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Using Nootropics to Optimise Your Brain Health and Mental Performance w/ David Tomen - Connecting Minds Podcast Ep18
185 Plays4 years ago
Shownotes: https://christianyordanov.com/18-david-tomen/
Watch this interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/T1mXmooz53s
Do you own a brain? Do you like to use it for work and other important stuff? Would you like it to work better and stay like that for a long time?
Then you need to listen this interview with David Tomen from NootropicsExpert.com!
David is and expert in nootropics and boosting brain function and cognition, and on this episode of Connecting Minds we talk about how to get started with nootropics.
We cover a TON of amazing compounds such as L-tyrosine, AlphaGPC, CDP choline, acetyl-l-carnitine, phosphatidylserine, DHA, the B vitamins, quercetin, CoQ10, PQQ, creatine, taurine, piracetam, aniracetam, oxiracetam, phenylpiracetam, coluracetam, and pramiracetam!
Links to David’s resources:
Website: https://NootropicsExpert.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NootropicsExpert/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidtomen
David’s book Head First: https://nootropicsexpert.com/head-first/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Connecting Minds podcast. Thank you for joining me. My name is Christian Jordonov. Today, I have a treat for you. I have David Tomin on the podcast and we talk about all things new tropics. If you don't know what new tropics are, they're basically compound supplements that we can use to boost and optimize our brain function.
Understanding Nootropics: Basics and Benefits
00:00:21
Speaker
And David is an expert on Neutropics, hence why his website is called neutropicsexpert.com. We talk about a ton of really awesome compounds from L-tyrosine to alpha-GPC, CDP-choline, acetyl-L-carnitine, taurine, doracetam, like pyracetam, aniracetam, a ton of other stuff, right?
00:00:48
Speaker
So there's a lot of really useful information if you're getting started with new tropics. We cover a lot of the really fundamental core things that you need to do to get right in order to maximize your investments from these compounds.
00:01:05
Speaker
As you will see, David is just a fountain of knowledge on this topic. It's personally one of my favorite topics, which is why I was so excited about this interview, and I'm hoping to get him on
Resources for Nootropic Knowledge
00:01:21
Speaker
the podcast again. So if you like what you hear today, let me know if you want us to cover any specific topics, for example, how to boost focus or new tropics for anxiety, things like that, right? Let me know. And I'll have links, of course, to David's resources. You really ought to check out his website
00:01:45
Speaker
and his YouTube channel. He has a book as well called Headfirst, which I'm just about to buy. It's nearly a 600-page book on basically new tropics, all things new tropics, so a huge reference. His website has information on
Personal Journey with Nootropics
00:02:04
Speaker
About ninety five of the best most popular nootropic compounds and i'm kind of proud to say that i've tried about almost seventy of them so you can probably tell i am. Really into this topic and i feel like a lot of you listening will get a lot of value out of this because
00:02:24
Speaker
Our brain health and performance should not really diminish as we age. We have the tools and the knowledge to optimize our brains and have them working really well for a very long time.
00:02:40
Speaker
well into our 80s, 90s. It's a real shame to see people say, you know, oh, I'm getting old. I'm starting to forget things. You know, my brain isn't as good as it used to be. Well, it's because you didn't know how to take better care of it, right? And this particular episode lays a lot of the groundwork
00:03:05
Speaker
on how to better take care of your brain, right? So very important topic, a vast topic. So we only scratched the surface here, but I think if you're a beginner, you will get a ton of value out of this. So I hope you enjoyed this interview. And without further ado, I present to you David Toman.
00:03:33
Speaker
Connecting Minds is a space dedicated to honoring the amazing authors, researchers, clinicians, artists, and entrepreneurs who are contributing to our collective evolution or simply making the world a better place. These thought-provoking conversations are intended to expand our horizons, so come with an open mind and let us grow together. Here is your host, Christian Yordanov.
00:04:05
Speaker
All righty, today on the Connecting Minds podcast, I have the pleasure of interviewing Mr. David Tomlin. David, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me, Christian. Good to be here.
00:04:16
Speaker
I just wanted to start recording because you were about to kind of tell me a little bit about how your website newtropicsexpert.com came to be. So can you maybe tell our listeners, first of all, what are new tropics? How did you discover them? And what was your journey with them? And how did that lead you to creating this amazing resource that you have at newtropicsexpert.com, please?
00:04:45
Speaker
Okay. I kind of stumbled onto nootropics about 13 years ago, but I did not know that they were called nootropics at the time.
00:04:56
Speaker
I have suffered with focus problems all of my adult life. I mean, I've been to 45 countries and I've lived in several countries and wherever I ended up, I ended up in an executive position for some big company and my performance review every year would be David, you're a fantastic manager, you're a really good executive, you're fantastic with people, you're a good salesman, but you gotta learn how to focus.
00:05:23
Speaker
Right? Every single year, man. So I went out and I bought the books. And I bought the books on management. And I try as hard as I could, I could not fix this problem. I thought it was a moral failing. And then about 15 years ago, I was living in Miami, and I met this beautiful blonde on the beach.
00:05:50
Speaker
and we ended up getting married six months later. And within the first year of our being together, she saw what was going on.
00:05:58
Speaker
And she introduced me to this rock star, I call him a rock star, a rock star psychiatrist up in Palm Beach. He's one of these doctors that are like so far at the top of their field that they're in the stratosphere because this guy sat me down and within 10 minutes, he had diagnosed me, adult ADD and PTSD. Wow.
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah. And it took me another 10 or 12 years to figure out where I think the PTSD came from. But for ADD, he prescribed Ritalin. And Ritalin or methylphenidate is just a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. As soon as I started using Ritalin, my brain started working. It was like somebody turned the lights on in my brain. And all of a sudden, for the first time in my adult life, I could focus. I mean, it was a miracle.
00:06:48
Speaker
But within a couple of years, I started growing tolerant to Ritalin and I panicked.
00:06:53
Speaker
because I'm going up finally after all these years, I finally found something that worked and it's going to stop working. I don't think so. So I decided to find out how methylphenidate worked in the human brain. And I found out that it was a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. And so I'm going, okay, if that is a dopamine, so that must mean that maybe I don't have enough dopamine in my brain. How do I fix that? I found out that L-tyrosine was a precursor to the synthesis of dopamine.
00:07:22
Speaker
And I've also learned that in the ADD brain, an ADHD brain, brain cell signaling is a problem too. And that's dependent on acetylcholine. How do I raise that? I found out that alpha GPC or CDP choline where precursors too was acetylcholine. And so I went to the local vitamin shop here and I got some L-tyrosine, I got some alpha GPC, I got some L-car, acetyl L-carnitine, which is a cofactor in the synthesis of acetylcholine.
Supplements and Brain Function
00:07:52
Speaker
And I started using these supplements and all of a sudden Ritalin started working again.
00:07:57
Speaker
And I found that because I was on instant release Ritalin, it would only last for like, my morning dose, it only lasts to about noon. So I'd have to take another dose for the afternoon. So I had to dose these supplements each time I took Ritalin so that my brain had enough acetylcholine and dopamine so that Ritalin has something to work with. But I found that if I took a dose in the morning and another at noon, when the Ritalin wore off around four o'clock in the afternoon, I crashed.
00:08:27
Speaker
But I found that if I took the same stack that I was taking at noon again at four o'clock when there was no more ritalin left in my system, I didn't crash. So that was my introduction to that's when I learned that there were dietary supplements that can easily be bought on any vitamin shop or health food store that helps the brain.
00:08:52
Speaker
And then, gosh, this was about seven years after that, I got desperately sick. I mean, so sick that I wanted to die. And it got so bad one day that my wife took me to the ER because she thought I was having a heart attack.
00:09:10
Speaker
And it turns out it wasn't a heart attack. My heart was fine. They diagnosed me hypothyroid. For some reason, just out of the blue, I became severely hypothyroid. And one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism, just to cut this story short, is memory loss. And my memory loss was so bad, Christian, that I went to two different neurologists that tested me for Alzheimer's.
00:09:39
Speaker
and both came up. I got 30, um, the way they score to find out if you've got Alzheimer's or dementia, there's a scoring system and I got a perfect score. So they're going, you haven't got Alzheimer's and you haven't got dementia. We're sorry, but I can't help you. We don't know why you can't remember anything. So once again, I was on my own and by this time I had, uh, started a,
00:10:05
Speaker
During this time, I had been running a local marketing company and when I got really, really sick, I couldn't do that big of a job helping all kinds of marketing for all kinds of businesses. So I decided to focus on one thing and I picked copywriting and I just started writing sales copy.
00:10:27
Speaker
And so I, at the time I had started writing, not too long after that, I found, well, first of all, so I started writing sales copy, but to fix my brain, I went, I found out that I was on my own again because why was there, what causes memory loss from hypothyroidism?
00:10:53
Speaker
And there were no books on the subject. There were no websites on the thing. I mean, I was on my own again. And I ended up in places like PubMed and just reading clinical study after clinical study after clinical study to find out something that worked. And finally, I learned enough that I put together a stack and I started to get my memory back.
00:11:13
Speaker
What was that stack? It's the stack that I'm using now. The stack that I'm using now, it's on the website, it's called What I Take, I think. I've seen that actually. So it's about a half a dozen different supplements and I got my memory back. But one thing I realized when I was doing this was that
Creating Nootropic Resources: A Personal Experience
00:11:43
Speaker
If I'm having such a problem trying to do this and I'm a really good researcher and when you're writing direct response copy, you have to know how to research, the average person on the street was lost.
00:11:57
Speaker
I mean, if they were suffering from anxiety or depression or ADD or hypothyroidism or whatever, they had no chance of fixing their own brain because there was no information out there. And that's when I realized that the world needed one authority, like a website, to
00:12:18
Speaker
just research all of these supplements. And so far I've done extent deep dives into 95 or 96 individual supplements that help the human brain somehow. And I started writing copy for Neutropics Expert and I just, it grew from there and here we are. But that's how it came to be. And I came to that realization when I was writing some sales copy for a supplement company in England.
00:12:49
Speaker
I was writing advertorials for a nootropic stack and that's when it finally hit home that the problem that I had trying to find out this information on my own, I was having the same problem when I was trying to write sales copy. I was getting all this stuff from places like PubMed and Nature and Plus One and where they publish these clinical studies, right? Nobody had written any books. The last book that was written on nootropic supplements was published in 1992.
00:13:18
Speaker
That's a long time ago. A bit further in the research since then. Yeah. I mean, neuroscience is changing by leaps and bounds every single month. So anyway, that's how Neutropics Expert came to be. And I just started writing and that was late 19, that was late 2015, I think. And I've got two books out now and I've got a YouTube channel that has got
00:13:47
Speaker
I kind of lost track 65 or 70,000 subscribers or something. Wow. Jesus. Amazing. Yeah. I actually, I have not, I have not actually seen your YouTube channel yet, but I will definitely be checking it out because this is one of my favorite areas. It's not just nootropics, but a supplementation in general. Um, and I'll definitely be purchasing your books because, uh, it's just nice. Like, like I just bookmarked your big list of nootropics that the 95 nootropics that you have there.
00:14:17
Speaker
I have it on my tabs there, my shortcuts, because it's a great reference for folks and I will definitely have the links in the show notes. And as a quick aside, I went through the 95, the big list of new tropics, I went through the 95 and I have taken about, or am taking, have taken or am taking about 65 of those on your list.
00:14:42
Speaker
I've tried most of the supplements on that list. I don't take them all now, but I've tried most of them just to find out what they do. I figure I'm going to recommend them to somebody. I want to find out how this thing works and what it feels like.
00:15:01
Speaker
So let's get into the actual supplements. Let's take a theoretical person. Okay, I'll give you some pretty broad parameters, but let's say someone between the ages of 30, 50, 60, let's say they have some type of office job, so mental work.
00:15:25
Speaker
their diet, lifestyle, nutrition is not necessarily really well dialed in, but how would you approach a person like that that wants to optimize their brain function? I would find out first what they're trying to fix.
00:15:45
Speaker
And because I run into this over and over again, when people come to no tropics expert, they say, tell me, give me a pill that'll help me, that'll fix my brain. And one thing that I found is there's no one pill solution.
00:15:58
Speaker
It takes several different supplements to fix something. And the other thing is you really have to know what you want to make your job easier on trying to figure out what supplements will work for you is first figure out what you're trying to fix. Right. And so is it like processing speed and decision making and focus and flow and thinking, or is it learning and memory, or is it anxiety and depression?
00:16:23
Speaker
or is it energy and motivation or is it brain repair and maintenance for some reason? Like you got whacked on the head. So I get a person to focus on just one thing first and fix one thing and then we can start tweaking it and working on other stuff. But that's the easiest way to approach this because there's a very specific supplements that help things like learning and memory and very specific supplements that help things like motivation.
Neurotransmitters and Brain Health
00:16:52
Speaker
in this very specific supplements that help things like energy and very specific supplements that help things like brain repair and maintenance. So does that answer your question? That's how I approach it when I'm talking to people.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah, it does. So let's say we have a programmer, coder, codes, you know, eight, 10 hours a day. So I suppose learning and memory is important because they're constantly keeping
00:17:24
Speaker
up to date with the latest frameworks and things like that. But they also need to context switch between, let's say, a bug or whatever, or building a feature. So I suppose processing speed is important. So how would you approach that type of problem? I mean, I wouldn't call it a problem, but let's say goal in this instance. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. It could be something that you're trying to optimize. Right. I mean, you could be a perfectly healthy person and still want to optimize your brain. Absolutely.
00:17:53
Speaker
Well, we know that processing speed and decision making and focus and flow and thinking depends on things like acetylcholine and dopamine. Those are the two basic ones. So those are the neurotransmitters?
00:18:14
Speaker
Those are mostly neurotransmitters. Mostly neurotransmitters, although the health of individual brain cells is important too, because for these neurotransmitters, you need to be able to make these neurotransmitters. But your brain cells also have to be in good condition so that brain cell signaling works, especially when it comes to processing speed and decision making and flow and that kind of thing.
00:18:42
Speaker
Because stuff has to be able to get in and out of brain cells, right? Right. You've got billions and billions and billions of brain cells in your skull. And each one of those brain cells has got a membrane around it. And that membrane is made up of DHA, phosphatoseurine, and phosphatylcholine.
00:19:05
Speaker
And if you are deficient in any one of these phospholipids, that brain cell membrane starts to get hard. In other words, it loses its permeability and stuff can't get in and out easy.
00:19:19
Speaker
And the result of that is your thinking speed slows down, your decision making suffers, you can't go into flow. So what we need to do is we need to rejuvenate or keep those brain cell membranes supple so that neurotransmitters can do their job. And we do that by using phospholipids like DHA.
00:19:44
Speaker
or phosphidylserine is one super powerful supplement. So DHA comes from, is it omega-3? It comes originally from algae. And so I recommend that a person take a thousand milligrams of DHA every day in the morning, not fish oil, and not just any old omega-3. Why not fish oil?
00:20:09
Speaker
There's a number of reasons. One is if you're getting a fish oil supplement, there's a problem with purity for one thing. And the other one is you need DHA more than you need EPA. Your brain is about 60% fat and most of that fat is DHA. And the studies that I've seen indicate that each of us need a minimum of thousand milligrams of DHA every day.
00:20:40
Speaker
And so if you just go to the vitamin store and get yourself a fish oil supplement, you're probably going to end up with 100 or 200 milligrams of DHA. You're going to have to take a lot of fish oil to get that amount of DHA. So it's better to get a DHA supplement.
00:20:56
Speaker
And they're few and far between, but there is some on the market that have a DHA supplement will provide in one or two gel caps, a thousand milligrams of DHA and about half that an EPA.
00:21:12
Speaker
You still need the EPA because EPA influences things like serotonin and mood. So you need the EPA, but you need DHA more than you need EPA. I see. And one doesn't turn into the other. I think it's the opposite in fish oil. EPA is the higher part of the ratio. Correct. And most omega-3 supplements are like that too. Yeah.
00:21:33
Speaker
They've got a higher, because when they're manufacturing these things, it's cheaper to manufacture it like that, and it smells better. If you've got more GHA than EPA in a settlement, unless it's made from algae, it's gonna smell more fishy. Right, of course. Right, so it's not as salable. It's not as appealing to the consumer.
Phospholipids and Cognitive Benefits
00:21:55
Speaker
But don't forget that fish and all seafood get their omega-3s from algae.
00:22:03
Speaker
we don't get Omega-3s from fish. We get Omega-3s from fish that get their Omega-3s from algae. So we kind of like, we skip the middle fish or skip the middle man and preferably a supplement that's made from algae. Interesting. I like that. Or something like krill.
00:22:24
Speaker
Okay. So how is, I know Creole is high in phospholipids. Is that one of the... Phospholipids are closer to what our brain is already using because it's phospholipids that we're talking about. DHE is working with the other phospholipids, phosphidylserine, phosphidylcholine.
00:22:50
Speaker
And is there any dietary sources of phosphatidylserine? There is. There is. And the one that comes to mind is soy.
00:23:12
Speaker
But I prefer getting phosphatylserine from sunflower because I try to avoid soy because it's not terribly good for the body. Absolutely. So sunflower lecithin, or is that what we're talking about? Sunflower lecithin, that's right. And you can't do this with a lecithin supplement either. I hear this quite often. People say, well, can't I just use soy lecithin and do this? No. It's derived from lecithin, but it's a very specific supplement.
00:23:40
Speaker
Interesting. I will definitely be getting some sunflower lecithin then. Thank you. Just kind of like an amusing aside here, phosphatil serine was originally made from cow brains. But with the mad cow disease scare, PS supplements are now made from extracts of soy or sunflower lecithin.
Essential Supplements for Brain Health
00:24:02
Speaker
Interesting.
00:24:04
Speaker
Man, you're, you're, you've already like, like if we stop this episode here, this already will be so much value to people. Let's talk about Phosphatylserine for a minute. Phosphatylserine is one of the phospholipids that make up brain cell membranes.
00:24:20
Speaker
But when I'm reviewing each of these supplements, one of the things that I like to do is how does something feel? You can do, what did the studies show? What did the clinical research shows? You can get into the microbiology of it, but what does it actually feel like when somebody uses it, right?
00:24:41
Speaker
And so at that stage, this is how does phosphatidylserine feel? I go to things like Amazon reviews for the best-selling phosphatidylserine supplements, or to Swanson, or to iHerb, someplace where there's a lot of reviews for a particular supplement. And this is what I found for phosphatidylserine.
00:25:01
Speaker
Neurohackers report that using phosphatylserine as a nootropic boosts energy levels, it improves alertness, there's less brain fog, better memory, logical thinking improves, concentration is better, clarity of thought, weight loss, it's easier to remember names, phone numbers, and tasks, et cetera. Mood improves, it's anti-anxiety, it lowers cortisol, it relieves insomnia, and you get vivid dreams.
00:25:27
Speaker
Wow. That's going to the top of my list. Yeah. And you need like a hundred milligrams three times a day. Okay. Okay. So some consider that the most, the best nootropic on earth. And it's kind of hard, hard, hard to argue that it's, it's not really, really important because it is.
00:25:50
Speaker
Okay. What, what else would you rank high in terms of import? Let's say if you, if I told you, you can only take five things for the rest of your life. I'm, I'm sure phosphatidosurine would be one of them, but what else would make that list? Uh, for me personally and probably for most healthy adults, um, L-tyrosine, which is a precursor to the census of the dopamine.
00:26:18
Speaker
alpha GPC, which is a precursor to the synthesis of acetylcholine, acetyl L-carnitine, which is a cofactor in the synthesis of acetylcholine, and a really high quality B complex, and DHA. Okay.
00:26:35
Speaker
So a couple of questions there. So first of all, how would you differentiate between L-tyrosine and N-acetyl-L-tyrosine? I know you have acetyl. That's a great question. Yeah. Sorry, please go ahead. Yeah. N-acetyl-L-tyrosine was developed because they wanted to make L-tyrosine
00:27:03
Speaker
the supplement more bioavailable, so that's easier to cross the blood-brain barrier. So they added an acetyl group to it. And that's what it's called, anacetyl L-tyrosine. And when you take it as a supplement, it just turns into L-tyrosine once it gets through your digestive system. But what they found in clinical studies was it doesn't necessarily work any better than L-tyrosine.
00:27:26
Speaker
And in fact, that you urinated it out a lot quicker in that form that you did if you took it as L-tyrosine. And so when people ask me that question, I just recommend that they try both of them. Try L-tyrosine for a month and try NSAID-L-tyrosine for a month and find out which one works best for you. Some people find that one works better than the other. I personally have found that I can use either one and it works equally well. So it depends on the person in their system.
00:27:57
Speaker
Now, I think we need to underscore the importance of, I like that you had B vitamins so, so high up because out of nearly a hundred compounds, you had a simple, you know, quote unquote B vitamin complex. Can you tell folks why are B vitamins so important to take daily?
00:28:19
Speaker
This could be a whole podcast on its own. If you do a search of a nootropics expert, you'll find 13 vitamins essential for the optimized brain. I've listed everything from vitamin A to vitamin K. Let's just talk about the B vitamins themselves.
00:28:40
Speaker
Vitamin B1 or thiamine is directly involved in the citric acid or the kraug cycle that provides adenosine triphosphate energy within your mitochondria. And it's absolutely critical for the synthesis of acetylcholine.
Role of B Vitamins in Brain Function
00:28:59
Speaker
If you don't have enough thiamine in your system, you cannot make acetylcholine. And even mild thiamine deficiency can turn your world completely upside down.
00:29:11
Speaker
So a lot of people find that if you use thiamin as a supplement, it boosts attention, energy, and motivation. There's a reduction of brain fog, along with increased mental clarity, and there's less anxiety. That's just with one vitamin, one B vitamin.
00:29:24
Speaker
which I find kind of incredible. While we're on the subject of thiamin though, it's important to note that there was a big problem with a disease called berry berry in the early 1900s in Japan because just because of the economics at the time, people were eating white rice and they were extremely thiamin deficient and they developed berry berry.
00:29:51
Speaker
which is a disease. And so the scientists at the time knew that thiamine deficiency was behind this, but they found that just supplementing with thiamine was not solving the problem with severe thiamine deficiency because it has a hard time crossing the blood-brain barrier. So they developed a supplement called salbutiamine.
00:30:12
Speaker
Actually, it was a drug at the time. Now we can use it as a supplement, but it's a fat-soluble synthetic version of thiamin, which is much more bioavailable. It easily crosses the blood-brain barrier, and all it is is two thiamin molecules bound together. Interesting. And that's the one that I use, 400 milligrams a day. Vitamin B2 or riboflavin?
00:30:36
Speaker
is required to produce the pyrodoxic acid from vitamin B6, which is a form of B6 that your body can actually use. And it's required to convert vitamin A retinol to retinoic acid that your body can use. And it's required to convert tryptophan to vitamin B3 or niacin. Speaking of niacin, vitamin B3.
00:31:04
Speaker
Vitamin B3 is required to catabolize fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and alcohol. It's involved in cell signaling and DNA repair. It helps convert NADH into the primary carrier of electrons and transfer food from your diet into energy that's stored as adenosine triphosphate. And it boosts the production of nitric oxide, which relaxes your blood vessels and increases
00:31:33
Speaker
blood flow like cerebral blood flow. It also acts as an antioxidant which helps eliminate free radicals that can damage brain cells and it is a cofactor in the production of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Vitamin B5, pentathenic acid. It is essential for the synthesis of acetylcholine. You cannot make acetylcholine without vitamin B5.
00:32:02
Speaker
It's also used to make adenosine triphosphate. It's involved in the Krebs cycle within mitochondria. It's a precursor to the synthesis of coenzyme A, which is involved in the synthesis of the neurotransmitters acetylcholine, epinephrine, and serotonin. Vitamin B6 is a required enzyme for the synthesis of dopamine, epinephrine, GABA, melatonin, norepinephrine, and serotonin.
00:32:31
Speaker
Vitamin B7 or biotin influences the use of branched-chain amino acids in the synthesis of the release of serotonin from tryptophan and tyrosine from phenylalanine. And as a co-enzyme is required for the synthesis of fatty acids for the energy production in your brain. Vitamin B9, folate. This is a really important B vitamin.
00:32:59
Speaker
It functions as a co-enzyme in the single carbon transfers into the synthesis of DNA and RNA, and it converts homocysteine to methionine, which is used in the synthesis of SAMe. Folate is also involved in gene expression, amino acid synthesis, myelin synthesis, and is required
00:33:21
Speaker
for the synthesis of dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Vitamin B12 or methylcobalamin is a cofactor in the synthesis of dopamine, GABA, norepinephrine, and serotonin. That's the reason why these B vitamins are so critical.
Choosing the Right Supplements
00:33:40
Speaker
If you're lacking any one of these B vitamins, you've got problems.
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it was for B1 or B2, did you say that it's required for the conversion of B6 into the usable form in the body. So the point there is
00:34:02
Speaker
Being deficient in one B vitamin can actually cause deficiencies in other B vitamins That's why they're so important to take as a B complex and because a lot I know a lot of folks will just take a folate or just a B B12 and they can hide doses of B12 on their own can actually cause quite quite significant imbalances in
00:34:27
Speaker
I think it was in the trans-sulfuration pathways, in the methylation pathways as well. It messes up methylation. I recommend that people get a really high quality multivitamin that uses bioactive forms of each of the vitamins and minerals. And as you get older, it helps also to use a B complex.
00:34:49
Speaker
like a really highly bioactive VP complex. One of the things you gotta watch out for in these vitamins is when you go into the vitamin shop, you can go to your local supermarket for heaven's sakes to buy vitamins, right? They're all over the place. Most of them are synthetic. And for example, folic acid or folate, most multivitamins that you pick up off the shelf in the supermarket or at your local pharmacy,
00:35:18
Speaker
and you turn it around, you look at the supplement facts label, the quickest way to judge the quality of a multivitamin or a B-complex supplement is what kind of B9 is in there. If it's folic acid, put it back on the shelf. If it's folate or methyl folate, that's a winner, that's a keeper because chances are the rest of the supplement is also bioactive. The problem with folic acid,
00:35:48
Speaker
it's in everything. It's in processed foods. It's in baby food. It's in everywhere you look. There is folic acid. And so we are overrun with folic acid and a lot of the food that we eat. And the idea is that our bodies can easily convert folic acid into methyl folate that our bodies can use. The problem is that does not happen.
00:36:14
Speaker
for a lot of people, like me. I can't convert this stuff. And so what happens is folic acid just goes in and it plugs up folate receptors.
Choline and Cognitive Enhancement
00:36:24
Speaker
It occupies folate receptors so that when you actually get real folate, real folate has got nothing to bind to.
00:36:33
Speaker
I'm so glad you brought this up because I just finished a video course for parents for choosing high quality supplements for their children and this is something I really harped on about the importance of picking multivitamins with methylcobalamin as the B12 and
00:36:56
Speaker
I'm so glad that you brought that up because I'm going blue in the face harping on about this, but it cannot be emphasized enough, so I'm glad. I agree with you 100, 200%.
00:37:13
Speaker
Awesome. There's so much garbage out there in the supplement market. You literally just quoted what I said in my course. This was my warning to parents, be careful, there's so much garbage out there. That's exactly what I said. There really is because it's easy to get into the supplement business and it's easy for... So when you go to their supermarket or you go to your local pharmacy, they've got white label, Walgreens has got their name on a supplement bottle.
00:37:40
Speaker
your local supermarket has got their name on a supplement bottle. I guarantee you, if you look at that supplement facts label, they're all synthetic vitamins and the minerals are ground up rock. Literally ground up rock. Chalk and stuff like magnesium oxide. Your body cannot use this enough. You end up excreting it all.
00:38:02
Speaker
vitamin commercials that I love because they actually have no idea what they've done, but there is a cheap multivitamin called Centrum. I hope these guys don't sue me because of this podcast, but this commercial actually has a, I don't know what you call it, but the image of a person, a man or a woman
00:38:26
Speaker
all made out of vitamin pills, right? And I'm going, that's exactly what happens when you use a supplement like that.
00:38:35
Speaker
He ends up just vitamin pills that you end up crapping out or excreting in urine and your system cannot use these things. Absolutely. This cannot be emphasized enough the importance of a high quality vitamin, high quality collated minerals and non-rock minerals.
00:38:58
Speaker
That was really, really valuable for folks and I think this podcast will make a great reference. I'm going to write up some good show notes there for folks, maybe even turn it into an article and link to your website. I think that will really, really go well with this discussion. But okay, tell me...
00:39:16
Speaker
Tell me now, so you also said alpha GPC would be one of your top five. Can you tell folks what is the difference between alpha GPC and CDP choline? And what is the importance of choline in just for brain function? That's a good question. I actually have this in pretty exquisite detail.
00:39:44
Speaker
on several, actually two or three different articles on a nootropics expert. And if you, I've got one article called the advanced guide to, the advanced guide to acetylcholine supplements in nootropics facts.
00:40:07
Speaker
And maybe, did my camera just shut off? No, still see you. Okay. Maybe preamble, preamble the, the Colleen discussion with, uh, acetylcholine. This, uh, it's, it's not a well-known neurotransmitter like dopamine serotonin. So maybe let's preamble what's up with acetylcholine. Why is it so important for men memory learning focus and why do we want to boost it?
00:40:34
Speaker
Probably the simplest way to think about acetylcholine is when you move your arm or you move your leg or you move your lips that signal comes from acetylcholine and It works the same way in your brain except you don't have muscles in your brain But you have nerve cells in your brain and those nerve cells are called neurons And so rather than moving a muscle in your brain it actually helps the rest of your brain with brain cells signaling
00:41:03
Speaker
And a lack of acetylcholine, you'll suffer from learning and memory problems. Autopsies of Alzheimer's patients, for example. One of the big problems with Alzheimer's is a lack of acetylcholine, which is the reason why one of the drugs that they use for treating Alzheimer's is an inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase.
00:41:30
Speaker
And acetylcholinesterase is the enzyme that degrades acetylcholine once your brain uses it under normal conditions. But in unique conditions where you want to boost the acetylcholine that's already in your brain but is not being used by your brain, if you inhibit that enzyme, it forces that acetylcholine out into the extracellular space so that your brain can use it.
00:41:56
Speaker
And so alpha G, we'll talk about the two main ones that I recommend are alpha GPC and CDP coiling. Alpha GPC is, hang on for a second.
00:42:26
Speaker
It increases acetylcholine production by the activation of a protein called choline acetyltransferase, and it increases glucose uptake in your brain. That process of more acetyl-CoA is used in the production of acetylcholine.
00:42:43
Speaker
And when you take alpha GPC as a supplement, it goes directly to your brain and starts to help in the production of making acetylcholine. CDP choline is a little bit different because it, let me look at my notes for this because when you swallow a capsule of CDP choline,
00:43:12
Speaker
when it gets into your digestive system, it separates into choline and uridine. And then when it gets to your brain, it's converted back into CDP choline. And that CDP choline then throws off a choline molecule for the synthesis of acetylcholine.
00:43:42
Speaker
Now the added benefit of using CDB choline rather than alpha GPC is with the citadine because citadine can convert into uridine, which is critical in your brain because uridine is needed in the synthesis of phosphatidylcholine, which if you remember is one of the important phospholipids that keeps our brain cell membranes healthy.
00:44:03
Speaker
Right? Alpha GPC on the other hand, it occurs naturally and if you don't take it as a supplement, it still occurs in your brain. It naturally occurs as a byproduct of phosphatidylcholine. So when your brain needs more choline, the choline floating around your brain is running low. It breaks down phosphatidylcholine from cell membranes. It turns it into alpha GPC so that it can be used to make acetylcholine.
00:44:32
Speaker
So your body and brain love it when you use Alpha GPC because it doesn't have to cannibalize its own cells to get more choline. Regarding Alpha GPC and City Choline, would you say it would be more beneficial to take instead of 500 milligrams of either one, would it be better to combine, let's say 250 milligrams of Alpha GPC and 250 milligrams of City Choline and take that every day?
00:44:59
Speaker
rather than only buying one product and sticking with one product? That's a good question. It depends. It really depends on the person because my experience has been that some people have more success with AlphaGPC and other people have more success with CV-colon. I personally find that both work for me. Each of them contribute to making a set of colon, but they come in on different parts of the pathway.
00:45:26
Speaker
And so I get my CDP choline from MineLab Pro, which I use every day. And then I have a separate alpha GPC supplement. But if somebody wanted to do that, sure, you just cut back your dose to half of what you would normally do for each one and use both of them. It is possible to make too much acetylcholine, which is not helpful.
Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Mitochondrial Energy
00:45:53
Speaker
But you have to use it more than once a day because the half-life on this stuff is only a few hours. And so if you want the full benefit of either one of these supplements, it's best to take a dose in the morning, another dose at noon. And then if you want to be good for the rest of the late afternoon and into the evening, another dose around four o'clock.
00:46:13
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. I didn't know that. So would you then, let's say I have an interview with you at about three, four in the afternoon. At what point would it be optimal to take my CDP calling? Would you say about a half an hour before the interview?
00:46:29
Speaker
So it metabolizes that quickly, right? Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's really good information. Thank you so much. I mean, already this interview is like, I will certainly be taking copious notes when I'm writing them up.
00:46:47
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit now for the other supplement you mentioned, which is acetyl-l-carnitine. What is the rationale behind including that in your top five that you mentioned earlier? There's two things that it does. One is l-carnitine is a cofactor in the synthesis of acetylcholine.
00:47:13
Speaker
Right. So you need the alkarnitine, except that alkarnitine can't cross the blood-brain barrier. So we use acetyl alkarnitine, which can cross the blood-brain barrier. So we need it to make acetylcholine. But the other thing that it does, it does several other things, but the other main thing that it does is it helps transport fatty acids into mitochondria
00:47:34
Speaker
they're used to make ATP or denosine triphosphate. And then once the fuel is made, it transports the oxidized garbage back out of the cell or back out of the mitochondria. So it helps going in and it helps coming out. When you take a look at a really good energy supplement, for example, you'll often find that
00:47:57
Speaker
It's got 750 milligrams of acetyl L-carnitine or L-car for short, lipoic acid or alpha lipoic acid or R-lipoic acid, which also contributes to making a denosine triphosphate and CoQ10 and PQQ. Those four supplements right there together provide a nice clean energy boost.
00:48:22
Speaker
It's not like drinking a Red Bull or a cup of coffee because you're making more adenosine triphosphate in mitochondria, which is your most fundamental source of energy,
Creatine and Cognitive Performance
00:48:31
Speaker
yeah? That's where your cells get their energy from is the adenosine triphosphate or ATP that's produced in mitochondria. So if you've got more mitochondria, that's good. And if the mitochondria that you do have are working properly to produce that fuel, that's good.
00:48:48
Speaker
there are several diseases that are attributed to mitochondrial dysfunction. And one of those dysfunctions is not being able to produce enough adenosine triphosphate.
00:49:00
Speaker
Absolutely. And the other thing about a nice clean energy stack like that, if you can feel the boost of energy, that means that things like your gut are working better, like definitely your brain is working better. Any time you improve mitochondrial function pretty much, because we need energy to do any function in the body, whether that's the immune system. Mitochondria is in every single cell in your body.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah. But the thing is, is that there's more mitochondria in each brain cell and in your heart than in the rest of your body. Your brain cell, each brain cell might have a thousand mitochondria in it. And other cells in your body might have a couple, you know? Yeah. But it really does, it affects the system wide.
00:49:47
Speaker
Let's talk about another supplement that I am recommending pretty much to anyone, everybody, and that is creatine. Now, can you tell us what benefits does creatine have for cognitive function, for mental performance? Creatine is involved in adenosine triphosphate or ATP production.
00:50:19
Speaker
So creatine as a nootropic, it actually recharges adenosine triphosphate, which is directly involved in things like producing packaging and secreting neurotransmitters. And so the real world value of that is a boost in things like intelligence and better memory. It facilitates faster thinking and it improves mood.
00:50:43
Speaker
And so creatine actually helps fuel adenosine triphosphate in your brain. Creatine is stored in your body as creatine phosphate or fossil creatine, and it's critical for creating adenosine triphosphate, which is synthesized in mitochondria.
00:51:06
Speaker
So ATP is your primary energy molecule that's used in your cells as energy. It's your body's natural fuel source. But ATP is broken down to produce the biochemical. So when ATP is broken down, it produces biochemical energy throughout your body, including your brain cells.
00:51:25
Speaker
But during this chemical process ATP loses one of its phosphate molecules and is changed into adenosine diphosphate or ADP. And this is where creatine steps in. So remember that creatine is stored in your body as creatine phosphate.
00:51:43
Speaker
it recharges adenosine diphosphate by donating a phosphate molecule to ADP, which produces more ATP or adenosine triphosphate, which can be used to make more energy.
00:51:58
Speaker
Right. So taking three to five grams a day, basically most people, it will take a while to saturate their cells with creatine. And it's literally just your maintenance dose. It is probably, unless you want to have some bodybuilding goals, there's probably no reason to, to stack it, uh, to, um, uh, you know, do those early protocols where you do five days of 20 grams per day. There's probably no need to do that, right?
00:52:25
Speaker
I don't think there is. The recommended nootropic dosage for creatine is five grams a day. And the form to buy too, there's all kinds of creatine supplements on the market. You've got creatine nitrates and ethyl esters and malate and HCLs and others. And I just tell people stick with creatine monohydrate in powder form. Just the most basic form.
00:52:54
Speaker
As long as it's the micronized Crea pure monohydrate, I think that's the best one that the most research has been done on that one. And as a dietary source, you get creatine from wild game and other sources include red meat and certain fish.
00:53:14
Speaker
So it's especially important for vegetarians, vegans, I would say. Absolutely true.
Exploring Racetams
00:53:20
Speaker
Let's move on to, I don't think any discussion of new tropics would be complete unless we cover the Racetam family. Can you give folks an overview of what are Racetams and how can they be, how can they, you know,
00:53:42
Speaker
make part of a really solid nootropic stack? Well, you don't need racetams to make a really good nootropic stack, but they do help. Where the racetams come from is back in 1963, there was a Romanian biochemist named Dr. Cornelius Gurgu.
00:54:09
Speaker
And he developed pyrazotam. And so it's considered the very first nootropic that was ever developed. It was synthesized by Dr. Gugueyo at UCB Pharma in 1964. And so pyrazotam is a cyclic derivative of GABA, right?
00:54:30
Speaker
And Dr. Gageya intended this first nootropic to be a calming type of drug for motion sickness. I think it was because early days in the cosmonaut program. But it turns out that's not what happened. Instead, Dr. Gageya found that paracetam was able to boost cognition even in healthy people. And it works by modulating AMPA and NMDA receptors in your brain, which increases the effectiveness of glutamate.
00:54:57
Speaker
And that improves the flow of acetylcholine and sensitivity and density of acetylcholine receptors. And it increases cerebral blood flow or your brain's blood flow. And so then about, that was the start. It wasn't called nootropics yet at that stage. It was just, paracetam was a compound that Dr. Guella had invented in the lab.
00:55:22
Speaker
but it took off and the people in Russia and other European countries started using it very successfully in treating various diseases. And so labs around the world started monkeying around with that core that the racetams are made from. And so since then, there's probably two dozen racetams
00:55:51
Speaker
And here in America and most Western countries, there's seven RAS attempts that are considered nootropics that are fairly widely used.
00:56:01
Speaker
They include pyaracetam, anaracetam, cholaracetam, nepharacetam, oxiracetam, phenylparacetam, and pramaracetam. And so then where the word neutropic came from was in because this class of drugs started to take off, Dr. Guggeu decided that he was going to, he was gonna name this class of drugs.
00:56:28
Speaker
And he came up with the word, nootropic, which comes from the Greek, new, for mind, entropane, to bend, so to bend the mind. So the word nootropic was coined in 1973. And then aniracetam is my favorite one. It was invented at
00:56:51
Speaker
Hoffman LaRoche in Germany in 1978. And it's a fat-soluble ampicene nootropic, like most of them are ampicene nootropics. And aniracetam boosts brain cells signaling by increasing the effectiveness of glutamate, which helps focus in concentration. Aniracetam helps release two to 300% more acetylcholine in your brain.
00:57:18
Speaker
which helps with focus, clarity of thought, memory, and recall. And it seems to have an effect on dopamine and serotonin receptors in your brain as well. And so it distinguishes itself from the rest of the racetams as acting more as an effect of anxiolytic. So I use it for two reasons. One, because it's an anxiolytic or anti-anxiety.
00:57:41
Speaker
And two, I find that my thought is more fluid and it's fast. I use it, for example, just before this podcast. I took about 1,000 milligrams with some alpha GDC. I took some as well, actually. Pardon? Funny enough. I also took some before we started. There you go. So we're both on aniracetam. Yeah. So and then there's color acetam. Now, each of these acetams work differently.
00:58:10
Speaker
Right. Chloracetam, it boosts your brain's ability to convert choline to acetylcholine through the high affinity choline uptake process or HACU process, which leads to better learning and memory. The reason why it was named chloracetam is not only does it affect cognition, but it also seems to affect color perception.
00:58:37
Speaker
Interesting. And when you use it, colors are much more vivid and vibrant. So maybe good for artists? Yeah, it'd be fantastic for artists.
00:58:47
Speaker
Graphic designers, wow. And then there's nepharacetam. Oxiracetam seems to be a popular one. It was developed in 1977. It enhances choline acetyltransferase in your brain, which makes more acetylcholine. It helps with things like short-term memory and long-term memory and eliminating brain fog.
00:59:11
Speaker
And it, oxiracetam also seems to help mood. And then phenylparacetam was created by adding a phenyl group to pyracetam by Russian scientists in 1983 to boost the physical and mental performance of cosmonauts during space flight. And it's currently used by Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station. It turns out that phenylparacetam is very effective in boosting athletic performance.
00:59:37
Speaker
It provides a significant stimulatory effects and it helps you to resist the cold. So the world anti-doping agency has banned phenylparacetam from athletes in the Olympics and other professional sports. And then the last one on the list is primaracetam. That was first synthesized by scientists at Park Davis in the late 1970s.
01:00:02
Speaker
It, too, boosts high affinity choline uptake, which was found to have a profound effect on the synthesis of acetylcholine. Unlike some of the other acetams, primer acetam does not directly influence GABA, dopamine, or norepinephrine, or serotonin in your brain. So it's not a good choice if you're looking to improve things like mood and anxiety.
01:00:27
Speaker
But many neurohackers report that paramoracetam quickly provides an intense increase in focus and for some even a boost in confidence. So it's reported to be great for intense, long study sessions, for example, or when you face logical attention-based tasks where you need really sharp focus. And others report improved recall, fluidity of thought, and ease of verbal communication and numerical calculations.
01:00:58
Speaker
So the question is, which racetam is best for you? That's what I was going to ask you. Right. Well, each of the racetams share a pyro, I can't even pronounce it, pyrolidone nucleus core. And some have similarities like boosting acetylcholine and modulating, modulating glutamate in your brain. But each racetam also has a unique mechanism of action providing its unique benefits.
Aniracetam: Dosage and Combinations
01:01:25
Speaker
Now all of these are considered non-toxic and safe to use if you follow the dosage recommendations. So if you're just starting out and you don't want to try something safe, you might want to try pyrazotam. The thing is though that you need a lot of it for it to work. Like the recommended dosage is 1600 milligrams three times a day.
01:01:47
Speaker
If you're a student, you might want to try nepharacetam or oxaracetam or primaracetam and anaracetam I love because it's a very effective anxiolytic and it helps relieve anxiety and depression
01:02:03
Speaker
So yeah, so I've only tried, personally, piracetam, I love, and aniracetam. And I think for me, piracetam, for things like verbal fluency for talking, so if you're presenting or things like that, even though it's the first one, the least strong in terms of those you need to take, I take maybe
01:02:30
Speaker
to one, two a day, so that's like up to 2,400 milligrams. But I find that really, really useful. Have you tried other than aniracetam? What other nootropics have you tried? Which other iracetams have you tried, David? And what's kind of your qualitative, you know,
01:02:53
Speaker
I've tried several of them. One I can remember trying because I was really curious is phenylparacetam, the one that's banned by the Olympics, and I can't use it. I don't know what it is about that particular racetam, but I reacted not really negatively badly to it, but I just didn't feel good. And I knew instantly that it wasn't the racetam for me.
01:03:17
Speaker
I think I've tried color acetam and oxiracetam at some stage, but I can't remember what happened with those. But I just remember that and I kept, I've been using aniracetam every single day for the last 12 years. Wow. And what's your dosage? I use a thousand milligrams twice a day. Okay. Morning and noon. Or if there's a special occasion, like a podcast, I'll take a thousand milligrams right before the podcast.
01:03:47
Speaker
But remember, these things are fat soluble and they boost a set of choline. So the two things you have to do if you're using iracetam or it's not going to work. You've got to use a choline supplement like alpha GPC or CDP choline. So for example, if you're using 1,750 milligrams as a standard dose for an iracetam,
01:04:07
Speaker
You would take 300 milligrams of alpha GPC or CDP choline and you need a fat source because it's fat soluble and That's the reason why you see supplement some supplement levels saying take this with a meal
01:04:24
Speaker
Right or some take it with water They say take it with a meal because the assumption is that you'll have healthy fats in that meal that will What happens is fat in the meal or fat from something like I use a tablespoon of unrefined coconut oil or MCT oil works just as good, but it activates certain enzymes Produced by your pancreas in your gut so that you can break down the fats so that they can they can get into your bloodstream So they can be used
01:04:54
Speaker
Interesting. So if you don't have a fat source, it's just going to be excreted out. And if you don't use a cooling supplement, you'll end up with a headache. It's called a racetam headache. So it's a strange kind of headache. That's really important information. Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:10
Speaker
the coding source, but just why I think I'm using it wrong. I just wanted to mention this. I've been taking anarastem sublingually. So under the tongue, do you think I'm not optimizing my absorption that way? Probably not. Yeah. What if I have fats running in my system from a meal, let's say an hour or two ago,
01:05:37
Speaker
You know, it may, it may, but, you know, there are certain supplements that it makes a lot of sense to use sublonioli. The racetams are just not one of them. Okay, I'll definitely try it a different way tomorrow and see if, I'm assuming it will be different with mayo, I'll take it with a bit of butter or MCT oil like you do. MCT oil or unrefined coconut oil works great.
01:06:02
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, I have both. So awesome. All right. Um, what about any special mentions? What, uh, what have we not covered that you are really fond of David? Um, I think one really important one to talk about right now because of COVID-19 is corsetin. Okay. Because corsetin has been shown in clinical studies as well as practical use to reduce the symptoms of COVID-19.
01:06:33
Speaker
which is kind of a big deal during this pandemic. Just as a standard of what quercetin is, is it's a flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols found in many different plants. So you can get quercetin from foods like capers and buckwheat and radish leaves and dill and cilantro and onions and radishio. It's also found in some herbal nootropic supplements like ginkgo biloba in St. John's wort.
01:06:59
Speaker
So, it's one of the most abundantly consumed flavonoids in your diet. It's estimated that the average person consumes anywhere from 0 to 30 milligrams of quercetin per day. But you need more than that if you want to get a nootropic benefit from it or if you want to tame the symptoms of COVID-19. And what would be the standard? A standard dose is 500 milligrams twice a day.
01:07:25
Speaker
And working with a doctor is best if you're dealing with something like COVID-19 up to three grams a day. How I found out about it is interesting. I went up for just a physical checkup with a doctor here, Dr. Moskowitz, a few weeks ago, and I just asked him about what his experience was with COVID-19.
01:07:49
Speaker
and his eyes lit up and he said, of course it did. And this guy, he brought out a file folder with a stack of loose leaf paper with handwritten notes. It was like looking at a clinical study in his raw form, yeah, before it was published. And he showed me of 18 of his patients that had COVID-19, 16 of them recovered within a couple of days.
01:08:18
Speaker
of using three grams per day, along with vitamin C and zinc. And two of them died because they refused to take it. Oh my God. What do you think is the mechanism that quercetin, it's a fat soluble compound,
Quercetin and Health Benefits
01:08:32
Speaker
isn't it? It's a fat soluble compound. It seems to, there was a Chinese study that was done that showed that quercetin bound with the spike protein in the coronavirus, that reduced its ability to infect cells.
01:08:48
Speaker
Interesting. I've heard a lot of good stuff about Corstin. It's actually pretty high up on my list to add to the supplement regime. Well, before COVID, it was used by people that knew about it. I didn't even know about it, but people that knew about it use it for reducing blood pressure, it boosts immunity, it fights inflammation. It's really effective in combating allergies. Some people say that it's better than using prescription antihistamines.
01:09:16
Speaker
Wow. That's so good to know. I find that since my wife used to complain about my snoring, and since I've started using quercetin, my snoring is not nearly as bad, she tells me. Interesting. And the other thing is I find that I can breathe easier, and my lungs just feel clearer. Right. Now, another thing that quercetin is unique in is that it helps heal a leaky brain or a leaky gut.
01:09:48
Speaker
It has the unique ability to increase clodin-4, which is one of the proteins that seals tight junctions. The apotheal lining of cells that line your blood vessels where you're trying to block stuff from your gut going into your bloodstream, or block it from going into your bloodstream into your brain,
01:10:11
Speaker
has a thing called, the technical term of it is called tight junction. That's what it's called, tight junction. And tight junction is made up of a couple of proteins and one of those is Clodin-4. And if you don't have enough Clodin-4, you end up with a leaky gut or a leaky brain. And if you increase Clodin-4, you heal that tight junction and you end up healing a leaky gut or a leaky blood brain barrier.
01:10:38
Speaker
Wow. Isn't that cool? I will be doing a lot of, yeah, that's amazing. I'll be doing a lot of investigation into this because, you know, you're, you're not the only one that has a lot of good things to say about, of course, especially about things like inflammation, but now this gut benefit that you just mentioned, that is absolutely incredible. So we'll definitely be investigating that. Yeah.
01:11:04
Speaker
It also helps prevent things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's as well too. And it boosts testosterone. Come on. Are you going to tell me it does my taxes too?
01:11:18
Speaker
It doesn't do your taxes, no. It won't bring you a cup of coffee. But there is an enzyme called UGT2B1-7. And it's an enzyme that converts testosterone and testosterone glucuronide, which is then excreted out of your body through urine. Quercetin has been shown to inhibit UGT2B1-7 activity by as much as 72% in lab studies.
01:11:48
Speaker
which means that supplementing with quercetin as anotropic may slow down the excretion of testosterone and in turn boost blood levels of testosterone.
Dopamine, Serotonin, and Balance
01:11:58
Speaker
And it inhibits aromatase, which is the enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen. So it's an aromatase inhibitor. That's very, very interesting as well.
01:12:11
Speaker
Oh yeah, I'm going to have to dig into this research. That is amazing. What other compounds should folks know about? I know there's a big list you have, but
01:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, there is. Well, you know what people can do if they go to NeutropicsExpert.com, pretty much everywhere you look, there's a box where you can sign up for a newsletter. And when you do that, you can download a free copy of Secrets of the Optimized Brain, which is this list.
01:12:45
Speaker
And the third edition is out now. So you can download it as a PDF, but it's got the name of the supplement.
01:12:59
Speaker
Basically, why we use it as a nootropic, where it comes from, and dosage recommendations. So, a little blurb on each supplement. So, it's got 92, I think, nootropics in this book. It's a really valuable little book. You get it for free.
01:13:19
Speaker
You know, dopamine, the easiest way to raise dopamine is by L-tyrosine. One of the things that people forget, let's talk about serotonin for a minute. Serotonin is important because it's an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It's got to be in balance with dopamine.
01:13:38
Speaker
it makes you feel good. Right. And people try to increase and a lot of antidepressants work on there as serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Yeah. And so their first, their instinct is to use five HTP.
01:13:55
Speaker
to boost serotonin, which is not a good idea because the way it works is L-tryptophan to 5-HTP to serotonin to melatonin. And I found that when you use a direct precursor, it's a lot more difficult to control dosage.
01:14:20
Speaker
And clinical studies have shown that if you're trying to use 5-HTP for depression, it works like gangbusters for about four weeks and then it stops working. But L-Tryptophan does not do that. You take 500 milligrams of L-Tryptophan before you go to sleep. It turns into, it helps, so it increases serotonin. It eventually turns into melatonin, so it helps you sleep and you feel good the next morning.
01:14:49
Speaker
Why do you think that is, David? My speculation in this case is that because serotonin and dopamine need to be in balance, if you're using high doses of 5-HTP, you increase serotonin so much that you depress dopamine. Right.
01:15:10
Speaker
That makes sense. Oh, I've actually, yes, I have seen, um, I forgot the name of the doctors whose book I read that he said he always gives, uh, five HTP with tyrosine together because there's some mechanism where if you, if you only add one, the, basically the other one is excreted somehow through the system. I forgot exactly what they use the same enzyme for the conversion process. Uh-huh.
01:15:42
Speaker
That's one thing. Right. But yeah, it's dopamine and serotonin. People get into trouble with this all the time. They boost serotonin too much or they boost dopamine too much and they can't figure out why they feel like crap. It works for a while and all of a sudden it doesn't stop working and they feel horrible. And the reason why is because things go out of whack, they're out of balance.
01:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, 5-HTP is one supplement that I always tell people, listen, work with a practitioner because there's certain people that just don't respond well to it. And I think that's probably even better than the case you were talking about where folks, it works gangbusters for four weeks and then it doesn't. I think that can cause harm more than
01:16:33
Speaker
You take it once, you feel crap, you stop taking it, you stay away from it. The other one, then it's difficult. You start trying to think what could it be and you won't think it's something you've been taking for the last three, four weeks, for example.
Taurine's Role in Brain Health
01:16:47
Speaker
I think that's important. If it stops working, you try taking more. Oh, yes. Is what people typically do and it just makes matters worse. Yeah.
01:16:56
Speaker
I'm glad you brought that up, that's very important. What about, one favorite of mine is taurine. What would you use that cyclically or at all in your program? I use taurine every day as an anti-aging supplement.
01:17:16
Speaker
Really? It functions as a neurotransmitter on its own and as a neuromodulator in your brain. So it is actually a neurotransmitter. It also activates GABA and glycine receptors, which affects memory and mood and it prevents seizures. Taurine also protects brain cells by reducing intracellular free calcium concentrations.
01:17:42
Speaker
And it's a potent antioxidant, it protects from mitochondrial dysfunction, it modulates energy metabolism with cells, it modulates genes to induce longevity, it inhibits cellular stress associated with Alzheimer's, and it acts as a quality control in brain cell health and it protects against stroke. Taurine also increases stem cells and progenitor cells in your brain, including
01:18:08
Speaker
your hippocampus and it increases the survival of newborn neurons. So I've got clinical studies showing a taurine for autism, taurine helping ADHD, taurine for OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder, and taurine for epilepsy.
01:18:34
Speaker
That is awesome. I was thinking of taking a break after the current packet. I buy it by the half kilogram. I was thinking of taking a break from it after the current one finishes, but I certainly will be ordering more of that stuff. I don't think it's necessary to take a break. Most nootropics, you don't need a cycle. You don't need to take a break from as long as you use recommended dosage.
Conclusion and Resources
01:19:00
Speaker
That is so important. Because it's easy to think that if something is good in X dose, then 2X that dose is going to be better. And there's definitely the diminishing return curve that a lot of these things have. Oh, nearly everything. That's absolutely true. Yeah. And you're wasting money as well that way. Yeah. And you're just not doing your health any favors. Yeah.
01:19:27
Speaker
David, I want to thank you so much for joining us today. I almost have a feeling that we barely scratched the surface here, even though we covered the most important things. I feel like maybe we could do another episode if you wish at another point. And yeah, I think there's so many more, more things we can cover. But, um, before we go, please tell folks how they can, uh, find you on the internet, social media, your, you know, plug any books or services you do, et cetera, please.
01:19:56
Speaker
Okay. Uh, you can just Google David Toman and I'm all over the front page of the search results, or you can Google new tropics or new tropics expert, um, or go to directly to new tropics expert.com. I'll have the links there. And, uh, the same thing with YouTube. Um, I've got a very, um, active YouTube channel.
01:20:21
Speaker
that just start in the search box at YouTube, start typing in new tropics and new tropics experts should pop up to the top. I've got 65 or 70,000 subscribers on the website and I've got I think 120 videos on that channel. So there's hours and hours and hours of videos if you prefer videos over reading.
01:20:44
Speaker
On the website, there are links to the free download for Secrets of the Optimized Brain, which is a nice little freebie to have. And I have a book called Headfirst. Headfirst is like a manual for your brain. It's almost 600 pages. Wow. And for now, it's only available in digital form. It's available for Kindle or iPad or you can download it as a PDF if you want.
01:21:13
Speaker
But it's the first book published on Neutropics like it since 1992. So the feedback on it has been really good. I'm working on the second edition now and I'm not sure when that'll come out hopefully in the first or the second quarter, probably the second quarter of this year.
01:21:33
Speaker
It's where people tell me that it's worth having I also do personal consultations for people that are having problems trying to figure this stuff out on their own or they just want to
01:21:45
Speaker
And this could be somebody who's completely new to Neutropics or I have geeks that are, have been using this stuff for decades and they just want input on a new way of looking at it or some help tweaking their stack. So I do one hour consultations is probably the most effective. We can't cover enough and a half an hour, but one hour is best. So that's available for people. That's awesome.
01:22:15
Speaker
And there is a Facebook page, too, that is not terribly active because I don't spend enough time on it. As soon as I hire myself a social media manager, that will change. But YouTube and the website are the biggest ones right now. And I've got to sign up. When you sign up, I've got a newsletter that comes out two or three times a week.
01:22:37
Speaker
Great. Yeah, I signed up earlier today, so I'm looking forward to digging into that guide. And I'll certainly be getting this book. And you will be coming out with a paperback or hardcover. The second edition will be a hardcover or paperback. The book is so useful that I wouldn't wait for it.
01:23:02
Speaker
Get the digital copy, but yeah, my intention is I'm working with a publisher right now so that it will see a hardcover version in the next edition. Yeah, absolutely. I think this is one of the books that I just want as a reference on my bookshelf as well. Yeah, it's not meant to be red cover to cover, that's for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
01:23:27
Speaker
I'll have all the links to your books, to your YouTube channel, to your website, etc. For folks, I'm sure many people listening will be checking that out. I'm really looking forward to connecting with you again in the future.
01:23:46
Speaker
and discussing maybe specific topics. Maybe we don't even have to go for a full hour per topic, but if we do like 30, 40 minutes for a specific topic, let's say brain fog or anxiety, et cetera, et cetera, I feel like there's so much value we can provide there that it would be an ethical and a crime not to do it, basically.
01:24:15
Speaker
Well, let's do it then. Awesome. David, once again, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me, Christian. It was a fantastic and a pleasure meeting you and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for listening to Connecting Minds.
01:24:40
Speaker
We hope you enjoyed this conversation and found it interesting, illuminating, or inspiring. For episode show notes, links, and further information on our guests, please visit christianjordanov.com. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with someone who might also enjoy it. Thank you for being here.