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Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

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Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#61

Post by illuminate »

billswift wrote: post #10
kilian wrote: post #3

As someone whose diet is already high in eggs, meat etc. (paleo) I wonder how much effect this has. I am asking this because both fish oil supplements and magnesium supplements don't seem to have any additional beneficial effect on me. Anyone have experience with that?

As the post admitted, few supplements have benefit once you are eating a well-balanced diet. As he put it, "these are best used to fill any deficiencies." Though it is sad to see what amounts to an infomercial voted up to the number 2 spot on HN. Added: Now it's made the top post.

The claim that "90% of people are deficient" is certainly suspect, considering that admission.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#62

Post by Permit »

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 number of subjects?

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#63

Post by cbarnsdale »

aelaguiz wrote: post #22

The article is really interesting, but I can't help but be suspicious of the data (opinion) contained within. The expert used in the article is John Holcomb, who owns a supplement e-commerce site. I can't find anything on his site that talks about his qualifications or any hard facts to back up most of this. I'm really interested in nootropics and increasing mental efficacy - but there is no shortage of snake-oil ven…

I realize this isn't worth much, but I'll say it anyway. I personally asked John to write this article for my site. Why? He's a sharp fellow, and though the information is available, I wanted a clear, consolidated overview for my readers. John had no interest in including his name or website; I suggested it. I would rather a name behind it than some random anonymous guest post.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#64

Post by gadders »

crntaylor wrote: post #7

Potentially relevant - Johann Hari's article in HuffPost about his experiment with Provigil (aka Modafinil). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/my-experiment-with...

That's if you can believe anything Johann Hari writes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_contro...

(For Americans - Hari is like the British Jayson Blair).

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#65

Post by im3w1l »

systemtrigger wrote: post #60
aelaguiz wrote: post #22

The article is really interesting, but I can't help but be suspicious of the data (opinion) contained within. The expert used in the article is John Holcomb, who owns a supplement e-commerce site. I can't find anything on his site that talks about his qualifications or any hard facts to back up most of this. I'm really interested in nootropics and increasing mental efficacy - but there is no shortage of snake-oil ven…

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?

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#66

Post by lars »

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…

You test some statistical hypothesis, and you end with some probability that the hypethesis is true. Increasing the number of people increases the number of samples. Loosely speaking, increasing the number of samples will reduce the variance on the variable you are measuring. When the variance is reduced, the confidence in the result is increased.

Say you are measuring IQ before and after taking omega 3. Say your hypthesis is "omega 3 immedieately increases IQ". Assume this is true, even if it probably isn't. After testing this on 20 people you might be able to say "the hypthesis appears to be true, but there is a 46% percent chance these results are due to chance". However after testing 1000 people, you might be able to say "the hypthesis appears to be true, and there is a 0.5% percent chance these results are due to chance". Then you are 99.5% confident in your result. Standards for confidence varies from field to field, but typically 99% confidence or more is called a significant result. Given some assumptions, you can also calculate the number of samples needed to generate a result with confidence >X% with probability Y. According to Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow, most researchers don't take the time to do this, and are consistently surprised when their experiments turn out to not give significant results.

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#68

Post by narrator »

I think the whole idea of nootropics goes against what I call the "American ideology".

The "American Ideology" being that anyone can do anything they just have to try. If you can cognitively enhance yourself and become more successful then that proves that there's some things some people can't do because they are just not smart enough and that realization is enough to activate full blown cognitive dissonance. People think, "this must be cheating!", "this must be dangerous!", "this must be addictive!", "why isn't everybody else doing it?".

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#69

Post by pdog »

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…

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

Re: Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs”

#70

Post by bduerst »

theorique wrote: post #40
huhtenberg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Sports are essentially about competing , so the playing field being leveled is important. Academics is about the advancement of science. If doping helps a student to find a cure for cancer, I see no reason to object.

Academics is about the advancement of science. Academics is also about fighting for the esteem and attention of your peers, winning grants and awards, and getting yourself known. If athletes are willing to risk their health for a few hundredths of a second in a race, I can imagine some academics would be willing to dope their brains for a better shot at a publication in Nature .

I was a little shocked with how much politics plays a role in University research departments. I mean, it's expected in any human organization, but the PIs are thinking about and acting on it constantly.
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