Limitless?

The movie and subsequent TV show Limitless introduced millions of people to the concept of nootropics

It sparked an explosive growth of a new industry marketing chemical substances as cognitive enhancers or smartdrugs, promising an unfair advantage.

Where's the catch?

Romanian psychologist and chemist Corneliu E. Giurgea coined the term “nootropic” in 1972

It is derived from the Ancient Greek words νόος, meaning “mind”, and τροπή, meaning “a turning”.

Giurgea synthesized piracetam in the 1950ies, one of the first putative nootropics:

While piracetam's potential for cognitive enhancement seems very limited, it's only one of hundreds of substances vendors sell on the internet. Many of these novel substances have only been tested on rats.

Some of them are as obscure as they come and without *any* safety data.

This is where biohackers come into play.

They experiment with untested combinations (so-called stacks) of up to ~20 substances and post their real-life experiences as “anecdotal evidence” on @reddit boards like /r/Nootropics or /r/Biohackers/. Don't try that at home, kids!

Some vendors circumvent national regulations by hosting their webshops on offshore-servers or declaring their products as #researchchemicals for legitimate medical facilities—without actually checking who's buying.

When someone gets hurt, there's no accountability whatsoever.

The global nootropics market size is projected to reach $5-25 billion in a few years. It's a money printing machine with high margins. I spent some time online chatting with different vendors to gain their trust. Most of them openly admitted to not having any quality checks.

Most stuff is ordered in bulk from labs in China. A vendor I talked to claimed he could buy fake “Certificates of Authenticity” (CoA) for a little extra – attesting a chemical purity of over 99%. You shouldn't put your health in the hands of some shady backyard lab in China.

Vendors and niche blogs (using affiliate links) seem to control the narrative when it comes to claimed benefits of nootropics. You'll find heaps of “broscience” on how #modafinil will help you pass your next exam with flying colors, but a lot less on side effects. #redflag 🚩

It turns out, when it comes to drugs, there's no free lunch

Like many medications, nootropics can cause downregulation of a variety of receptors, leading to tolerance development, diminishing returns and ultimately dependence. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.