Category: Nootropics
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Huperzine A is the same drug class as donepezil; stacking it with a prescribed cholinesterase inhibitor is additive and untested.
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Citicoline vs alpha-GPC: both are choline donors, but alpha-GPC’s trials are almost all in dementia at 1,200 mg and it carries a stroke signal.
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L-theanine has one robust finding: faster choice reaction time at hour one, from a 16-trial meta-analysis. It is not a memory agent.
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Panax ginseng and cognition: Cochrane found no convincing effect in healthy adults, and it interacts with warfarin and diabetes medication.
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Curcumin and memory: the trials that found an effect used bioavailability-enhanced forms like Theracurmin, not kitchen turmeric.
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Vitamin D and cognition: observational studies link low levels to dementia risk, but randomized trials including VitaMIND found no cognitive benefit.
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Folate and B vitamins did not slow cognitive aging across 11 trials and 22,000 people, but one subgroup with high homocysteine did benefit.
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Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause real, sometimes reversible cognitive symptoms, but supplementing people who are already replete does nothing.
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Rhodiola rosea trials used 200-600 mg a day of extract standardized to 3% rosavins, mostly for fatigue rather than for memory or cognition.
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Saffron trials used 30 mg a day of standardized extract, given as 15 mg twice daily, almost all of them in Iranian adults with Alzheimer’s.