earlier discussion (2010): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1198116
For example, in the article found at the link, note that they only examined 45 people, all of whom were vegetarians (who are much more likely to be creatine deficient due to their diets). Although the subjects were consuming more creatine than the vast majority of meat eaters would consume naturally, since the authors didn't experiment with other doses (e.g. 1-2g a day, more accurately mirroring the diet of those that consistently eat meat) there's no telling whether consuming extra creatine will actually benefit your cognitive abilities if you are already regularly eating meat.
Creatine, for instance, has been studied for mental effects a bunch of times - the answers all seem to line up on "can definitely help some people, but probably insignificant to most". Other substances shake out similarly - the data on bacopa is inconclusive, but the studies are numerous enough to suggest that the inconclusiveness is about a very weak or situational effect, not a lack of literature.
The vegetarian point does touch on my larger concern, though: people talk like studies finding weak 'average effects' mean the drug is universally effective, but low-powered. That's possible, but it seems more likely that there are lots of drugs which are situationally powerful (e.g. based on diet or genetics) and hardly any that are good for everyone. Creatine is obvious, and I kind of suspect cholinergics and bacopa for this also. Gwern is really good about acknowledging that his studies (of n=1) aren't being designed to apply to anyone else, but most people don't offer that caveat.
Creatine is both synthesized by the body and consumed in meat. The vast majority of it goes into skeletal muscles where it functions as an ATP recycling compound, something these cells consume a lot of. Small amounts are found inn the blood and brain add well but not nearly as much.
It may provide a small boost if you're low on blood sugar simply from providing some extra energy and drawing water into the cell - but it's not much more than you would get from simply consuming energy rich compounds like sugars or carbohydrates. It does certainly provide significant physical performance enhancement by increasing endurance, reducing muscle fatigue and generally providing greater muscle "pump" from it's cell volumizing qualities. Thus I'd say that the only cognitive gains one would experience would be from the added satisfaction coming from better performance and improved physique - ie. A placebo effect of sorts. However, depending on the importance of physical fitness to an individual, this can be substantial. My improved workouts and increased strength definitely put me in a much better mood and provide greater motivation for my intellectual endeavors. Ironically, because it can supercharge workouts, it can leave one with substantial mental fatigue immediately after such workouts at which point you're better off taking a break to recover before doing any mentally intense stuff
* Pramiracetam 500mg * Alpha GPC 50% 600mg * Noopept 10mg * Agmatine Sulfate 500mg
I am convinced that these chemicals work, improve mental ability, memory/recall and focus. Ive found myself able to handle more task simultaneously, even able to understand to multiple conflicting conversations.
If you can handle the awful taste of Pramiracetam (its bad... probably the worst thing ive ever tasted) you may find quite the boost in awareness. Some may find it too intense. In general nootropics are non-addictive, especially with the awful taste of Pram, you might need to force yourself to take them...
I'm already taking Modafinil, so I might experiment with taking Pramiracetam as well, see if I can get an extra boost.
I noticed no effects on cognition at all.
I've used creatine with the goal of increasing performance in strength training. I guess I'm a non-responder, 'cause there was no noticeable gains in performance for me.
It's cheap enough to continue to do it though, so I kind of keep at it.
Whoops.
With a bit more work I was able to tune myself to stop that, but it didn't buy me much.
In the meantime I noticed no cognitive effects strong enough to be noticeable without full-on Gwern-style careful testing. (My policy on that is that if the power of the result isn't big enough for me to notice in "normal life", I'm not that interested.)
I can believe that dedicated athletes can use it to good effect but I don't think I recommend it for casuals such as myself. I also definitely had to be extra-sure to drink more water than I felt like I needed or I would get dehydration headaches.
On a side note: As others pointed out, Modafinil is really what you want if you need a brain supplement. I've been taking it since November last year on a daily basis (100 milligrams, half a pill) and I can say that I've been able to make a lot of progress to actively stop procrastination. It's not magic, I still struggle with it a lot, but I've been able to manage it and build a routine of meditation and exercise that I hadn't been able to build before (I'm 35 y/o). There's a lot of work left to get to point where I can say I've actually won and I'm not a procrastinator anymore, but this year so far will be one of the most productive I've ever had.
Creatine is available at any health food or supplement store, it's legal and widely available.
I live in Argentina and Modafinil can't be bought without a prescription. My doctor prescribed it to me (just for the sake of getting a discount when buying it, I was going to keep getting it from a shady pharmacist anyway)
I'm sharing it here because I wish I knew about vitamin C 30 years ago.
1- buy it in bulk powder form this will be much cheaper (I paid 38€ for 1 kg)
It might have annoying effects but you can't "overdose" (sure, getting a large dose is still not recommended)
You can overdose on some fat-soluble vitamins, notably Vitamin A. And by overdose I mean you can die from it
Take a daily supplement which ensures you are getting a sufficient amount, and nothing more. Anything beyond that is literally getting flushed down the toilet in your urine.
I take your point, but I think it's important to say that this isn't strictly true. Your daily requirement is what you need for normal functioning, not what you can absorb.
For vitamin C, this isn't a huge distinction - it's water soluble, and the excess will be flushed, as you say. But for fat soluble vitamins, you absolutely can absorb more than a 100% dose. This is usually bad, and comes about from things like home overdosing or extremely narrow diets. It's occasionally medicinal, though, with something like isotretinoin being very similar to a major overdose of vitamin A.
I wouldn't suggest overdosing on vitamins to anyone unless a doctor tells you do, but it's worth noting that it does cause an effect - usually a bad one.
Who cares if it's a placebo, as long as it works I'm taking it.
For the record, homeopathy did absolutely nothing for me, so I'm not sure I have much of a placebo gullible body ;-)
But I didn't find (doesn't mean it doesn't exist) a single story about someone that had a problem with it. All the negativity is by people that didn't try.
I occasionally use nicergoline which I really like, however if I use it too many days and then skip, I get a headache - much like caffeine withdrawal.
At night I sometimes use rutaecarpine to deactivate any late-afternoon caffeine - though after a few days of continued use - it tends to render caffeine ineffective.
I should add i don't eat much meat most of the the time, and i don't get enough sleep. So it may just be bringing me back to a normal.
site:*.edu -intitle:muscle creatine dementia study
It's role is to store water inside your muscles, making them larger. I don't know of any effects on the brain and I would be cautious of taking something that it wasn't made for.
In saying that there's been a number of cases where pharmaceutical products were developed for one issue but the side effects ended up being the actual product.
I was taking a high load of creatine for body building six months after a major concussion (motorbike accident). I can't say that I noticed any change in brain function.
Where did you hear that creatine affects brain function?
Creatine phosphate is part of a reaction making ATP use effective (specifically: it allows rapid conversion of ADP to ATP during times of high demand). This is necessary for basic functioning - we synthesize creatine naturally and also absorb it from our diet. Supplementing it enables using muscles for a longer period without exhaustion, and helps you reach the boundaries of muscular strength before you reach energy limits.
The proposed mechanism of improved brain functioning is, interestingly, the same as the muscular mechanism. During times of high demand, creatine improves ATP regeneration rates. The ATP cycle happens the same way in the brain, so creatine can play the same role there. This claim is nothing new, it was for instance studied back in 2003 here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691485/pdf/1456...).
There's no mysterious second effect here - we know for certain that creatine plays the same role in the brain and muscles. (We also know what that effect is - it wouldn't have any relationship to physical damage sustained in a concussion.) The outstanding questions are whether improving ATP cycling in the brain has a meaningful impact on performance, and whether safe creatine supplementation changes neurological PCr levels enough to cause that benefit.
That said, there are plenty of other well-documented benefits to creatine supplementation as documented on sites like examine.com (linked elsewhere in this thread).
