Snake oil?

[Byrthnoth]

Spoiler: show

lotta misinformation in this thread. if you give a shit, read this. if you'd rather listen to generalizations made by people with very little experience, fuck you.

i will start this by saying that if you think that nootropics as a whole are a marketing ploy, take the fuck a look around at EVERYTHING. it is not the drug, it is the phenomenon of NOOB MARKETERS MARKETING TO NOOBS THAT THINK UNFATHOMABLE GAINS ARE REAL. if you completely steer away from the desire for evidence and generalize an entire field of study that people WAY FUCKING SMARTER THAN YOU have spent 20+ years studying, fuck off. stop clogging the thread with your random generalized bullshit and lack of any meaningful information.


1. You have a barrier in your brain that is a double edged sword. This barrier is supposed to be protecting your brain from the boogie man, but sometimes its just an asshole and stops you from getting important shit. similarly, sometimes it lets shit in because its stupid. its nature man, cant expect it to be perfect.

2. You have a chemical network in your brain that is more complex than any shit video game you've ever played, or all of them combined for that matter. Your entire perception of reality is controlled by drugs (more or less). clinical depression, anxiety, attention disorders, hyperactivity...etc. Most of this shit is controlled by chemicals in the noggin.

3. You can alter the chemical balance of your brain, but ONLY if the substance can cross the barrier mentioned in 1. A nootropic is, in a nutshell, a supplement that can cross the barrier.


So, the fuck does this mean?

Basically, YOU AND YOU SPECIFICALLY - NOT THE ENTIRE FUCKING DEMOGRAPHIC OF "HUMAN" may benefit from supplementing certain chemicals that are active in your brain. A great example of this is the gaba (a&b) receptors in the brain. GABA is one of the biggest parts of the chemical balance of the brain. there's a shitload that we don't know about gaba, but in essence, it stops neurons in the brain from being active or as active as they typically are. this is why gaba is typically sold as a relaxant, but there are cases where it may result in being a net stimulant, DEPENDING ON THE FUCKING PERSON INDIVIDUALLY GODDAMMIT.


there's a SHITLOAD of chemicals in the brain dude. you don't really wanna go down that path unless you're going to be using it practically - you'll probably need at least a bachelors in chemistry before even starting to apply it to the brain, and even then, it's fuck hell bullshit complex.



the misconception is that you can take these and they will magically change you as a person immediately. no. wrong. fuck wrong. fuck goddammit wrong. no. if you find a good mix of positive supplements, your overall performance for the day is going to go up. the aggregate of small, functional improvements is a generally smarter individual.


i bet weed is a placebo/snake oil too. weed functions by crossing the blood-brain barrier and getting into cb1 and cb2 receptors. nootropics are chemicals that pass the barrier and become available for the brain to use, via receptors, for chemical processes. oh shit weed is a nootropic, NO WAIT ITS SNAKE OIL LOL PLACEBOOOOOOOO shut the fuck up, smoke a blunt and tell me its placebo



this is a fairly new field. it's not like we can just look at everything happening in the brain at once and break down every chemical process and then cross examine it relative to 500 other brains and be like "YO NIGGA YOU NEED THEANINE." it's not that fucking simple.


tl;dr idiots sensationalists in this thread that dont know what the FUCK they are talking about

I'm going out on a limb and guessing you're both unqualified and baked out of your mind.

Yes, the brain is a complex organ that we don't understand.
No, there's no compelling reason to believe that arbitrarily changing neurotransmitter/modulator levels is going to have a positive impact on cognition.

Imagine that the brain is like an engine that manufactures thoughts and the neurotransmitters are gas/oil/etc. Does the engine run best when you put a little gas in the carburetor, flood the carburetor with gas, or use just the right amount? Does filling your car with motor oil up past the "Fill" line for your current season help you any? How do you know what the "best" levels of these compounds are when no one else does?

Now, what if instead of adding oil to the oil tank and gas to the carburetor you just had cans of oil and gas and your only way to apply them was just popping the hood and dumping them on the engine (HINT: I AM TALKING ABOUT SYSTEMICALLY ADJUSTING NEUROTRANSMITTERS). Do you think your car would run better? Maybe if you were incredibly low on oil, dumping oil onto your engine would help somehow, but generally you're just going to fuck things up and potentially slow them down (hi2u, weed). If you're lucky, dumping flammable things onto your engine won't start a fire and kill you.

[vadre]

This thread has helped me to conclude that taking omega 3 capsules will ultimately cause my brain to ignite, if I am interpreting the metaphors correctly (which I obviously AM).

Also, I think Zalius has already taken all the supplements.

[Ace-o-fire]

yeah, just go ask doctor.

For some people to increase mental functions it's as simple as a diet change.

[Kalmado]

My doctor suggested taking them to help me with focus and anger/anxiety. My mother has been taking them for over a year and has said she just feels better overall. Sure it's possibly placebo, but sometimes that's not a bad thing.

[Byrthnoth]

Omega-3s are probably helpful: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18632990

They have been pretty strongly indicated as an anticarcinogen.

[Gadritan]

For some people to increase mental functions it's as simple as a diet change.

For the most part, people truly are clueless as to how incredibly important what you eat is...for everything. I started really paying attention to what I put in my body the past year, and it's indescribable how different I feel now.

I'd say to start here http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/840...ics-a-question.. first. Get your diet right first, then think about supplements.

[Zalius]

I'm going out on a limb and guessing you're both unqualified and baked out of your mind.

Yes, the brain is a complex organ that we don't understand.
No, there's no compelling reason to believe that arbitrarily changing neurotransmitter/modulator levels is going to have a positive impact on cognition.

Imagine that the brain is like an engine that manufactures thoughts and the neurotransmitters are gas/oil/etc. Does the engine run best when you put a little gas in the carburetor, flood the carburetor with gas, or use just the right amount? Does filling your car with motor oil up past the "Fill" line for your current season help you any? How do you know what the "best" levels of these compounds are when no one else does?

Now, what if instead of adding oil to the oil tank and gas to the carburetor you just had cans of oil and gas and your only way to apply them was just popping the hood and dumping them on the engine (HINT: I AM TALKING ABOUT SYSTEMICALLY ADJUSTING NEUROTRANSMITTERS). Do you think your car would run better? Maybe if you were incredibly low on oil, dumping oil onto your engine would help somehow, but generally you're just going to fuck things up and potentially slow them down (hi2u, weed). If you're lucky, dumping flammable things onto your engine won't start a fire and kill you.

i've been sober for quite some time and do not regularly use supplements without researching them, or regularly at all for that matter. saying that you know the outcome of every chemical that crosses the bbb is bad and cannot possibly have a positive impact is fucking retarded. i thank you for your assumptions and shitty metaphor, though, because an engine and a brain totally function the same way, and a brain definitely isn't more like a computer than an engine.


look up sukriti nag. don't have time to rewrite hundreds of pages of work from someone far smarter than me.

the field is new. there are people with thousands of hours of experience in this subject that do not have the confidence to state what you are stating, and i would much rather trust them than some d-bag with a panda avatar that immediately assumes someone is high because they like weed. there's no way this is just my personality or anything like that.

[Salodin]

My favorite part of this thread is when some one called some one out as unqualified to discuss the topic, but didn't take enough omega 3s to help realize they're just as unqualified to make that remark.

[Dotsudoku]

...the field is new. there are people with thousands of hours of experience in this subject that do not have the confidence to state what you are stating...

There are people with loads of experience who say that they've cured cancer. There are people with loads of experience who said that autism was caused by vaccination.

Loads of experience doesn't mean anything unless the load that they're coming up with can be agreed upon by the scientific community.

[Dotsudoku]

Nootropics also cause double posts. I have experience with this.

[Not Kuno]

Nootropics also cause double posts. I have experience with this.

But not loads of experience, thus invalidating your claim.

[Zalius]

no, i am not an expert. the rest of this thread is baseless misinformation and rejection of a field that people have devoted their lives to understanding the basic functions of the human brain for the purposes of assisting people with real neurological disorders.

it's ok, done posting with this shit. not going to try to renegade educate a bunch of idiots.

http://www.strubi.ox.ac.uk/strubi/research/aricescu/
publications here:
http://www.strubi.ox.ac.uk/strubi/re...blications.jsp

this is what it looks like when someone is studying the interactions of chemicals in the brain. they are not quickly discrediting the chemical interactions in the human brain as snake oil because they understand the chemical complexity of it. they do not jump to conclusions about a general field, they study it.


anyone interested for a reading list of similar oxford & other educational institute studies+15-25 books on the subject of neuroscience+200+ articles explaining basic breakdowns of common supplements that have been shown to cross the BBB and stimulate a response can PM me. criticize other peoples' lack of experience in lieu of providing your own, that's fucking genius.

@OP i'll send you some of the more important articles after i go through my bookmarks tonight, but the best source for these is in books that range from $25-400. the really good ones are 800+ but i've never read those cuz i'm not a med student, just have a passive passion for the brain.

you're obviously not going to get very much real information on these forums...steer away. the response here is fucking pathetic.


i'm tired of this shit. i try to make detailed, simplified and understandable posts and the thread degenerates into a cesspool of fucking idiots telling me that i'm wrong because experience isn't enough of a qualifier to understand that the subject is entering the unknown parts of human cognition. i'll say it again, it's a new field. if you want to discredit a very real body of work because sensationalized marketing works on people, i don't give a shit, you're an idiot.


@dotsudoku it's being studied now, today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc. it's being actively reviewed by people that had the criteria to explore the field BEFORE the technology was available to look more critically at the functions of a brain. it isn't just a technical understanding of chemistry, but an understanding of specific chemicals and electrochemical signals that are prevalent in the brain. then these effects have to be applied to behavioral patterns and psychological responses under the assumption that human behavior is governed by the processes of the brain. shut the fuck up. like i don't understand peer review or some shit.

[Zalius]

no, i am not an expert. the rest of this thread is baseless misinformation and rejection of a field that people have devoted their lives to understanding the basic functions of the human brain for the purposes of assisting people with real neurological disorders.

it's ok, done posting with this shit. not going to try to renegade educate a bunch of idiots.

http://www.strubi.ox.ac.uk/strubi/research/aricescu/
publications here:
http://www.strubi.ox.ac.uk/strubi/re...blications.jsp

this is what it looks like when someone is studying the interactions of chemicals in the brain. they are not quickly discrediting the chemical interactions in the human brain as snake oil because they understand the chemical complexity of it. they do not jump to conclusions about a general field, they study it.


anyone interested for a reading list of similar oxford & other educational institute studies+15-25 books on the subject of neuroscience+200+ articles explaining basic breakdowns of common supplements that have been shown to cross the BBB and stimulate a response can PM me. criticize other peoples' lack of experience in lieu of providing your own, that's fucking genius.

@OP i'll send you some of the more important articles after i go through my bookmarks tonight, but the best source for these is in books that range from $25-400. the really good ones are 800+ but i've never read those cuz i'm not a med student, just have a passive passion for the brain.

you're obviously not going to get very much real information on these forums...steer away. the response here is fucking pathetic.


i'm tired of this shit. i try to make detailed, simplified and understandable posts and the thread degenerates into a cesspool of fucking idiots telling me that i'm wrong because experience isn't enough of a qualifier to understand that the subject is entering the unknown parts of human cognition. i'll say it again, it's a new field. if you want to discredit a very real body of work because sensationalized marketing works on people, i don't give a shit, you're an idiot.


@dotsudoku it's being studied now, today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc. it's being actively reviewed by people that had the criteria to explore the field BEFORE the technology was available to look more critically at the functions of a brain. it isn't just a technical understanding of chemistry, but an understanding of specific chemicals and electrochemical signals that are prevalent in the brain. then these effects have to be applied to behavioral patterns and psychological responses under the assumption that human behavior is governed by the processes of the brain. shut the fuck up. like i don't understand peer review or some shit.

[Byrthnoth]

Okay, so you provided two links to a guy who studies memory formation. Where on that page (or any of the studies he has done) does it say that eating something that increases Glutamate and GABA is going to improve your ability to form memories?

GABA (the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain) and Glutamate (the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain) are everywhere in your brain and typically act on very short time scales (relative to the 24-hour medicines you take). Disturbing them is more likely to fuck you up than make you smarter. For instance, how well is your memory enhanced by the GABA synergist known as ethanol? How about mixing it with Mother's Little Helper? Do you really want to boost levels of Glutamate?

You're dumping oil on the engine again. Don't take third-hand-science articles on Yahoo News, Google, or wherever else at face value. This is legitimately how it works. No one gives a shit about the small collections of minor advances that make up science, so reporters have to overhype things or not report anything. I'm not sure I've ever seen a scientific discovery, regardless of how interesting, go unexaggerated in the popular press.