Comment · Fri, September 20, 2013 · Ceretropic
Simple supplements changing my life, how to start with the basics (Nootropics).
Original post in this thread
370921A · 118 points
Hello all!
This post is about my research and personal journey into Nootropics. The first section is mostly about my take aways after doing a lot of reading/research, and the second section is about my personal usage and effects.
To give some background... I became highly interested in Nootropics about 3 weeks ago, I'm getting ready to start an extremely challenging school and wanted to see what I could do externally to enhance my academic performance. After discovering the world of Nootropics, I immediately started absorbing everything I could get my hands on about the topic: Wikipedia articles, scientific studies, reddit posts, IRC chats, Erowid, online forums, Gwern's website (gwern.net), youtube videos, online market places (amazon comments), etc,. All of that research culminated into very few certainties about the sometimes muddled world of nootropics.
+ 1. Everyone's different; what works for one person may not work for you. Experience stories vary widely, drug sensitivity (dosage) can differ greatly for desired effects, etc,. Although there is some agreement on what effects certain Nootropics will cause, effects can be godsend perfect for some and terrible for others…
What they were answering
370921A · 3 points
This is what I bought, first result on amazon when you search melatonin. Had no idea I was taking such a large dose.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
I use the Natrol brand, 1mg tablets.
There is a paper from researchers at MIT that goes into why vendors sell such high doses. It's a good read.
http://wurtmanlab.mit.edu/static/pdf/1049.pdf
>Why are physiologic doses of melatonin—those which elevate its plasma
levels within their normal range—generally unavailable, while very much
larger doses are ubiquitous in health-food stores and the OTC sections of
American pharmacies? Probably for several reasons, foremost of which
is that the FDA does not set allowable doses, but also because users may
believe that if taking some of a drug is good, then taking more must be
better; or because melatonin is so inexpensive to synthesize that even a
10 mg pill costs its manufacturer little more than one containing 0.3 mg;
or because the hormone causes little overt toxicity even at megadoses; or
perhaps because the decrease in melatonin-receptor-sensitivity that very
large doses produce ultimately protects patients from consequences of
their continued administration. Another factor may involve melatonin’s
patent status: when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
first patented melatonin’s use to promote sleep it was assumed that
the hormone would be regulated by the FDA as a drug; hence doses
greater than maximally-effective ones (0.3–1.0 mg) would not be allowed
for sale, making it unnecessary to include such doses in the patent.
Consequently, nothing now constrains a purveyor of melatonin from
selling any dose above 1 mg that it wishes to sell, without having to obtain
a license or pay a royalty. This probably has not led to great savings by the
marketers or great losses to the inventor, since all of these inventor’s
royalties are routinely returned to MIT. However, it has had the unintended
consequence of helping to make low-dose melatonin almost unavailable.