Unfortunately, long records of safety, in this case, happen to be correlated with long records of being rendered barely effective. It's not a coincidence that most of these drugs never caught on. I believe some nootropics (of pyritinol, the racetam family, idebenone, centrophenoxine, etc.) may be effective at something -- but as far as showing a statistically significant improvement in cognitive function in healthy individuals -- I do not think we are talking that impressive of a gain. An otherwise perfectly functioning healthy student would be a fool to waste his or her money on racetams in place of, say, coffee...
It really depends on the budget of the individual. How much cash do you have to throw at what *might* work after investing $100, $200, or $300?
And if you want to compare the so called "boost" in cognitive function between, say, any of the racetams -- Piracetam, Aniracetam, Pramiracetam, Oxiracetam, etc -- to a drug like modafinil, Strattera, or dextroamphetamine -- the racetams -- for most folks the racetams would not even register on the chart. Sure -- you might see a
tendency towards improvement after a month or more of treatment...but as far as something to marvel at -- sorry -- hint, hint: you might want to look elsewhere.
I believe it's hypothetically possible that "a" racetam could be developed that can show real efficacy, but if we had to fight cognitive decline -- or improve memory -- with what we have on hand today we would have hit a dead end. We do have a good lead on where to look next, however.
If you read the majority of the literature on the racetams, you will see that the benefits elderly folks were getting weren't impressive enough to warrant a single racetam's approval for Alzheimer's disease by the FDA. Cholinesterase inhibitors, such as
Tacrine and
Donepezil AKA Aricept both received prompt FDA approval -- Tacrine even had serious liver toxicity issues -- unlike Aricept. Yesavage et al. (Stanford University) found Aricept "to have beneficial effects on retention of training on complex aviation tasks in nondemented older adults."
(1). Yes, racetams may be prescription only in the EU, but so is Acetyl-L-carnitine and R-lipoic acid. As far as particularly effective memory treatments, the conventionally accepted nootropics fail. I can easily argue that they may be effective for particular individuals -- but only on the margins -- we are talking maybe 3-5% maximum.
In my experience -- and through experience of others I know -- for individuals with otherwise perfectly functioning memories -- stacking Alpha GPC and Piracetam is a big waste of money. It's just the first thing you read if you search the web about "smart drugs." A more thorough investigation might yield a more worthwhile conclusion.
Design and study of piracetam-like nootropics, controversial members of the problematic class of cognition-enhancing drugs.
Gualtieri F, Manetti D, Romanelli MN, Ghelardini C.
Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Universita di Firenze, Via G. Capponi 9, I-50121, Firenze, Italy. fulvio.gualtieri@unifi.it
Among other classes of cognition enhancers, piracetam like compounds suffer from the lack of a common, generally accepted, mechanism of action; a condition which has precluded, so far, a wide acceptance of these drugs as useful medicines. Ironically, the very low toxicity of this class of compounds is itself a problem, since it has been considered the result of insufficient activity, even if they are active in most preclinical assays and, at least in some clinical trials, their therapeutic efficacy has been found significant. As a consequence, after a period of intense research in the late eighties, interest for this class of drugs has vanished. Nevertheless, research in this field has allowed identification of two new classes of drugs, the ampakines and diacylpiperazines, whose cognition enhancing properties look promising. It is hoped that the new recently disclosed compounds, that seem to be endowed with unprecedented high potency, will contribute to elucidate the mechanism of action of the class and its revival.
Peace.
Edited by nootropikamil, 17 May 2006 - 02:16 AM.
