racetam, meaning it is fast acting."

It's been several decades since I studied biochemistry, but I seem to recall exactly the opposite -- water-soluble substances were filtered out of the body through the kidneys with relative rapidity, while fat-soluble substances needed to be metabolized by the liver and tended to hang around quite a while. I just ran a very superficial web search on this topic, and found that the popular literature on vitamins and supplements seems to agree with my interpretation.

I'm a software engineer, not a biochemist, and I've read about some fairly tortuous biochemical pathways that turn what seem to be chemical likelihoods on their heads, so I could very easily be wrong in regard to nootropic substances. But if I'm not, isn't this basic error a warning sign that the author might be mistaken in other basic ways as well?

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