Another wave of nootropic supplements is hitting the market | Hacker News Reader

Another wave of nootropic supplements is hitting the market

vox.com

46 pointsdantondwa63 comments

Regular exercise has a hugely noticeable effect on my ability to concentrate and keep multiple mental plates spinning at once. However, it's not available in pill form last I checked.

You can do it anywhere, anytime, at any intensity. It's as easy as taking a walk around the block, or as challenging as 50 pull-ups. You control the difficulty, handicaps, and every aspect of the activity. Bonus attributes are it's addictive. Once you do it long enough, your brain will begin to encourage and reward this healthy behavior. Sometimes, it will even punish you for trying to skip exercise with negative emotions and nature's great motivator: shame.

The best TV infomercial for mental well-being would be a 72 point font that reads: "turn me off and get off your butt!".

EDIT: If you want some help or initial instruction, there is an app for most smartphones that can help you get started at any level. There are many variations of this type of app, but I like the "Johnson & Johnson 7-minute workout" one. You can customize it way beyond 7 minutes, and it has helpful video instruction and voice prompting. Link to homepage: https://www.7minuteworkout.jnj.com/

^ A lot of people want a simple solution to their (perceived) problem, which is exactly what this trend - and most diet trends - prey on. They want to be told what to do without it actually being an effort (like exercise or counting calories). They want to take a pill, follow a certain diet, or live off of a shake that claims to provide you with anything you need without having to bother about cooking or flavor.

100% agree. When I was at my best, I was lifting weights every morning before going to work & it’s super addicting.

Fast forward to today after a 7 month grueling project, and I’m exhausted every day so I’m being a scumbag and not going to the gym in the AM. I started running a few miles each night about 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been more clear headed than before.

Time to get back to lifting heavy things up and putting them back down again in the AM.

> Bonus attributes are it's addictive. Once you do it long enough, your brain will begin to encourage and reward this healthy behavior. Sometimes, it will even punish you for trying to skip exercise with negative emotions and nature's great motivator: shame.

Maybe I am non-normal here, but I've no idea what that feels like. Mind, I've run a marathon before, participated in a few organized athletic sports leauges, been on sports teams, improved my weight lifting substantially, and just gone for mile runs and bit of basketball.

I've never felt like I needed to go out and exercise. Sitting on the couch has always been just fine.

It has always been an internal battle to go out and exercise. I feel like crap after exercising. I'm tired, sweaty, grouchy, my legs are wobbly after any distance run, and it takes about 3 hours for me to wind down. I do sleep better, but I can't exercise after ~6pm if I want to get to sleep by ~10pm. My concentration is shot during the winding down and I can't work or study either. Truely, honestly, I do not like exercising. Like, I know it's good for me, but, man alive, it just sucks to do!

Look, I know I am weird here, but based off the data on rates of exercise, I'm not super certain that I'm too far off the average.

There's a tipping point with frequency. After doing hard exercise on an almost daily basis for months you start to feel like crap when you miss a couple days.

Possibly for you. But for me, nah, not really. No matter the regularity of the exercise, it does not really get better. Sure, weights I thought were heavy are easier to pick up, I can run further, etc. But I still feel like crap afterwards.

Thanks so much for posting this - I thought I was the only one.

I think what some of this discussion is missing is there are two continuous scales of wanting exercise. There is the axis the GP speaks of of wanting to exercise (for me, because of the endorphin rush) but also an orthogonal axis of laziness/busyness/inertia/etc that fights the first desire. I’ve found it common to both intensely want and simultaneously not want to exercise — and eventually one axis out-weighs the other.

It is similar to the HR principal (forgot the name) where employees can both intensely like the job but also dislike it — all because the continuoum is on a single axis one.

>for me, because of the endorphin rush

I think my lack of exercise-wanting is related to this! I don't get that rush feeling. Sorry to not have mentioned that. I just feel terrible the whole time. My SO mentioned this too. For my SO, there is this 'glow' feeling after a workout. I don't believe that I get any such benefit.

I'm really happy for your reply - I wanna ask you some questions, and compare to myself.

1) When did you start exercising(what age)?

2) What shape were you in when you started?

I'm speculating those could affect whether or not you get the endorphin high. Personally, I started when I was 18(I enlisted), and I was very out of shape when I began. By out of shape, I mean I started exercising before I enlisted, and was unable to maintain a run around a city block.

1- 4th grade or so

2- Typical 4th grader

Tried mountain biking? I enjoy getting out and combining the exercise with technical ability and social time. I can practice technique or watch my heart rate and cadence, or just enjoy the scenery. Travel to very nice places and ride way off the beaten track. It's interesting and not just a slog.

Maybe I can help address the feeling after exercise. Are you pushing too hard? I've read that the thumb rule is 80% of your exercise must be at conversational effort, meaning if you are running, for 80% of it, you should be able to hold a conversation.

The easiest way to think more clearly is the one it seems is least tried: a good night's sleep. The second easiest: periodic disengagement from phones, computers, and people.

Stimulants such as the ones discussed in the article interfere with that.

I'd add "workout frequently" as well.

Yes! Exercise and a diet consisting largely of fresh food. And then some junk food, because life is for the living and you have to find some time for enjoyment as well.

You are probably throwing in some humor here. But...

> And then some junk food, because life is for the living and you have to find some time for enjoyment as well.

Interesting how enjoyment is connected to junk food.

Junk food is engineered pleasure. It has everything that your ancestors craved (salt, sugar, fat) compressed into a calorically dense marvel of science.

Indeed. A lot of very "highbrow" stuff fits into this category too (high salt,sugar,fat), not just Big Macs.

Heheh—many chefs will readily admit that what makes their food taste so good is the excess butter and salt they use compared to what people would use at home. Also "season at every stage".

Definitely a bit of humour. But it can be anything. I just mean you should look after yourself, but also don't take everything all too seriously. "It's life and life only." And I think indulging that side of oneself lends to happiness. The key is not giving over to that side completely.

My "junk food" in this case is beer, whisky, pizza, chips, and bad comedy movies. I enjoy them all greatly. Food can be a visceral pleasure and I can derive as much or more from a crappy pizza as I can from a gourmet meal. So... my "junk food" really is a lot of junk food. Yours or others may not be. Also YMMV.

I don't know why you were downvoted, and I'm also not sure what the GP means. Does he mean junk food == enjoyment or does he mean junk food is fast, saving you time for enjoyment?

Going quasi-paleo, I learned how food is supposed to taste, and everything tasted better. Junk food also tasted better. Way better. Crazy better. Years later, I still remember 1/6 of a pretty basic Safeway chocolate donut tasted, and what I was doing at the time (physics club). It was the first junk I had had in months.

On the other hand, my life would have been perfectly enjoyable without it as well. A link between junk food and enjoyment... I'm not going to judge it, but I'll say life's better when that link doesn't exist. When my life was nothing but junk food, nothing really tasted good. It was all just bland; like I was feeding a habit more than having a treat. Junk food was an escape from life for me, because life sucked. In part, it was not under my control. But in maybe the greater part, it was, and junk food was one thing I used to avoid having to do anything about it and still feel 'ok'.

As far as time, if you're eating well, planning ahead is key. You don't need junk food to help you get things ready faster, because you've already cut up some fruits and veggies for snacks, or you've got a bit of last night's steak for part of your breakfast.

Instead of junk food I go for super unhealthy but high-end food, rarely. A huge steak, excellent bar food, extravagant cake and baked goods - that sort of thing. Nutritionally bad for you in a way similar to junk food, but minus the mysterious lab-made stuff, and you get to have an aesthetic experience while still stimulating your monkey-brain.

One of the best things a person can do to improve and maintain cognitive and physical function as they age is to workout. And it needs to be a real workout, not 45 lazy minutes on the elliptical while talking on the phone. A mix of HIIT and heavy weight lifting currently appears optimal.

EDIT

People really do hate exercise around here. The point of HIIT and weights is that when someone is younger they should be trying to build a base that can serve them as they age. When I think of life span and health span, having those reserves will make it easier to keep doing things as a person ages. If I could only pick a single thing to do to prepare myself for old age it would be lift weights. Specifically squats and dead lifts.

Definitely agree. And any of the following if you're physically able:

For my dad: I'll add in kayaking or canoeing (through a club, training with competitors), for my mom: rowing (same, again). For myself: mid-to-long distance running mixed with shorter sprints. It's also good for the knees if you look after your health, do it regularly, and wear proper shoes for the terrain and your body.

Don't listen to this guy. If you want to do 45 minutes on elliptical good for you. Some exercise > No exercise.

Sure, some is better than none. But, my comment specifically said the best way.

This may be a bit OT but CBD have worked wonders for me in terms of better sleep. It really calms you down and keeps your heart rate down which is exactly what I wanted. And I’ve tried everything from melatonin to vitamin D and magnesium.

For me, the concern with CBD is that it's unregulated (therefore you don't necessarily know what you're getting) and is a legal grey area in most places.

Growers / producers in states with medical or recreational are a good place to look, since they have a vested interest in not losing their license. Some companies publish lab results — because, like you said, the regulation hasn’t caught up yet and you don’t know what you’re getting.

Legally, unless a state has specific laws against it (TX maybe?), the 2018 farm bill made hemp and its derivatives legal. But then the FDA jumped in right away and said, CBD supplements aren’t legal without approval.

IANAL, but I think the FDA memo applies to producers; I.e., I don’t believe one could get in trouble for buying CBD oil, but someone could theoretically get in trouble for selling it, if they market it as a supplement.

My concern is that it seems to be touted as some kind of "wonder cure" for anything and everything. While I'm sure a lot of people have seen results in various areas it does set off my bullshit alarm.

Many states with legal marijuana include regulations that require lab analysis results on a label attached to the product. This includes things like marijuana-derived CBD products.

For me, the concern is the dosage. I have heard the 20 mg capsules are not nearly enough, and it could get costly if you go well above that.

It works wonders for me, but I can only afford it about every other week.

Just to add some anecdata - same here. I've had moderate-to-mild anxiety issues my whole adult life - with a big somatic component. I've realized that I'd rather just live with it than deal with the downsides of any of the drugs out there, until CBD. It calms your body and slows your thoughts perfectly, with zero impairment or any other easily visible downside. If only it were more affordable.

Just plain good nutrition helps too. I've been on Huel (comparable to HN's sweetheart, Soylent) and I find my focus, clarity and mental stamina is noticeably better. A glass of freshly juiced fruits & vegetables makes me feel amazing for hours too. You need to give your body diverse nutrients and a steady metabolism. Empty calories and a sugar crash at 10:30 can really kill your momentum for the day.

No offense, but that's kind of a load of shit. As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I can get by alright without Adderall, but there is no denying the profound intensity of focus I get when I take it. And a good night's sleep doesn't even come close.

There are plenty of good arguments against enhancement-style use of stimulants, but to suggest they don't do anything more than decent rest is just silly.

I would imagine that when articles like these are posted, that their target audience is the average healthy individual without any medical issues which directly conflict with the subject at hand. As someone with ADD, I realize that the advice and guidance from my medical providers should come first and foremost and that my experiences and treatment paths will not be typical compared to the average individual.

I have ADD myself, and while I agree that adderall is something of a wonder drug in this regard, adopting a regular sleep schedule has had absolutely immense benefits for me. Almost every activity where it’s possible to gauge performance has seen a benefit.

I think the parent’s point about it being the biggest relative increase in cognitive function is correct.

I don't think the parent comments's author was suggesting that stimulants are no more effective than sleep. Rather, I think he was suggesting that--if you aren't also struggling with ADHD or some other medical condition requiring stimulants--working on your sleep hygiene should be one of the first things you do before even considering stimulant use. Trying to patch over bad sleep with stimulants is long-term harmful.

Different people respond differently to different things. What he says (reliable sleep being remarkably effective for improving attention and focus) is very true, and was also recommended to me as a treatment for my ADHD because medication didn't work for me. Reliable rest worked better for me. So what you said is just silly.

I have ADHD as well, and sure, the stims absolutely help our focus. But we have ADHD. We have less dopamine and norepinephrine floating around our brains (in addition to other issues, like smaller-than-average size of the prefrontal cortex, by volume). These are the chemicals released by the medication. The goal with the meds, however, is to bring us up to baseline -- to a normal level of focus. To us, it feels like "Wow, look at all this FOCUS! I can actually CONCENTRATE!" But we feel like that because we have lots of experience knowing what it's like to be physically unable to do so, and merely operating at a normal level feels like magic to us.

I can't focus or perform adequately at all without my medicine. I didn't get diagnosed until 28, so I have a lifetime of evidence to back this claim up. And once I started taking meds, I went from a depressing career I hated to spending significant time and effort self-teaching programming and computer science in the evenings while working full time, and eventually changed careers. Something I absolutely never could have achieved without medically prescribed stimulants.

But it's really hard for me to take my experience as someone with a neurological disability/impairment, and try to apply it to other people without that impairment. For instance, even with my condition, there is a very delicate balance that has to be achieved with dosing. If I take even a little bit too high of a dose, I am hyperfocusing in a way I can't control, and on non-productive tasks. Spending three hours furiously rearranging books alphabetically is not productive. And since "normal" people don't have the same deficits that I do, I genuinely feel like have those people take any significant amount of stimulants would do something similar. I was around plenty of people who "used adderall to study" in college but clearly didn't actually have the condition. Let's just say "studying" tended to involve many things that weren't actually studying.

I agree.

Mainstream nootropic supplements have three primary ingredients: Marketing, placebo effect, and very mild stimulants.

The hyperbolic marketing material primes the user for maximum placebo effect. When the mildly stimulating compounds kick in, the user can actually feel something. All of the marketing material about enhancing brain function through combinations of carefully-researched ingredients feels validated. The user may only feel a mild stimulating effect, but it feels so much more significant after reading elegant marketing about supporting neurotransmission, helping healthy brain signaling, and promoting healthy cell membranes.

It's easy to see why this combination is so effective. Caffeine's stimulating effects are well-known, as are the rebound, tolerance, and dependence that come from repeated caffeine dosing. Remove caffeine from the equation and now the user's expectations are a blank slate, malleable according to whatever marketing materials the team can dream up.

The BrainGear supplemented listed in the article is a prime example; The raw ingredients in each drink cost pennies (search Amazon for bulk Acetyl L-Carnitine, Choline, Inositol, and the other ingredients if you're curious). Their largest costs are likely distribution, storage, and marketing. Many of the ingredients can be found in similar quantities in a regular, healthy diet that includes eggs, leafy greens, and a cup of green tea each day. There is nothing magic, noteworthy, or particularly valuable in this supplement, yet here we are reading a vox.com article where a journalist happily links to their product and fails a strawman attempt to debunk it by solving some Sudoku for a couple of days. This is a great marketing success story.

People want an edge, but everyone wants to take the shortest path. Nooptropics, supplements, etc are perceived path shorteners where perhaps no such one exists. It seems that the power of the mind (i.e. placebo) is the only real thing here. I would like to see how meditation/mindfulness apps and adoption measure against nootropics.

== UPDATE ==

I did not mean to imply that stimulants like caffeine, amphetamines, etc are placebo. I should have made a clear distinction between such classes of nootropics and those that do not contain such ingredients or those that are proven not to have effect. I agree, the coffee I had this morning was not a placebo for increasing my wakefulness.

To be fair ... even if it's the placebo effect, couldn't that be argued to be "good enough"?

Just like Dumbo's feather, if you feel better then you felt better ;)

It is; and with that perspective the nooptropics/supplements market shows how much value can be placed on that effect.

> Nooptropics, supplements, etc are perceived path shorteners where perhaps no such one exists.

At least one exists - caffeine. Double-blind studies have proven many times that it improves alertness, which leads to higher scores on many mental performance tests. I find it implausible that no others exist.

"Multiple studies have shown benefits of caffeine in improving endurance. Military studies have shown caffeine increase vigilance in sleep deprived and one study showed improved shot group tightness."

"Recommended dosing is 5mg/kg of bodyweight. Dosing of 200-300 mg has also been used. Higher dosing has been associated with side effects that would decrease performance. Serious adverse reactions have been seen at 2,000mg so this quantity of caffeine should be avoided."

The military does some cool studies on these. Source is below, but you can find the actual study with charts on how firearm proficiency rises and drops with dose.

https://www.benning.army.mil/tenant/75thranger/content/PDF/R...

> one study showed improved shot group tightness

I refrained from mentioning caffeine's other reported and studied benefits, as my understanding is they mostly disappear when alertness is compensated for. Shot group tightness, memory performance, response time, critical thinking and many other performance criteria have studies indicating that caffeine improves results, but it's hard to separate the performance enhancement of just being more alert. Maybe people shoot more accurately or memorize cards better with caffeine, or maybe they just weren't quite paying attention when not using caffeine.

They exist, WW2 was proof of it. It gave us both Meth(axis) and Cocaine(allies) among other things. It's just that it comes at a very high cost of the users long term health and/or sanity.

Out of the all of the cognitive enhancers that we know of, across all combinations and dosages, it's all placebo?

I can imagine that we could use bio compatible chips to accurately measure blood levels of different vitamins and proteins. With this personal bio data you could identify if you have an imbalance of anything and address it, improving congnition and other conditions. Maybe this would be something a company like Apple or Fitbit develops as it seems like a natural extension of the health tracking they already do.

The first thing we'd need to do is evaluate the optimal value of various vitamins, proteins, minerals, and other supplements for all humans- we're definitely not there yet. Our current blood tests allow a relatively large range of 'normal' for pretty much anything the blood uptakes.

So you use the new data gathering system to identify what variations matter.

If you go to the doctor, they can do your bloodwork on an old-fashioned big machine. It will probably tell you that everything's fine, unless you're sick or living on Cheetos. If a bio-compatible chip could do the same thing, you'd probably just end up with the same admonitions to not live off of a diet of pure french fries. If new biomarkers were discovered, they would become available on the big machine before they became available on the chips. So, the present is big machines, the future is big machines, maybe the far future is implanted monitoring devices.

>imbalance of anything and address it

I doubt everyone needs the exact same balance of chemicals/nutrients. That puts us back into the "level of pain" area of subjectivity. "Does this new vitamin balance make you feel better?"

We'd not want them to feel too good, mind you. That would be drugs!

i am not sure measuring blood levels constantly and interpreting them without real knowledge is a good thing for your mind. I think it's good we don't know about this all the time, if you do regular check up and get an OK back, that fine. Doing it constantly would just create anxieties for a lot of people.

My supreme techniques are

* Provigil

* 2000IU daily Vitamin D during the darker half of the year

* Weightlifting, it really improves mental focus

* Get to sleep early enough to wake before the alarm goes off

* Strong coffee

Scott Alexander at SlateStarCodex wrote a good piece on why these branded combination nootropic supplements are risky and probably a bad idea: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/10/brief-cautionary-notes...

This isn't a new wave. Just the same wave by the same people.

Please tell me more about where you buy these drugs.

I remember the first time I used a specific industrial gas recreationally. I felt the arteries in my brain open up, and there was a sort of clarity that wasn't there before.

Then the benefits faded into the background, and I now don't notice the effect like I did the first few times.

I think remedial biology hacking works this way. If you're deficient in a specific area you'll notice a huge benefit right away. If you don't need a specific hack, you won't notice a benefit.

Another brain-hack that I noticed the first few times was Methylene Blue [0], a potent MAOI and general metabolism-booster. I started out with microgram-level doses, and I definitely noticed ... something.

But then it too faded into the background, and I don't notice the benefits so much anymore. I still use this one occasionally but this too doesn't have exactly the magic I'm looking for. (I use it on my dog though - she developed a tumor when my dad took care of her for a few months - he took her off all the supplements and fed her what I consider junk. He left for the summer and my dog is back on my supplement program; I think she's got her spunk back. [Edit: google scholar has some articles about methylene blue having anti-tumor activity]).

[0] Methylene blue, the cheapest cognitive enhancer: https://selfhacked.com/blog/methylene-blue-the-cheapest-cogn...

At the other end of the mind-hacking spectrum, the mainstream mental health industry takes cognitive decelerants and tells certain patients that they have a chronic condition that requires chemical lobotomization. Today these drugs are marketed by the prescription drug cartels as anti-psychotics, but originally they were known as major tranquilizers. Patients can't protest the side effects of their medications because the psychiatrist will use the complaint to claim that their patient "lacks insight" into their condition, which justifies the use of force to make them take the drugs the professional thinks they require. Psychosis is mostly a treatable metabolic problem, but patients are much more profitable to the industry by pretending they have chronic conditions.

Because the best cognitive enhancers are natural substances and safe patent-expired medications, profiteers swoop in to repackage these vitamins and other Over the Counter substances. Everyone has to figure out what they actually need on their own.

The best mind-hack I've had is certain kinds of body work, which helped me relax like nothing else. Sometimes massage/etc practitioners have the magic touch that gets my body to turn off, but they tend to not know what they did and I don't consistently get the effect. It's very frustrating.

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