Last call for anecdotes: positive, neutral, and negative

[Gwern Branwen]

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 2:38 PM, whoisbambam <a2...@horseracingfirm.com> wrote:
> Anecdotal testimony is important to me, esp. with 'leading edge'
> technology, wherein it remains relatively un-tested--otherwise we have
> to wait 5-10yrs to 'hear' about it in the mainstream.

This reminds me. http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ#other-effects in
the FAQ is a collection of anecdotes I have been compiling for the
last 2 years or so. But I've been slipping and letting anecdotes
through. This caused me to think: is there any benefit from an even
larger anecdote collection? There's already like 70 anecdotes there or
throughout the FAQ, and they're starting to take up a significant
chunk of the collection. I can't see any benefit. Worse, if I'm not
diligent about it, the section will be biased in favor of random
positive results since those are the ones I would notice most. (On
that, see http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ#reading-this-faq )

So. This is last call. If you aren't in the list already and would
like to be, add a short summary to this thread. Good anecdotes are
short (3-5 sentences), include hard data and reference to objective
measurements, and are well written (and spelled...).

I particularly encourage people who have *not* seen any benefits or
feel they have been harmed. You guys are least likely to stick around
and volunteer personal reports, so I'll point out that the absence of
effect is something worth reporting; please do!

--
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

[ao]

I've seen no net benefit. Compared to improved nutrition, exercise,
sleeping, and the occasional nootropic (e.g., Piracetam, Alpha GPC,
CDP Citicoline, Resveratrol, Kre-Alkalyn & Creatine Monohydrate,
etc.), DNB did nothing. However, in terms of subjectively improved
focus (counting the near-certain possibility that the aforementioned
changes also influenced it), QNB* did the most for me, that is,
allowing me to absorb information for longer periods of time and
maintain this effort much later into the evening while mitigating the
deleterious effects of fatigue and allowing me to feel rested after
unusually shorter periods of sleep.

*QNB training lasted 8/27/2009 to 9/19/2009 with 93 logged sessions
for 10 separate days with each day's training lasting for 1.5 - 2 hrs
starting with a max of 4 to a max of 6. Note: I doubt I would have
started with a max of 4 if I hadn't successfully completed (and
subsequently got bored with) D8B @ 100% on my 122nd session of DNB on
cognitivefun.

argumzio


On Jun 28, 2:01 pm, Gwern Branwen <gwe...@gmail.com> wrote:

[whoisbambam]

piracetam, cdp citicholine, alpha gpc, and creatine didnt seem to do
anything for me cognitively.

creatine does seem to make me less tired after exercise,
interestingly.


resveratrol as a nootropic?

i thought i read it was a good anti-oxidant if you could get it in
high enough doses--which isnt likely.


furthermore, it was also my understanding that they werent for certain
whether it WAS reseveratrol that showed the benefits, but some other
possible synergistic effect.


i wish i did know of a supplement that helps cognition.


so far, it seems magnesium l-threonate may be the closest thing--i am
about to embark on a serious test regarding this stuff.

[ao]

whoisbambam, individual metabolisms vary. I can't argue with your
biology. They have worked, and continue to work, for me.

In the case of resveratrol, when I would run for four miles at a
stretch, I wouldn't be able to keep my head on straight unless I had
some resveratrol beforehand. Perhaps in that case that would be to use
the word "nootropic" a little more loosely. Take it or leave it.

MgT seems far too impractical for me right now, so I won't bother.

argumzio

[whoisbambam]

argumzio,

interesting. Can you provide me the specific brand and dosing of
reseveratrol you took with this effect, please?

thanks.

Yes, I still have piracetam, cdp-choline, and alpha gpc sitting right
here.

:(

It is possible i didnt take it correctly.

[workingonit]

"piracetam, cdp citicholine, alpha gpc, and creatine" did nothing for
me either.

[ao]

Swanson Health Resveratrol @ 100mg per pill: http://www.swansonvitamins.com/SWU248/ItemDetail

argumzio

[whoisbambam]

interesting. i have heard some complain of the 'quality' of swanson,
yet here is a product that seems to affect you--and i find you
extremely objective.

yeah, mgT at 7gm a day and 550.00+/year per person may seem
impractical (nearly $55/month)

of course, you are already pretty damned smart so it most definitely
wouldnt be cost effective in your case (i imagine).

[MR]

Regardless of whether the author is usually "objective", an
endorsement such as "they have worked, and continue to work, for me"
is about as subjective as one can get, and one's historical record of
being objective should not lend any weight to it. I'm not saying it's
untrue or of no value as a statement, but I don't think it means more
because it comes from a specific person, unless of course you doubt
the honesty of other people.

M

[whoisbambam]

MR,

i dont doubt the 'honesty' of other people.

i do believe that argumzio is very logical and less influenced by
emotion and a false sense of 'hope' than the 'average' poster on this
forum, not necessarily the big 15 that have been the most active here
according to the posted stats.

honesty has nothing to do with it.

placebo effect does.

i still like all the others who have helped me and think they are
honest.


This should clear this up now.

Remember, i am allowed to have my own opinion, as are you. Now that
you have expressed yours, we are again on equal footing.


I understand that it is still subjective and anecdotal.

[ao]

Placebo is not a bad thing, either. :)

argumzio, why I take six placebos before breakfast

[MR]

Bambam, I didn't mean to imply that you doubted the honesty of the
people on this board. My apologies for making it sound like you did,
that wasn't my intent.
I also didn't mean to make you feel like you weren't entitled to an
opinion, you clearly are. I was just pointing out what I thought was
an error in your reasoning.

The person in question hangs out on a N-back board and takes a number
of nootropics that have little to no objective evidence of positive
impact in healthy adults. I guarantee you that he's not completely
disinvested from the effects of the various supplements he's tried,
and like anyone else, he's completely susceptible to the placebo
effect. In fact, your lack of results with the supplements may
indicate that you're less susceptible to the placebo effect than he
is. Keep in mind that this says nothing about one's intelligence or
ability for rational thought.

Not that there's anything wrong with placebos, just remember that one
person's placebo may be another person's very expensive sugar pill.

M

[ao]

Funny. I could cite many studies on the objective benefits of
piracetam. Why do you suppose I would have tried taking it before?

It's even insulting that you'd suggest I'm "susceptible to the placebo
effect" (no one is less susceptible thereto than anyone else, by the
way) when you don't even know me. Flawed reasoning...

argumzio

[ao]

By the way, to underscore the point, here's a list on a forum of
various abstracts on piracetam's effects in various areas:
http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13934

I'd suggest others do their research before making bald claims about
others' anecdotal (which isn't necessarily false) testimony on the
supplements they've taken. Of course, this discourse fundamentally
derails the OP and the thread, but this isn't the first time someone
has wanted to make a point for the sake thereof.

argumzio

[ao]

http://www.longecity.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=169&t=11050

And another...

argumzio

[whoisbambam]

argumzio,

1. What dose of piracetam and cdp choline do you take? I am going to
put this in a text file.

Milestones does this:
800mg piracetam with 250mg cdp choline
1600mg piracetam with 500mg cdp choline


I think he said he sources his from nubrain.


2. Where do you get your piracetam and cdp choline and do you know a
way to minimize the costs?


3. What cognitive benefits did you observe and how long did it seem to
take?


4. What do you feel about the potential negative effects of choline?:
http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/80d34e79eaad6120/


5. Do you think alpha gpc or dmae are safer alternatives, and if so,
any recommended doses?



I am thinking piracetam may work by faciliating long-term memory
(possibly book information (semantic) rather than autobiographical/
episodic) and perhaps that is why i did not 'perceive' anything.

[whoisbambam]

MR,

very well.

I understand that most of us can be influenced by placebo and my logic
may have been flawed.

perhaps there was some other reason i came to that possibility, i
dunno.


he just seems less biased i guess.

i agree that i could be entirely wrong.

why we come to the decisions we make isnt always straightforward

On Jun 29, 6:20 pm, MR <rouss...@gmail.com> wrote:

[whoisbambam]

to follow is something from tht longecity post, but i didnt see any
choline listed in the study, and the piracetam does seem pretty high
(4.8grams?) as compared to the 800mg and 1600mg suggestions:

Nootropics - and the healthy

Piracetam-nootropics have also shown the ability to improve learning
and memory in healthy individuals not suffering from disease or severe
age-related degeneration. In 1976 Dimond and Brouwers reported the
results of some of a series of seven double blind trials, involving 16
second and third year college students "in excellent health and good
physical and mental condition."

Subjects received either 4.8 grams a day Piracetam or placebo for 14
days. In three different measures of verbal learning and memory, the
results showed a highly significant difference in favor of the
Piracetam students over the controls, with confidence levels of P=.01,
P=.02 and P=.01. The authors stated "the fact is that Piracetam
improves verbal learning and in this it would appear to be a substance
which is.. capable of extending the intellectual functions of man..
our subjects were not senile, suffering from generalized brain
disorder, confusional states, or any other pathology of the brain...
It is therefore possible to extend the power which [individuals gifted
with high intelligence and good memory] possess to still higher levels
despite the fact that the range of their achievement is a high."

Giurgea and Salama report the confirmation of Dimond/ Brouwer's work
by Wedl and Suchenwirth in 1977. Wedl found significant improvement in
mental performance in a group of 17 healthy young volunteers given 3.2
grams per day Piracetam for five days.

Mindus and colleagues (1976) reported the results of a double blind
crossover trial with 18 healthy middle aged people (median age 56),
with no evidence of somatic or mental disease, based on medical
records and administration of several intelligence tests (group mean
IQ; 120 plus or minus 11).

Most of the subjects were in intellectually demanding jobs, but had
reported a slight reduction for some years in their capacity to retain
or recall information.

After four weeks of 4.8 grams per day Piracetam, Piracetam subjects
were switched to placebo for four weeks, while the original placebo
group then received Piracetam for four weeks.

Results of a series of paper and pencil tests, as well as computerized
tests to measure perceptual motor reactions, showed a clear benefit of
Piracetam over placebo.

The three different paper and pencil tests showed superior effects on
performance compared to placebo, with confidence levels of P<.001, P<.
001 and P<.05. In four of the six computerized tests Piracetam showed
a significant effect over placebo, with confidence levels of P<.05 for
three and P<.029 for the fourth.

A fifth test showed a clear trend in favor of Piracetam, with P<.10.
Wilsher and co-workers (1979) related their results with 4.8 grams per
day Piracetam in a double blind, crossover trial to study the benefits
of Piracetam for dyslexic students.

Interestingly, the 14 healthy student controls, matched for IQ with
the dyslexic subjects, demonstrated a significantly better result on a
test measuring ability to memorize nonsense syllables while using
Piracetam as compared to placebo.

Their improvement from baseline was a 19.5% decrease in the number of
trials needed to learn the nonsense syllables while using Piracetam,
versus a 10.9% decrease from baseline while using placebo. P<.05.
Piracetam-nootropics may increase learning and memory in healthy
individuals, where they are not merely attenuating or reversing
pathology, through their distinctive power to promote what has been
termed "hemispheric super-connection."

[ao]

Certainly. It is important to be attentive to different doses which
may yield different effects.

1. Piracetam = 2.4g at any given time of the day
CDP Citicoline 1 x 250mg in the morning (and sometimes one more)
Alpha GPC 1 x 300mg in the morning (and sometimes one more)

2. I first purchased Nootropil (Piracetam) here:
http://www.antiaging-systems.com/146-piracetam-nootropil . Now I
generally search online to buy it in bulk and use my own capping
system with vegecaps, like Cap-n-Quik: http://www.cap-m-quick.com/ .
This procedure is less costly than buying capsules or pills.

3. Using the aforementioned dose, I felt effects within the 5-10
minutes; a surreal sense of focus, increased awareness, and an
increased ability to concentrate on written language numbered among
the obvious improvements. Secondarily, I noticed improved mood,
general well-being, increased physical vigor and less mental fatigue
(in conjunction with a choline source like those above). Downsides
were obviously headaches, inability to think clearly, poor mood, and
just feeling crappy, which is why one must be careful when using them.

4. The issue with choline is that it is not able to cross the Blood-
Brain-Barrier, so DMAE as a source thereof simply won't work. In my
view, I have not experienced any perceptible adverse effects from
Alpha-GPC or Citicoline _when taken in moderation_.

5. Read 4.

I felt immediate effects, and still do to some extent. I also
experimented with Aniracetam, but noticed too many negative effects to
find it worth my while (though it did have some positives).

All I can say is you should experiment and see what works for you. You
aren't me and I'm not you; my biochemistry isn't your biochemistry. It
is possible that you're a non-responder, and some apparently exist.

argumzio

On Jun 29, 7:24 pm, whoisbambam <a...@horseracingfirm.com> wrote:
> argumzio,
>
> 1. What dose of piracetam and cdp choline do you take? I am going to
> put this in a text file.
>
> Milestones does this:
> 800mg piracetam with 250mg cdp choline
> 1600mg piracetam with 500mg cdp choline
>
> I think he said he sources his from nubrain.
>
> 2. Where do you get your piracetam and cdp choline and do you know a
> way to minimize the costs?
>
> 3. What cognitive benefits did you observe and how long did it seem to
> take?
>

> 4. What do you feel about the potential negative effects of choline?:http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/80...

[whoisbambam]

argumzio,

thanks, i put it in a text file.

the only place i could find bulk piracetam is cerebralhealth.

it seems everybody else stopped selling it in bulk once the FDA banned
it.


i wonder if it works equally well without choline. i also got tht from
cerebralhealth as it is not very easy to find citicoline in bulk
powder either.

I am pretty sure it is the citicholine that was making me dizzy (as
does nicotine patches, btw, esp. 14mg patches).

[MR]

Argumzio, I'm not sure why you found that to be insulting. I don't
need to know you to say that you're susceptible to placebo. Note that
I didn't say you *were* affected by the placebo effect but that "like
anyone else" you were susceptible to it. For you think that you can't
possibly be affected would be naive.

According to a 2009 review by Breidert and Hofbauer (10.3238/arztebl.
2009.0751 ), the main determinants of the placebo effect in any given
individual are:

1. Conditioned reflexes: If pills have made someone's symptoms go away
in the past, he is more likely to respond to a placebo in the future.

2. Expectations: If you believe that the agent will work, say because
a doctor/pharmacist/friend/stranger on discussion board tells you it
does, or because of your interpretation of the literature, it is more
likely to work for you, even if it's a sugar pill.

Now I can't possibly know if you have any conditioned reflexes with
respect to taking pills, but I know that you have expectations simply
by your stating that you "could cite many studies on the objective
benefits of piracetam". Whether those studies are of any value or not,
you clearly think they are and therefore have expectations associated
with the use of the drug. You're therefore susceptible, at least
according to Breidert and Hofbauer.

Speaking of the studies you referred to, as far as I can tell only two
studies looked at cognitive effects in healthy adults: Mindus 1976 and
Dimond 1976 (I may have missed some though so please correct me on
this). I don't have access to either of these studies, but as someone
who reviews papers almost daily, it is very rare for me to find one
that doesn't have flaws in it. This is even more difficult to find in
the field of cognitive enhancement given the inherent difficulties of
studying the subject. Two abstracts from 1976 therefore does little to
excite me, and you probably shouldn't be waving them around as strong
evidence if you want to keep some form of credibility when you argue
the validity of the n-back studies in other threads. Can you honestly
say that you've gone through these studies with the intellectual rigor
that you have for the n-back studies?

Finally, looking at your original statements as an outside, somewhat
dispassionate observer, the fact that you reported subjective benefits
with not just one, but at least six different substances that have
marginal evidence of effect in healthy adults, and inconsistent
anecdotal effects in people on this board, makes it much more likely
that your experience is related to the placebo effect.

M

[MR]

On Jun 29, 8:26 pm, whoisbambam <a...@horseracingfirm.com> wrote:

>
> why we come to the decisions we make isnt always straightforward
>

I couldn't agree with you more bambam, and thanks accepting my
apologies and explanation.

M

[Gwern Branwen]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 10:07 AM, MR <rous...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Argumzio, I'm not sure why you found that to be insulting. I don't
> need to know you to say that you're susceptible to placebo. Note that
> I didn't say you *were* affected by the placebo effect but that "like
> anyone else" you were susceptible to it. For you think that you can't
> possibly be affected would be naive.

A reminder: this thread was meant to just be for anecdotes because I
was getting tired of combing threads for anecdotes. Littering the
thread with off-topic material isn't helping. If anyone wants to go
offtopic and discuss something that is not their anecdotes about
n-backing (but is, say, anecdotes about random nootropics), please
edit the subject/topic to form a new thread.

--
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

[ao]

MR, out of deference to Gwern's intention for this thread, I will be
extraordinarily brief.

The real issue is that you referred to the nootropics/supplements I
take as having no objectively known benefits. As someone who takes
great care using his funds, I always read the research available
before I make a purchase. It is true that one can be mistaken in any
of their effects, but in such cases its easy to discern when one
simply feels good and when one is performing at a optimum level more
frequently while under the influence. Take alcohol or coffee as
examples; you can feel their effects, right? Same thing.

argumzio

[moe]

I've been on Piracetam for about a week and overall I'm pretty
satisfied. I use the SNS brand and take it with choline citrate in a
1:1 ratio. The first day I took 4 grams with the appropriate amount
of choline citrate and within 10 minutes I noticed a very nice anxiety
quelling effect. I don't notice any improvements in linguistic
ability (which is surprising as this is what piracetam is known for)
but it seems to help out a bit with higher level thinking. Piracetam
is a worthwhile supplement but it's still no replacement for sleep,
exercise, etc (in my experience at least).

btw this particular combo is nasty as a mofo (taking it with juice
helps)

On Jun 29, 8:44 pm, ao <argum...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Certainly. It is important to be attentive to different doses which
> may yield different effects.
>
> 1. Piracetam = 2.4g at any given time of the day
> CDP Citicoline 1 x 250mg in the morning (and sometimes one more)
> Alpha GPC 1 x 300mg in the morning (and sometimes one more)
>

> 2. I first purchased Nootropil (Piracetam) here:http://www.antiaging-systems.com/146-piracetam-nootropil. Now I

[whoisbambam]

moe,

thank you very much for that name resource--it looks like sns has
stopped making it, but some suppliers still carry it, and are running
out.

I just found a resource for sns brand at 1.5kg (3tubs of 500g) for
80.00 delivered--cerebral health charges that for 1kg and delivery
charges not included.

that might last an average person a year or two.

[ao]

Good to hear you're seeing results. One noted objective result from
taking piracetam I experienced involves the Reading Span Task at
cognitivefun. I already had a 6-7 RS before (way above average, yes),
but while under the influence of piracetam it jumped to 8-9. It was
also easier for me to structure facts in a logically rigorous manner
for certain materials I was reading at the time.

argumzio

On Jun 30, 1:17 pm, moe <lindasmit...@bellsouth.net> wrote: