The one thing that really interests me about this is the long-term damage you are doing to yourself. There appear to be two types of stimulants. There are the legal ones like caffeine that have a moderate effect and are not significantly unhealthy unless consumed in extreme quantities. And there are the illegal ones like amphetamines that have a significant effect, but will also cause a great deal of harm the more you use them. So, there seems to be a clear correlation between the size of the effect and the harm done.
This then begs the question where these new substances stand. Are they barely more than caffeine and mostly harmless? Is maybe the placebo effect playing a role in making them appear more effective to the user than they truly are? But if they do have a significant effect, at what price does it come? The human body needs rest, that is a pretty well-established fact. It seems unlikely that these substances would be able to change this fundamental principle. What does seem likely, if they indeed are effective, is that you are buying more alertness for the moment, but paying for it in the long run.
Normally substances are researched and tested by professionals for years and sometimes decades before declared safe. But even that process is not always perfect and substances with harmful side effects have been known to slip through. Potentially turning yourself into a human vegetable a couple of decades down the road by experimenting with these barely understood substances seems like a dangerous proposition.
Piracetam is one of the most popular ones, it's not hard to find, and it works for most people, or not. The most common side effect is muscle twitches or headaches. Headaches are caused by a reduction of the amount of choline, and eating eggs or taking a choline supplement makes the headache go away. Generally the twitches are not severe and don't affect voluntary movements. The side effects subside upon stopping. I'd say it's a completely different effect than caffeine, as it allows me to concentrate for extended periods and have instant recall. If it is a placebo effect, then whatever it is, it works. Placebo effect means there is an effect because there is expected to be one, so in any case it's useful. Piracetam's effects on the body are well documented, since it's been in use for about 35 years now. That said, I don't think this gives you any more rest, nor does taking it make it so you can't sleep. In fact, if I take too much I feel sleepy almost immediately and wake up feeling pretty good. In any case, these people taking nootropics are the new normal.
I tried the racetams but they don't do anything for me. Modafinil does work though but tolerance develops quickly.
Caffeine of course is still #1 for me in terms of efficacy. I'm not desperate enough to use harder stimulants like ephedrines or amphetamines or phenethylamines etc.
And that's the thing about these, you try some, find out what works for you. I don't see anything ethically wrong with taking a brain booster if it improves your performance at work. If you can do that instead of burning out and you really love your job, why not?
> And there are the illegal ones like amphetamines that have a significant effect, but will also cause a great deal of harm the more you use them. So, there seems to be a clear correlation between the size of the effect and the harm done.
There's definitely legal amphetamines, non-amphetamine stimulants (modafanil, methylphenidate if you want to put it there), and lots of literature statistics about what is and isn't a dose which can perform harm, and often a classification for the older drugs as GRAS. There's things which may behave like a stimulant or can replace a stimulant, but aren't really stimulants (bupropion, atomoxetine).
If you're talking about Meth, well, then, yeah. It's illegal and often harmful. It's also not likely to be pure.
For the most part, anything which people consider a performance enhancing brain drug has probably been used or posited as a treatment for ADHD or Narcolepsy. It's often a stimulant or a reuptake inhibitor, usually relating to dopamine in some way. There's a ton of FDA-approved drugs out there that meet this description.
Methamphetamine is NOT illegal in the US (trade name Desoxyn). It's Schedule II, less harmful than LSD in the DEA's psuedo-think. Now, convincing a doctor to rx meth for ADD or weight loss may be difficult, but it's possible.
I do wonder if some of these things might be fine in the short-term but incredibly harmful long-term. If some hypothetical drug makes your brain run at 10% greater capacity than usual, will it kill 10% of your brain in the long run?
Phenibut (beta-phenyl-GABA, mentioned in the article) is a GABA-B drug discovered in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It's not approved for any health condition in the US, but is sold as a "dietary supplement". It acts on the same receptor as Baclofen, a prescription drug that's used to relieve muscle spasms and spasticity. In higher doses, it can affect GABA-A, with effects similar to alcohol or some benzodiazepines. After regular use measured in weeks, it can cause a potentially life-threatening withdrawal syndrome that includes seizures.
As someone who's taken it a couple times, didn't get much out of it, and is now amazed he didn't end up in serious trouble: stay the hell away from Phenibut. Or, don't take my word for it: Google for "phenibut withdrawal".
Massive, massive potential for the placebo effect. This needs to be tested in a randomised double blind trial with standardised testing of the purported cognitive enhancements. Until then it's snake oil.
I remember reading in one of Dan Ariely's book that spending more on placebos makes them more effective. (He typically tested people by giving them word scrambles or similar tasks).
Remember kids, if you want a really good placebo experience, buy the good shit.
Other fun placebo effects: red pills work better than blue pills. All pills work better if given to you by a doctor. Better still if the doctor is wearing a white coat. Yet better is the doctor uses a large peace of medical machinery as part of the intervention. And yet a bit better on top if the machine beeps.
Basically, for best results you want to receive your medicine as the Star Patient in a Very Important Looking Medical Drama right at the moment where Everything Starts Getting Better.
At first each change seems plausible, then it starts veering off into absurdity. I can't quite tell if this is satire or not. Do you have a link to share for these effects?
I was thinking the same thing. For the actual new drugs, I expect they probably do something (and quite possibly something very dangerous). But for the caffeine and herbs... how do we know it's not just the same as a normal large dose of caffeine?
On the scale of the individual it doesn't make much difference if the impact is via placebo or not. To extrapolate from the experience would be unwise. Yet for any one person to live only through population-wide statistical significance robs that person's life of the joy of figuring out what works, even if sometimes it only works for them.
There's a bit of science and chemistry involved, but most of the info about these nootropic supplements is simply anecdotes.
The problem with studying these supplements is not everyone reacts the same way to them and things like diet and sleep tend to have a dramatic effect on what works and how well.
I suppose it's only natural that people are resorting to these when huge swathes of the American youth are being prescribed Adderall and similar and gaining a competitive edge with them over those who don't have access to them.
I previously looked at sourcing modafinil but ultimately decided against it due the the sources available looking dodgy, a lack of clarity in the laws around it, etc. As more reputable companies emerge in the sector I think I may well end up giving the products a go.
> gaining a competitive edge with them over those who don't have access to them
I don't think Adderall/Strattera/Concerta/Ritalin/etc is as effective on those without ADHD as you're implying it is, and those who actually have ADHD (myself included) are not better at a job just because of the supplement. Remember that the drugs wear off, and those hours unmedicated can kill productivity in other ways from constantly being distracted - disorganization, forgetfulness, procrastination (not don't feel like it, think depression), inability to stop multitasking (this can really kill), ignoring details, impatience,... i could go on.
> As more reputable companies emerge in the sector I think I may well end up giving the products a go
Do you really need to though? There's no free lunch; these supplements are going to have side effects. Using baseball as an analogy here, if you're on a major league team getting millions to push your body for the few years you can keep up, i can see the draw of steroids. But if you're in the minors, why entertain the idea of anything other than basic nutrition, exercise, and a good night's sleep?
> I suppose it's only natural that people are resorting to these when huge swathes of the American youth are being prescribed Adderall and similar and gaining a competitive edge with them over those who don't have access to them.
I don't think Adderall would really give ADHD suffers an advantage. It might bring them close to the level of others, but Adderall has its own effects, and ADHD isn't going to be completely eliminated by it.
I'm not an ADHD sufferer myself, but from what I understand, Adderall is used to help cope with the condition by giving you improved concentration for a while. It doesn't eliminate it.
That's gotta be the most American thing ever. A .com website that sells you drugs so you can work harder. And the website is designed to look like they are selling you lollies.
I really expected to see nyan cat bouncing across the screen while waiting for that site to load. I'm not sure if that would have been better or worse.
Thank you guys for your informative endorsements! I wasn't sure if I was going to spend $80 on something that looks like its marketed to imbeciles, but now that you and the other two reputable HN news users endorsed it, I'm going to plop down the cash.
Is it just me that worries about a race to the bottom with brain hacking? Assume some combination of nootropics/transcranial stimulation/etc gives you a short-term edge for unknown (or known) long term risk.
If you're a profit-maximizing employer, would you rather hire the person who performs better today, or the person who is looking out for their own long-term safety? Or if you're a startup founder competing against a bunch of doped up super-brains, how strong must the incentive be to join the dark side?
I see similarities with professional sports, where athletic associations are always playing Whac-A-Mole with performance enhancing drugs, and top earning athletes routinely get chastised for doping. Should we expect outcomes in knowledge work to be different if brain hacking proves as effective?
This further illustrates how terribly unfair modern medical systems are. Want to change your brain chemistry? You've gotta do a song-and-dance for a doctor. Who might either hate "addicts", or be terrified of the DEA. Do a poor job lying and try again? Oh, now you're "doctor shopping", which some want to criminalize. Have an in with a doctor or have enough money, well then it's no problem. (Sure, money buys a lot of leeway in everything, but this is a fairly basic freedom.)
I'm not an American but from what I was taught about folks like Ben Franklin, I think they'd be shocked to know it has become illegal to determine your own treatment.
This is a thorny topic. The trouble is that when a large number of people take a drug, rare but horrific side effects may manifest. How do you factor this in to deciding an appropriate level of regulation? Is it fair that we permit easily accessible experimentation with psychoactive or nootropic substances, when someone downs a few too many, has a psychotic episode and drowns his children? Or has a fatal allergic reaction? Or drives their car off a bridge because they have been awake for 96 hours taking one of these products? That may sound outlandish, but eventually something like this will happen to someone if enough people take it.
So I don't know if you can just couch it in terms of personal freedoms... it seems a bit more complicated than that. I don't know what the answer is, but pretty sure it isn't just 'Let people do whatever they want.' At least with heroin and cocaine people have some idea about the risks, even if they decide to ignore them...
How do we handle alcohol? You tell people that modifying yourself isn't an excuse for committing crimes. And follow up and enforce that. Making it a crime to use chemicals on your own mind is absurd.
With heroin, the biggest risk is the fact it's illegal, thus preventing you from obtaining clean, known-quantity medication. If Tylenol was sold on the streets, with pills ranging from 100mg to 1000mg, we'd have a LOT more liver toxicity cases than we do. It's not like using opiates in a correct manner leads to death on a routine basis.
1. Countless lives have been destroyed by alcohol. Busted up families, people killed by drunk drivers, children maimed by fetal alcohol syndrome, abused wives, husbands and children, fried brains, fried livers and across multiple generations... Why would we want to repeat that experience? If alcohol were invented today it would never be in widespread use like it is now. It's become a lifestyle thing because of thousands of years of culture and legacy. It's a prime example of why your approach is a terrible idea.
2. Heroin is a highly addictive substance, that will kill you in sufficient qualities. You don't see that as a problem?? Even if it were cleanly packaged with a black label, people would still take too much and die from it. Cute example with Tylenol, but doesn't cause dependence and withdrawal. Opiates are given to people with pain, where they have a fundamentally different physiological effect.
My comparison to Tylenol is apt. If you bought pills thinking they were ~100mg, but they were 10x that, you would soon find yourself with a broken liver. To be clear Tylenol will kill you in sufficient quantities, amounts you're likely to easily by from a store.
Opiates do not have a "fundamentally different" effect if you're in pain. I think people like saying that about opiates and stimulants so as to excuse people that "need" it.
And yes, personal freedom is worth people choosing to rip apart families.
Just to clarify, I'm not advocating criminalisation of nootropics, and I completely agree that the war on drugs is pretty stupid.
The point is about dangerous usage patterns. You are trying to argue that hard drugs are actually not that bad if only they were available with the same safety and dosage rigor applied to approved pharmaceuticals. My point is that it isn't an apt example because nobody gets euphoric or addicted when they take Tylenol. Any drug that causes some physiological disturbance in sufficient quantities is going to be more dangerous if that drug is taken by users in ever increasing quantities.
> Opiates do not have a "fundamentally different" effect if you're in pain. I think people like saying that about opiates and stimulants so as to excuse people that "need" it.
It is different. Say a patient has severe pain from metastatic breast cancer. I can give them a dose of morphine that would stop you from breathing permanently, and they will be fine. Are you saying she didn't really need it, she just likes the rush? I don't understand your point, maybe you can clarify. The rates of opioid addiction in people receiving it for pain are much lower than you would otherwise think from the way people buy oxycodone on the black market.
Personal freedom? What about the personal freedom of the kid who gets bashed by their drunk parent? Or the personal freedom of the cyclist that gets run over by a drink driver? Or the personal freedom of the emergency department nurse that gets her ear bitten off by someone with amphetamine induced violent psychosis?
Why does this remind me so much of the multi-level marketing companies that are so prevalent in Utah, making bold unproven claims about their tropical fruit juices?
Because it's very similar. A magic recipe of existing products marketed with some difficult-to-prove claim. It could be woo, it could be legit, but you'd lean heavily towards the former.
More probably because most of these things exist in the same wild west of loosely tested fda unapproved ingestibles. As such they're subject to a similar environment that attracts shady characters and enables weakly substantiated claims.
Yes. You outed me. That's exactly the point I'm making. I'm claiming Adderall has no noticeable effects. I'm also claiming caffeine does help people stay awake and that pot doesn't give people the munchies. While we're at it, morphine doesn't help with pain. I am taking the hard-line position that all well tested drugs have no efficacy.
Seriously, I don't think people doubt mind enhancing drugs exist. We're skeptical of manufacturers and people who believe they've "researched" nootropics because they've read a lot of stuff on the internet written up by marketing guys, PR men, and researchers willing to do shoddy research for money.
people who want to get ahead will do their best to cheat without getting caught, and will take unreasonable risks... doing whatever it takes to succeed. this is not new.
personally i prefer to dumb myself down with a bit of weed... :)
I used a fairly popular, legal nootropic and set off a manic episode. Not hypomania (I'm cyclothymic, so I'm used to that and it's usually benign) but scary, saw-code-when-I-closed-my-eyes mania. (It was bad code but at least it wasn't Java.) Also, mania isn't usually "happy"; it's 15% euphoria but 35% anger and 50% anxiety. Based on one episode (eh, maybe two or three; before your mid-20s it is hard to tell) I give the experience 0 stars.
Obviously this is not a common reaction, and probably very rare with most nootropics. I just want to point out that there are long-tail risks to this. Although many of these agents are probably safe for the majority of the population, creative and ambitious people are likely to be already a high-risk group.
If you're a mathematician or artist or novelist advancing the state of humanity, "enhance" away, and I'll wish you the best in recovery if you get unlucky. If you're a corporate climber and you blow your brain out trying to gain an edge in a zero-sum game, then I have zero sympathy.
Well that's why pretty much every psychoactive drug has a warning for people with mental "illness" like that. Stimulants apparently can contribute to psychosis. OTOH, I've known people that get prescribed amphetamines like mad because they're too tired out from all the anti-psychotics and mood-stabilizers. Seems a bit counterproductive.
Mania can be happy. Or at least a terrible funfuck of a ride while it lasts. At least for the person experiencing it. If they don't have to deal with all the consequences.
Inositol but it was a huge amount: more than 20mg/day, which is most definitely a pharmacological quantity. The amount you get from food or even a normal vitamin is not going to hurt you.
I was also self-medicating for Open Plan Syndrome (often a precursor to full-blown Panic Disorder, as it was for me, and not uncommon in tech) so the reason why I was using it (in such absurdly high doses) may be a contributor to the fucked-up-ness.
This then begs the question where these new substances stand. Are they barely more than caffeine and mostly harmless? Is maybe the placebo effect playing a role in making them appear more effective to the user than they truly are? But if they do have a significant effect, at what price does it come? The human body needs rest, that is a pretty well-established fact. It seems unlikely that these substances would be able to change this fundamental principle. What does seem likely, if they indeed are effective, is that you are buying more alertness for the moment, but paying for it in the long run.
Normally substances are researched and tested by professionals for years and sometimes decades before declared safe. But even that process is not always perfect and substances with harmful side effects have been known to slip through. Potentially turning yourself into a human vegetable a couple of decades down the road by experimenting with these barely understood substances seems like a dangerous proposition.