piracetam side effects, bad short term memory

[proprium h]

Hi,
is it possible to get side effects from piracetam like a bad short term memory.... My memory got pretty bad over time. I was reading that acetylcholine deficiency can cause a bad short term memory. I take piracetam (2x1200mg /day)since 3,5 months with lecithin (10 - 15 g/day). Thats pretty shit...

[jotaro]

u need alot of choline to support the piractem , i dont take piractem

however i take something else similar and choline solved all the problems with it.

On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 5:21 AM, proprium h <propri...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,
is it possible to get side effects from piracetam like a bad short term memory.... My memory got pretty bad over time. I was reading that acetylcholine deficiency can cause a bad short term memory. I take piracetam (2x1200mg /day)since 3,5 months with lecithin (10 - 15 g/day). Thats pretty shit...

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[Jonathan Toomim]

I think "acetylcholine deficiency" is probably nonsense. Talking about
the brain in terms of deficiencies or excesses of particular
neurotransmitters is like talking about a photograph in terms of how
much red, green and blue it has. Sure, sometimes the color balance can
be off, but usually what makes a photo work isn't the amount of color,
but the patterns in which they're displayed. "Acetylcholine deficiency"
as a syndrome seems to be mostly the invention of some layman on
longecity.com with mediocre neuroscience knowledge. The enzymes that
create and break down acetylcholine are quite fast and are unlikely to
be deficient. As a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine is recycled with high
efficiency and speed. Choline (without the acetyl) is used in several
other roles, including the construction of cell membranes, and those
roles are more likely to suffer from dietary choline deficiency than the
neurotransmitter role.

If you found that your memory got worse while taking piracetam and
lecithin, then I suggest you stop taking one or both of them. (I think
lecithin probably doesn't do anything.) The research on piracetam
suggests that, on average, it helps verbal working memory and verbal
long term memory. However, if a drug improves performance for 25% of
people by +2 units and worsens performance for 25% of people by -1
units, it still helps on average.

Jonathan

[☉]

In prior posts, I've mentioned using Huperzine A, which is supposed to
increase acetylcholine levels by reducing activity of the enzyme
responsible for breaking it down (thus, which might be used in
relation to piracetam synergistically); I further mentioned its
alarming negative side-effects, including heart palpitations (a
secondary effect of what are apparently the primary negative side
effects I witnessed), inducing me not to take it any more. Well, it
turns out that such a drug is a choline ester - which is disastrous
for someone who has pseudocholinesterase deficiency. I recently found
out I have this deficiency through 23andme, further explaining my bad
experience with Huperzine A. (PD is apparently quite common in the
Jewish population... no, I do not know if I'm Jewish, but my paternal
haplotype suggests some affiliation.)

This is a far cry from supposed negative effects of piracetam. The
only one of which I know is adrenal fatigue (this also comes from
suggestive posts in longecity), but that may also be counteracted
through some remedies. Whether or not choline helps that specifically
(my personal experience would suggest not) remains to be seen. That
said, whether one takes piracetam or not, Alpha-GPC or Citicoline are
fairly useful for their part.

Anyway, getting a genetic analysis done, like that provided by 23andme
(now $99 again!), is very helpful information.

If only they included epi-allelic data, like allele-specific
methylation.... I'll give that a few years.

argumzio

[☉]

Before my previous post suggests anything amiss, I'd like to clarify:

Huperzine A acts by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase, which in turn
increases levels of acetylcholine.
Anyone with P.D. (such as myself) should avoid those drugs which
increase acetylcholine.

That means I will have to scratch Galantamine off of my list as well.
I wish I could kick caffeine, but the addictive aspects make that
rather difficult; however, it does not appear to be particularly
unpleasant in moderate doses.

The short of it: it is prohibitively difficult to know what effect
purportedly "good" (nootropic) drugs will have when you do not have a
very precise and meaningful understanding of your genetics and
personal biochemistry. As such, a lot of nootropics in that category
are not very good for me at all; but that's just me.

As for piracetam specifically, it is unclear if a decreased short-term
memory is a genuine result of its use. Keep in mind that it is
possible to be a non-responder to the purported benefits of piracetam
- although it is still possible one could be responsive to other
racetams, which act in slightly different ways from piracetam proper.

argumzio

[Aman Abdullahi Idle]

I've had all the racetams in my stach. Never really felt any difference with any of them. I guess i just happen to be one of unlucky non-responders.

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