2844 replies to this topic

[Phiaq]

CDP-Choline and Alpha-GPC seem to be stimulants/stimulating. I don't like stimulating noots. Is PC a good alternative?

Edited by x74x61, 27 September 2012 - 05:21 PM.

[Phiaq]

CDP-Choline and Alpha-GPC seem to be stimulants/stimulating. I don't like stimulating noots. Is PC a good alternative?

Ladies and gentlemen... please! I'm looking for a good choline source that doesn't directly interfere with brain metabolism but is rather a naturally occuring nutrient and reaches the brain in a milder way.

[Raza]

Then PC is great. It'll work well enough for purposes of this stack, but less of what you consume will reach your brain than with CDP or Alpha-GPC, so you'll need to dose accordingly.

[hephaestus]

I believe ACh is excitatory at skeletal muscle and inhibitory in the CNS, so CDP and GPC are not stimulants. Taking more than 300mg of GPC in the morning tends to make me feel quite foggy actually. I do recall reading that CDP and GPC increase d2 receptor density. What is it you're worried about exactly?

Edited by hephaestus, 29 September 2012 - 05:20 PM.

[Phiaq]

Then PC is great. It'll work well enough for purposes of this stack, but less of what you consume will reach your brain than with CDP or Alpha-GPC, so you'll need to dose accordingly.

Thanks

I believe ACh is excitatory at skeletal muscle and inhibitory in the CNS, so CDP and GPC are not stimulants. Taking more than 300mg of GPC in the morning tends to make me feel quite foggy actually.

Then why does DMAE make me feel so restless and even sleepless? Doesnt that increase ACh as well?

[hephaestus]

I don't know much about how DMAE works, other than that it is somehow cholinergic. I read a study recently suggesting that elevated ACh during sleep interferes with memory consolidation, so it is better to take any cholinergic early in the morning.

[hephaestus]

I was just reading the wiki article on galantamine, an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, and it mentions that people use it as a sleep aid.

Edited by hephaestus, 29 September 2012 - 08:07 PM.

[Colli]

I was just reading the wiki article on galantamine, an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, and it mentions that people use it as a sleep aid.

I've never heard of Galantamine being used as a sleep aid per se, although it does seem to have attracted a fair degree of attention from those interested in lucid dreaming.

[Raza]

I believe ACh is excitatory at skeletal muscle and inhibitory in the CNS, so CDP and GPC are not stimulants. Taking more than 300mg of GPC in the morning tends to make me feel quite foggy actually.

Then why does DMAE make me feel so restless and even sleepless? Doesnt that increase ACh as well?

Acetylcholine isn't easily described as inhibitive or stimulatory. In neurological terms, yes, but it doesn't match with what we're used to stimulation and inhibition feeling like. Increased levels can disrupt sleep in sensitive individuals.

DMAE is a pretty straightforward stimulant. I think it's reputation for increasing ACh turned out to be undeserved, but even if it does do that it's not it's main (most noticable) MoA.

[noopeptisgood]

MrHappy, why don't you edit the first post to have what you consider to be must-know information.

[Raza]

You can't edit posts that far back.

It's not a bad idea to ask a mod if he could have modding rights for this thread, though. They do that in some other subforums, and it'd be worth it for this epic thread.

[nupi]

DMAE is a pretty straightforward stimulant. I think it's reputation for increasing ACh turned out to be undeserved, but even if it does do that it's not it's main (most noticable) MoA.

As far as stimulants go, DMAE appears to have a rather bad risk profile http://www.longecity...e-it-sparingly/ (on the upside, it's easy to get )

Edited by nupi, 30 September 2012 - 09:19 AM.

[Phiaq]

So I thoroughly read this awesome thread up to page 12. Lacking the strength to read any further (or getting impatient), I hope I haven't missed anything important besides the B9 & B12 vitamin issue. I will order some UMP and see how it goes. I'll be taking 500mcg of B9 and 50mcg of B12 (cyanocobalamine) daily.

[stablemind]

So I thoroughly read this awesome thread up to page 12. Lacking the strength to read any further (or getting impatient), I hope I haven't missed anything important besides the B9 & B12 vitamin issue. I will order some UMP and see how it goes. I'll be taking 500mcg of B9 and 50mcg of B12 (cyanocobalamine) daily.

You should be taking it with a multivitamin that has trace minerals and fish oil with a high concentration of DHA.

[MrHappy]

MrHappy, why don't you edit the first post to have what you consider to be must-know information.

It's funny, I was talking about that a few days ago with Erstwhile.

[noopeptisgood]

So I received my CDP-choline today and it's great. I'm very constrained on funds so I want to know how to work with what I've got. I've taken two fish oil capsules on an empty stomach. I plan to take two of those a day or perhaps some flax seed oil instead.

I've got vitamins b6 and b12,and magnesium and zinc. I'm only missing folate, right? I've got my choice of food at my university's all you can eat cafeteria. Do you think I can get enough folate from high folate foods?

Do you think piracetam, in utilizing the choline from CDP-choline, would hinder the efficacy of the uridine?

[Raza]

Fish oil is best taken with meals; ideally something fatty, but without omega 6 polyunsaturates (ie, no seed oils). Animal fats work well. Flax seed oil isn't much of a replacement, I think.

And no, I don't think piracetam, with whatever it does to increase acetylcholine utilization, will hinder choline availability for this combo. IIRC, acetylcholine is broken down back into choline when it's active in the synapse (where piracetam seems to put more of it), which is why you run out of acetylcholine faster while on it... but that actually means ordinary choline, which is what this combo uses to make phosphatidylcholine cell membranes, should be more available.

It might work the other way around though, with acetylcholine running low even faster than with piracetam alone. But I wouldn't worry about that unless you get choline headaches or piracetam stops working.

'Course, I've pieced all of that together from posts on this forum, so I might have it wrong.

Edited by Raza, 01 October 2012 - 09:25 PM.

[noopeptisgood]

Why is fish oil best taken with a meal? I looked it up last night and it seemed that it was best absorbed on an empty stomach.

[Raza]

Then your sources disagree with my sources. *shrug*

I haven't read about the issue in depth, so I couldn't tell you why. It's just what I've read, in multiple places. None of them first-hand research though, so who knows.

[RJ100]

Amazing thread! But yes it would be great if there was a summarizing post. After reading it I'm unsure if I've connected all the dots.

Question - if I take sublingual Uridine should I take the co-factors beforehand? Taking them simultaneously means the Uridine enters the bloodstream immediately while the pills still have to pass through the stomach/intestines before they're bio-available. Seems like I'd want them there together.

[Renegade]

Amazing thread! But yes it would be great if there was a summarizing post.

I agree this would be great.

I ordered some uridine today and will be reporting my progress.

[noopeptisgood]

Then your sources disagree with my sources. *shrug*

I haven't read about the issue in depth, so I couldn't tell you why. It's just what I've read, in multiple places. None of them first-hand research though, so who knows.

I've found more sources saying that you're right. But not a whiff of a simple abstract of what seems to me a pertinent study.

Edited by noopeptisgood, 02 October 2012 - 07:56 PM.

[Raza]

I went looking after our exchange, and same here. I really wish all those 'health experts' with their biography pages and personal pictures beside every article would take the time to source all the contradictory crap they spewed. They seem altogether too focused on building myths of professional authority around themselves, and don't much seem to support the idea of end-readers educating themselves from scientific literature directly.

[MrHappy]

Amazing thread! But yes it would be great if there was a summarizing post.

I agree this would be great.

I ordered some uridine today and will be reporting my progress.

I've asked for mod access to this thread to make it easier to follow.

I went looking after our exchange, and same here. I really wish all those 'health experts' with their biography pages and personal pictures beside every article would take the time to source all the contradictory crap they spewed. They seem altogether too focused on building myths of professional authority around themselves, and don't much seem to support the idea of end-readers educating themselves from scientific literature directly.

Rule of thumb: water-soluble on an empty stomach, lipids with lipids.

[MrHappy]

Amazing thread! But yes it would be great if there was a summarizing post. After reading it I'm unsure if I've connected all the dots.

Question - if I take sublingual Uridine should I take the co-factors beforehand? Taking them simultaneously means the Uridine enters the bloodstream immediately while the pills still have to pass through the stomach/intestines before they're bio-available. Seems like I'd want them there together.

Your body has a store of b vitamins, so you just need to maintain that cache. Some of the other co-factors could, in theory, be optimised for delivery/timing if you wanted to. In reality, daily dosing would appear to work fine, so I've never bothered.

[Raza]

Rule of thumb: water-soluble on an empty stomach, lipids with lipids.

I was aware of that for water and lipid solubles, but it's not obvious to me that this generalizes to oils, themselves.

Good job requisting modding priviliges here, a good summary will really help here.

Edited by Raza, 03 October 2012 - 08:40 AM.

[MrHappy]

Rule of thumb: water-soluble on an empty stomach, lipids with lipids.

I was aware of that for water and lipid solubles, but it's not obvious to me that this generalizes to oils, themselves.

Good job requisting modding priviliges here, a good summary will really help here.

All good. I think it'll help a lot.

Also, oils = lipids, so it's all good - bundle it in with fatty foods.
http://biology.clc.u...o104/lipids.htm

[noopeptisgood]

Where in that link does it support the idea that fish oil should be taken with fatty foods?

[Raza]

I think there's a misunderstanding in play.

I understand that oils are lipids. What I meant is that I believed the rule of thumb to be "water solubles on an empty stomach, lipid solubles with fatty meals". I wasn't aware of any common, generalized knowledge telling us what to do when the supplement in question itself is an oil/lipid that shouldn't need to be dissolved in anything to be absorbed. "Lipids with lipids" appears to hold true enough, but I still don't know why.

That link does tell us that lipids like to stick together, but I don't think that explains it. The relationship between a substance that needs to be dissolved in a solvent that can pass the stomach/intestinal wall in order to be biologically active, isn't the same as the relationship between one lipid that should be able to pass that barrier on its own and other lipids it likes to group together with that will be making the same trip. Perhaps that situation does encourage more of the oil to make it in, but it's not obvious to me that it would.

Edited by Raza, 03 October 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[MrHappy]

According to the article below, oil-based supplements are better absorbed in the presence of triglycerides and bile salts, hence taking them with fatty food. http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC1176264/