Comment · Thu, December 22, 2022 · ND Owner
Cognance: waste of money
Original post in this thread
Neurogence · 33 points
I had taken a break from all nootropics for about two years or so. Recently I got back into dabbling, and saw quite a few positive posts on cognance. So I decided to try it out. I've been taking it for about two weeks now with no noticeable results. I tried to increase it to 200mg but still not noticing anything.
Originally, I had stopped taking mostly all nootropics due to lack of effects. I'm afraid all these new substances also have very negligible effects. I've tried hundreds of nootropics. The substance I've benefitted from the most is aniracetam, but I don't know where to find it these days.
How are you all experiencing positive and even "tangible" effects from substances like cognance? Is this all placebo? I don't buy the idea that everyone's biology is different. Substances that are effective have an effect on mostly everyone (example, caffeine). Whether positive or negative, you will feel something from caffeine. But most of the nootropics out there I barely feel anything from them. At this point I don't know what the difference is between something like cognance and a sugar pill.
What they were answering
alainneedle1 · 2 points
Have you read where I said "To each his own", I'm guilty myself for trying products so I'm not against them, my point is that all we see advertised is the "apparently" beneficial effect of a product from studies done on rats, I understand health product suppliers not wanting to have a warning on their label as this is not good for business, granted, but sure enough we see beneficial effect like "memory support on some label, it may be true that a specific product will/may have a beneficial outcome on the memory on some individuals but it may also be true that the same product may raise blood pressure on the same or other individual(s), where do we see a warning on Nootropic label of possible side effect, are you waiting for a good scientific research warning of possible undesirable side effect before printing them on the label?
There is no way a product will be or not be beneficial to everybody on the same level, that's a given an one does not need a mater in biochemistry to know that, allergic reaction, wanted or unwanted side effect(s) does not happen to everybody the same using the same product so lets not expand on that as we both agree.
You are missing something here, my point about the bullshit part is this, when one is taking a shit load of product how can he state that it is working because he is taking all of them together at the same time or spread during t…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
I understand health product suppliers not wanting to have a warning on their label as this is not good for business, granted, but sure enough we see beneficial effect like "memory support on some label, it may be true that a specific product will/may have a beneficial outcome on the memory on some individuals but it may also be true that the same product may raise blood pressure on the same or other individual(s), where do we see a warning on Nootropic label of possible side effect, are you waiting for a good scientific research warning of possible undesirable side effect before printing them on the label?
The issue is that I have seen strange side effects with everything out there. I've seen two customers get the opposite side effects from the same product (low blood pressure with one person, high with the other). So what percentage of customers getting a side effect would warrant a warning on the label? 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%? What happens if 10% get high blood pressure and 10% get low blood pressure? How would we adequately convey that to customers? What happens if the side effect only manifests in very specific combos? With hundreds of products, how would one properly disclose all that info in a way that customers could use that information? That's why we have this forum and give customers the ability to discuss their reactions to things with others. The nootropics community is as much about communal self-experimentation as anything else. You keep bringing up your high blood pressure that you are convinced is from Tongkat Ali. However, the far more common effect is LOW BLOOD PRESSURE. In fact, Tongkat Ali is used in southeast Asia to help treat high blood pressure. They've also studied Tongkat Ali in seniors, and noted that many had naturally high blood pressure, and did not note any side effects with it increasing it.
So you are reporting that you got high blood pressure, but that's the opposite of how most people respond. All clinical data does not support that being a common side effect, so why would we warn people about it, when the far more common effect will be a lowering of blood pressure? Tongkat Ali generally lowers cortisol, which will lower blood pressure. I've seen many more reports from customers saying they had to stop taking it because it lowered their cortisol too much. Who's side effects take precedence here?
You are missing something here, my point about the bullshit part is this, when one is taking a shit load of product how can he state that it is working because he is taking all of them together at the same time or spread during the day, to know that a person need to take only one product alone and see if it work, after that you quit that product and try another one and see if it work, and so on until you're done with all the product you want to try or use, some may work and some may not, so let say that after trying 12 products by themselves a person saw some beneficial effect on 8 of them he can now start all over again by combining 2 of them to see how they interact together until he's done with all 8 of them, after that he need to combine 3 of the product that worked for him together and see what the outcome will be, doing that is time consuming and a long term process but is the only way to see if a combination of product works or not on a specific individual by documenting all the results
Yes, this is why it can be a long and frustrating process for many people. Some people do take a measured and organized approach to adding things in. However, you are right in saying many don't. I think the main issue is that you are thinking everyone is on large stacks, but that's not really the case. After ten years in this industry, millions of orders shipped out, and speaking to tens of thousands of people, most people eventually settle on a smaller stack. People taking 12 things at the same time is the exception, not the rule. This is what I have been saying about Reddit not being a representative sample of the general public. You might think everyone was on massive stacks of super novel things by the stuff you read on here, but those are just the people the most into experimentation. Of course their stacks are going to be more complex. You also have people on here that have been into nootropics for a decade or more. They have had time to experiment with a lot of things. I wish we would get more anecdotes from the average person, but that's just not the reality of things. We always see the extremes.
the brain is tricky and if you believe in something hard enough you may think/feel it's working.
The brain is also tricky if you believe your are getting side effects, too. This isn't just a positive bias. It's a negative bias a well. Someone hearing that another person got a side effect on Reddit can make them self-manifest that same side effect in themselves. Many people focus on what they perceive to be a placebo effect, or positive response bias. However, why not also consider that many negative responses are nocebo, or a manifestation of health anxiety?