bacopa

I got ahold of some bacopa. I'll see how well it works for me, if it does. It's another one of those supplements that promises both enhancements to intelligence and improvements of mood.

While in a book store, however, I skimmed a book about nootropics. The book gave to each substance scores both for efficacy and for health risk. Bacopa was rated as rather risky without evidence that it works. However, I'm willing to consider the bulk evidence of centuries of use as an indication it's probably safe, at least--as to whether it's effective for me, I hope to find out.

One interesting point of view is presented in the new book by Michael Pollan.

The idea is that nutritional science has been counterproductive, that right now what's good and bad about food is just too complicated for us to codify simply--other than that one should just eat the kinds of whole foods that have traditionally been eaten.

So I find myself looking both forward to new knowledge, and also backwards as Pollan does, to traditional foods and remedies.