Smart drugs? Smart drinks? What’s the difference? And are they really a healthy alternative to booze and
SMART DRUGS: Justin Pearce
TOMORROW’S going to be a heavy day. You’ve got a major presentation and need to be on your toes to give spot- on answers to the tricky questions you’re likely to
So whaddaya do? You head for the chemist. You’ve graduated beyond Bio-Plus (the downer once it wears off is too much to cope with), so you try the smart drugs counter. Or the nootropics counter, as your pharmacist is more likely to call it …
Here the scenario enters the realm of fantasy. But it’s the kind of situation sketched as ideal by the proponents of smart drugs, or nootropics: substances which are claimed to enhance the functioning of your brain. Where smart drinks are typically drunk in a social situation, smart drugs are taken with a specific goal: fine-tuning the brain to optimise your memory, your perception and your ability to solve problems.
On the one hand, the cyberculture notion of the brain as machine gives rise to the corollary that brain functioning can be made more efficient — rather like having your car serviced or using a petrol additive. The other reason for the interest in smart drugs is purely economic: with a global shortage of jobs and the diversification of talents required of any one employee, professionals have to push themselves harder than before — and there’s much appeal in the thought of a substance that will allow you to get more from your brain in the same way that anabolic steroids let you get more from your body.
At present, no smart drugs are marketed or manufactured as such. While the definition of a smart drug is hazy, most of them are substances with recognised medical effects — usually in the treatment of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease — which are alleged to improve cognitive functioning in healthy as well as ill people.
One of the most commonly-used smart drugs, and the only one marketed as a scheduled drug in South Africa, is Piracetam — which was fictionalised as the brain- enhancing drug in the film The Lawnmower Man. Piracetam, sold in South Africa as Nootropil, is prescribed to treat conditions such as dementia and strokes, but used in large quantities is said to improve sensory perception.
One American user of Piracetam described, in the magazine Mondo 2000, his experience of going to a concert after taking a massive
7 200mg dose: “I found myself able to concentrate as never before. For the first time in my life I could hear each individual horn’s timbre. My ears felt as though they were being stimulated from all directions at once, but the feeling was entirely pleasant. I was
But the uses that are claimed for smart drugs go further than pleasurable sensory enhancement. By stepping up mental functioning, they are also said to improve concentration, memory, even problem-solving abilities. Piracetam is said to improve the flow of information between the hemispheres of the brain, enhancing the user’s ability to solve problems creatively.
However, the claims as to the effectiveness of smart drugs are at present anecdotal, with little in the way of scientifically verifiable research having been done on the subject. Smart drugs are regarded with scepticism by drug control bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States and the Medical Control Council in South Africa — not surprisingly, since these bodies are concerned with the use of drugs strictly for medical purposes.
However, drug companies in the United States have realised that the market for nootropics could become extremely lucrative if it were possible to market them without the need for a prescription. Realising that something as ill-defined as enhanced brain functioning is unlikely to move the FDA, companies are emphasising the alleged anti-ageing properties of nootropics. Again, the medical establishment replies: why administer a drug when there is no recognisable medical condition to be treated?
“Even if an experimental drug does help patients with Alzheimer’s disease, it may not necessarily be of value to healthy people,” writes Steven Rose, head of the Brain and Behaviour Research Institute at Britain’s Open Univeristy.
Some argue that the “drug” label is inappropriate for nootropics. Vitamins are generally regarded as nutrients rather than drugs and are available without prescription — yet the use of concentrated doses of certain B vitamins is claimed to produce similar effects to nootropics. So is there an essential difference between using nootropics to improve mental performance, and popping vitamin pills to fend off
Medicine argues that there is an ideal level of vitamins and other trace elements in the body, and that it is justifiable to take supplements to make up for a deficiency. The theory behind nootropics is that you can take as much of the substances as you like, and the more the better.
Medicine responds with alarm: “It can be positively deleterious to throw chemical spanners into the exquisitely balanced biochemical system that is the human brain,” Rose warns.
Rose, in common with most of the medical establishment, also questions the validity of the research that purports to demonstrate the beneficial effects of smart drugs. Most of this research is done on rats, he writes, and involves testing the effects of the drugs on the learning rather than the memory-recall functions of the animals. He adds that specific improvements in neurological functioning that are claimed on behalf of nootropics are expressed in such vague terms as to defy any attempt at scientific testing, particularly since the effects of nootropics vary widely from one individual to another.
For the proponents of smart drugs, however, the issue is still open; experience counts for more than scientific rigour, and the medical model of disease and cure is irrelevant. In the words of Samu Mielonen, writing in a Belgian youth-culture magazine, “If we keep in mind that the earth was once flat and that even scientists do make mistakes, we might as well look into these drugs and their supposed effects.”
# How to live at 120 beats per minute
SMART DRINKS: Justin Pearce
IT’S Saturday morning in the shopping malls of Rosebank, Johannesburg. At one well-known Italian coffee shop, people are getting their fix of caffeine and/or nicotine and/or alcohol to help them through the weekend. Nearby, a health-food cafe is offering another kind of physical and mental stimulation: the blackboard outside advertises smart drinks.
Smart drinks, once the preserve of techno clubs, rave parties, and other post-midnight, pre-adult activities, are going mainstream.
Smart drinks, known in the trade as smart- nutrient cocktails, emerged as part of rave culture to keep dancers going at 120 beats per minute for an entire night. Now people are finding that they’re just as good at keeping you through a day’s work as through a night’s jol.
Smart drinks are defined by the presence of vitamins and amino acids which provide sustenance (amino acids are the basic components of protein), combined with natural plant extracts which produce a feeling of well-
Jean-Pierre le Roux of Frontier, the Cape Town company which claims to have introduced smart drinks to South Africa, describes the typical smart-drink buyer as “health-conscious, active, young or young at heart. They try to live their lives in such a way as to maximise their levels of fun without compromising their levels of health and vitality.
“Already we see a trend where people are moving away from alcohol as their social drink of choice in favour of more healthy and simply more fun alternatives.”
Rob Newenham of Greens in Rosebank says it is mostly younger customers who order smart drinks at his cafe, but the drinks are slowly catching on with older people as well.
However, the youth-culture connotations of smart drinks have done nothing to help the drinks’ image outside the clubs and raves. If kids like it and it makes them feel good, it must be a drug, the logic goes. This notion is rejected with contempt by those in the smart-drink industry, who sell their products as a healthy alternative to alcohol, nicotine or caffeine.
The active ingredients in smart drinks don’t impair your motor-control functions (as booze does), don’t leave you feeling tired after an initial energy boost (as coffee does), and don’t destroy your lungs. What’s more, smart drinks are not chemically addictive. John Logan, who markets products made by the US-based firm Life Extention International, claims that certain smart drinks can counteract drunkenness by stimulating the neural activity that is supressed by alcohol.
The arrival of the word “smart drugs” (see article above) also catches many smart-drink distributors on the defensive — an attitude borne of fear around the connotations of the word “drug”. However, the connection between smart drugs and heroin is no more intimate than the connection between smart drinks and scotch on the rocks. One player in the industry who has no qualms about facing up to the smart drinks/smart drugs crossover, is Le Roux, who points out that the definition of “drug” is hazy.
“According to the Medical Control Act, any substance that can modify organic functioning is a drug. If you eat a carrot your blood-sugar levels increase. Does that make it a drug?
Smart drinks do not contain scheduled drugs, but many contain substances such as vitamins which are drugs only in the broadest sense of the word — much like a
The image of smart drinks has not been helped by the presence of phoney smart drinks, containing substances such as caffeine and ephedrine which give an instant kick but have none of the nutritive effects of real smart drinks.
Most of the active ingredients of genuine smart drinks are marketed ready-mixed into powders or liquid concentrates which define brand-name smart drinks, and mixed at the point of sale with fruit juice or water to make the drinks, which are sold under suitably perky names like “Little Engine” or “Wow!”
Energy drinks such as Speed and XTC, sold in cans, are different in that they contain caffeine and sugar as well as amino acids.
Some people in the smart-drink business predict a future where you can have a cocktail made to order — a dash of guerana, a tot of L-Phenylaniline, in guava and grapefruit …
It will take time to erode South Africans’ alcohol habits. But smart-drink manufacturers are optimistic, borne out by the fact that the industry has grown comfortably with no advertising other than where the drinks are sold.
# The kick inside …
NOOTROPICS (Smart drugs)
Only Piracetam is available in South Africa, and only on prescription. These Nootropics may, however, be obtained by mail-order from: Interlab, BCM Box 5890, London, WC1N 3XX, United Kingdom. Users should note there is no unshakeable evidence regarding the side- effects of these substances.
Piracetam is said to enhance memory and learning and problem-solving ability.
Vasopressin, inhaled from a nasal spray, is a naturally-occurring brain hormone thought to assist in learning. Inhaling Vasopressin can counteract the dopey effects of alcohol or dagga.
Hydergine, used medically to counteract senile dementia, is supposed to improve intelligence, memory and recall, and counteract ageing. Centrophenoxine (also known as Lucidril) and Dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) have similar effects.
PLANT PRODUCTS
Form the basis of most smart drinks, with or without amino acids. Many of these products are available in South Africa from health food shops.
Guerana provides an energy boost similar to caffeine, but has a slower and more lasting effect.
Kava-kava has a calming, relaxing effect.
Ginseng is said to have “life-enhancing” qualities.
Pausinystata is derived from the bark of a West African tree and is said to be used in fortnight-long sex
Long-Sha is a Chinese herb traditionally used as a food supplement.
Ma Huang, also Chinese, used as a brain stimulant.
AMINO ACIDS
Essential nutrients, used in many smart drinks.
L-Phenylalanine releases noradrenaline, which improves one’s mood.
L-Pyroglutamic acid occurs naturally in brain fluids.
Other amino acids are protein components.
OTHER NUTRIENTS
Used in smart drinks, widely available from pharmacies and health shops. Antioxidants such as vitamins A, C and E protect brain cells from damage. B vitamins have positive effects on the nervous system. Choline and Lecithin are turned by your body into asetylcholine, which transmits neural impulses in the brain.