^That's too bad. As a college student a LTP stack would help a lot. Can anyone think of an actual objective test for this?
I'm looking over this thread and it's kind of late. I don't really see any consistent results from this stack. The best responders are users who use ADD meds and the COMT activity of the compounds taken potentiate their ADD meds. The focus factor of this stack comes purely from the NE and DA inhibition AFAIK. The cAMP inhibition that should lead to greater conversion of STM's to LTM's hasn't been objectively verified. All I'm reading are subjective effects.
I've been lurking the forums for a little bit and thought I'd share my experiences with CILTEP after reading this thread all the way through the other day. Not being a trained neuroscientist, I'll leave my experiences mainly to subjective and speculative aims.
In short, the main effect I've found from forskolin+artichoke extract has been stimulant potentiation. It was mentioned by someone else that they were able to cut down their Adderall dosage substantially after starting CILTEP, and I've found a similar case with my caffeine intake. Inasmuch, the effects from caffeine also become more pronounced and focused - i.e., more as if I were on a prescription ADHD drug. I definitely experienced what Abelard Lindsey described - a strengthened ability to tackle topics like my math and econ. studies while maintaining relative fascination with the information. Khan lectures become easier to watch back-to-back, and I can read without distraction for longer. Actually, akin to when I've tried Adderal before, I can study for an hour or two straight without looking up or checking the time, and as such, time goes by much faster but with increased productivity.
Secondly, from reading this thread, conducting research on cAMP, and my own experiences, a dopaminergic effect seems to be one of the main factors at play. My motivation, drive and focus are markedly increased, but with a fairly serious side effect. In the first week, sleep quality was visibly deteriorating each night as I couldn't unwind at the end of the night - and even if I could, I'd wake up more frequently during sleep, and only muster 6 hours of mediocre rest before being unable to fall back asleep upon waking.
By the end of the first week of CILTEP, on top of this, I noticed some bruxism - clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth involuntarily, to the point wherhe a co-worker noticed while we were out at the bar and asked if I was taking Adderall. I take a daily dose of 200mg magnesium (glycinate and lysinate, Albion) but apparently this wasn't enough. Thus, when the lack of sleep really started to become performance-inhibiting and the bruxism had increased to the point where the corners of tongue were starting to get swollen and wounded from teeth gnashing, I took a spread out dosage of 1000mg Mg., and have since been increasing my daily dosage to 600-800mg a day. The initial 1000mg reversed my problems pretty quickly, and the subsequent dosing has made the CILTEP effect more manageable - i.e., prior, I'd work on a math problem and skip ahead 3 steps in my head but still come out to the right answer. This was cool, but I'm not particularly confident in my abilities given I've only restarted taking math courses after a 5 year hiatus, so the hasty thought processing was a little unwanted. Now, I don't quite do that as much.
The third mechanism that CILTEP seems to act on, and has only been partially discussed in this thread, is boosting testosterone levels. I believe it was zrbarnes who noticed the beneficial physical effects of increased lean mass and performance - this sounds much in line with what the bodybuilding world uses forskolin for. I've noticed the same, and being a fairly serious athlete myself, welcomed the effects, but I think in terms of mental performance, the boost in T could also give explanation behind motivation. Of course, this may be a simplistic conclusion.
I should probably mention what I take, in addition to magnesium, to synergise. (All supplements were started prior to CILTEP and added one-by-one to observe effects.) A few 500mg ALCAR dosages throughout the day seem to add to the stimulative effect, as does 2-3 sublingual coenzymated B-complex pills (one of my favorite supps., especially for focus and wakefulness). I take creatine @ 5g a day both for the physical and mental effects, and it seems to increase my working memory slightly. I also take Jarrow Green Tea extract for the caffeine, L-theanine, EGCG and catechins, usually 2 first thing in the morning (~80mg caffeine) with an espresso, and then more as needed as the espresso wears off. In the early afternoon I usually take a brief powernap or meditate while the caffeine wears away, and don't dose past 2pm ever due to how it affects my sleep later. Finally, I take ginkgo/gotu kola in tincture form and have found it to be mainly synergistic with CILTEP, at least for me (and is also among my favorite nootropics - much more consistently predictable than piracetam, although a tolerance seems to build in about a week's time). At night, I take L-tryptophan @ 500mg to boost melatonin.
Someone mentioned above that if you take CILTEP, you should cut out everything else at first to gauge effects. I'd be curious to know who's tried it without any form of stimulant or dopamine-boosting agent, as it'd seem to be much less useful in my view without. Additionally, it seems somewhat irresponsible to recommend CILTEP without taking adequate magnesium, at least in my experience.
Well I don't have to look further, just stumbled on this after my previous post. Ho-hum, just more dopamine, eh.
