Why a Risk-Seeking Biohacker is an Antifragile Biohacker

I've researched some Nootropics that you may not have heard of before; Bromantane, Cerebrolysin, Cortexin, Ladastan, Mildronate...

You can get these from a vendor I've vetted, RUPHARMA.com - based in that big, cold, scary country that the mainstream media wants you to hate. Check out their site and you'll see a number of Nootropics and performance enhancers that are maybe a bit foreign to you. To me at least these are European exotics, they are all branded and manufactured in either Russia or different European countries. I'll explain a little later why this is appealing to me as a veteran Nootropics user.

Full disclosure: I have a mutually beneficial relationship with RUPHARMA. Almost weekly I am solicited by vendors, manufacturers, and marketers of various Biohacking products and 80% of them don't exhibit the basic indicators of credibility of someone I'd like to buy things from that may alter my brain chemistry.

• There is a real person behind the company, Alexie, who seems to be a nice fellow.
• Their products are created in GMP labs, branded, and verified.
• Their pricing is very competitive, they offer Noopept capsules, for example starting at $19 and they offer Phenotropil, the famously potent smart drug Phenylpiracetam at just $2/per capsule.
• They have a phone number you can call.
• They have a solid refund policy.
• They are crypto-friendly; it's an increasingly good idea to do your biohacking shopping as anonymously as possible. They accept Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies.

As Biohackers, we have a bit of a weak spot for novelty, especially pharmacological novelty, smart drugs that might work a little differently than the things we've tried before. However, pharmacological novelty is not always good and it is not for everyone, amongst Biohackers there's a spectrum of risk tolerance. Similarly, amongst Nootropics and performance enhancers, there's a spectrum of risk profiles. Not all Nootropics are equally safe and benign.

In this article I'm going to grade these European exotics by what I assess is their risk profile from A+ to F. As a smart consumer you (should!) know that when you go to an eCommerce store, they are just going to tell you the good things about whatever is being sold. In this article, I'm going to assess the potential risks but first I'll describe...

My Risk-Management Philosophy as a Biohacker

Some Biohackers are VERY risk-averse, like Justin who I interviewed, he's the Mind behind the very popular anti-aging forum Longecity.
However, I'm more of a risk-seeking or Antifragile Biohacker. This is not just because I'm reckless and want to treat my neurobiology like an amusement park. I have some quite rational reasons for seeking risk.

From philosopher, practitioner extraordinaire Nassim Taleb in his manifesto on risk, Antifragile

The first step toward antifragility consists in first decreasing downside , rather than increasing upside ; that is , by lowering exposure to negative Black Swans and letting natural antifragility work by itself
(2886-2887)
For antifragility is the combination aggressiveness plus paranoia — clip your downside , protect yourself from extreme harm , and let the upside , the positive Black Swans , take care of itself .
(2929-2931)

When it comes to Nootropics the upside is so great and the downside is relatively minimal.

The sky is the limit with the potential upside of Nootropics. Whereas the downside risk is very minimal...
For example; one of my favorite smart drugs is Nicotine, but I can't say that Nicotine is a risk-free drug. Some studies have indicated a very weak carcinogenic effect, this is debated though, some researchers say that Nicotine, alone is non-carcinogenic and as safe as say caffeine. However, I'll continue to use Nicotine because the upside of Nicotine is tremendous, I get paid to do creative work and Nicotine is the best stimulator of this that I've found out of the +100 smart drugs I've used.
As an entrepreneur, Nicotine is like an "employee" who only demands a salary of less than $20 a month, appreciably increases the productivity of my company, and doesn't need to be trained or managed. To me, at least, that minimal cancer risk it may have is offset by its upside. Since I make more money, I can afford other good supplements, good food, and good lifestyle habits that significantly mitigate overall cancer risk. Since I make quite a bit more money, if I get sick, I'll be all the more able to afford it.

Conversely, much of our other lifestyle and consumption habits have very limited upside with either limited downsides or significant downsides.
For example, my avocado salad is not exactly a performance enhancer, it's a relatively healthy meal that's just going to power me through my day. Or perhaps someone eats a more average diet of carbs, sugary snack foods, and fried meat along with GMO fruits and veggies. There's barely any upside to this diet, it just barely assuages hunger and the downside is that it causes spikes in blood sugar that drive you to eat every few hours. The long-term downsides are heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and ultimately death.

Every day we are swimming in a sea of biological risk.

Last night my girlfriend surprised me by buying me dinner at a restaurant I've never visited before and we tried a delicacy from her culture whose name I could not properly pronounce. I went hiking in the mountains last weekend and then spent about 45 minutes in a packed bus riding through a pretty impoverished part of the country. Who the hell knows what kind of pathogens I'm exposing myself to? We consume things all day, every day that may be toxic so I consume Nootropics every day that feed my Mitochondria to fight those toxins. Maybe a very small proportion of those Nootropics have minimal toxicity or negative side effects but the upside benefit drastically outweighs this.

I'll also suggest that amongst Biohackers there's something of a barbell of Biohacking risk tolerance; like a barbell, the majority of the Biohackers with higher risk tolerance will be on the far right and far left side of the barbell.

• On the far left are Biohackers like me, who are younger, and eat a healthy diet. We have quite resilient biology thanks to our good habits and generally healthy lifestyle. We have more disposable income to spend on our health. If we do something that hurts our health we have the time and resources to correct it.
• On the far right are (mostly elderly) people who have chronic diseases that desperately need Nootropics or anti-aging drugs. Without them, their minds will deteriorate and their quality of life will decline badly. When the alternative is quite literally losing your mind, just being a burden to those around you, or death no side effect of Nootropic drugs could be worse.
• In the middle of the barbell are all the lay-Biohackers, people who have just a little time and money to spend on their health. They can't do a lot of experimenting, they need to devote their limited time and resources to Biohacks that work very consistently. They should be exercising, meditating, eating a disciplined diet, sleep hacking, and supplementing fish oil, vitamins, and Adaptogens.

Since I started using Nootropics over 12 years ago, I have made great progress toward being the best version of myself. I've done lots of Nootropics and experienced very few incidences of negative side effects. I, for one, have experienced tremendous upside and virtually no downside.

I've also spent a lot of time doing sentiment analysis of thousands of different Biohacker reports and anecdotes about smart drugs. I know that anecdotes are less important than scientific data but if trends show up frequently in Biohacker reports about a given drug, I note that and include it in my risk analysis. A few months ago I researched a number of drugs and products by the pharmaceutical giant Bayer and came across numerous anecdotes of really ghastly side effects, in stark contrast to relatively very tame side effects of Nootropics that are reported commonly.

So those are my reasons for being a risk-seeking or Antifragile Biohacker, perhaps they'll change how you manage risk. Next, I'll rank the risks of various exotic European Nootropics...

Risk Grade: A

Piracetam

Nootropil

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: A
Number of Clinical Trials: 235

• Which has an impressive 31 clinical trials in the last 10 years alone.
• A 20-year long-term population study was conducted in France.
• This is quite possibly the most popular smart drug, it's been used by millions of people and you can find thousands of Biohackers online reporting their experiences with it.
• Because of the vast amounts of anecdotal data about Piracetam, we know the most commonly reported side effect is a headache from a lack of Choline supplemented along with the Piracetam.
• Numerous studies have evaluated its use and determined it safe for children.
• Because it's such a popular, unpatented drug it's produced by hundreds of laboratories all over the world and there is a spectrum of quality. You can buy unbranded, generic Piracetam powder very cheaply by the kilo but the quality is suspect. I only buy or consume powdered Piracetam if an accredited American lab has verified it to be >97% purity with spectroscopy.
• Piracetam only works for 80% of the people who use it, and a minority of people with an aldosterone deficiency won't experience the long-term or short-term benefits of the drug. In a lot of cases, this can be fixed, but sometimes not. Piracetam is not for everyone.

Phenylpiracetam

PHENOTROPIL®

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: A-
Number of Clinical Trials: 6

• Phenylpiracetam is regarded amongst Biohackers as one of the best smart drugs, it's molecularly very similar to Piracetam.
• It was created in 1983 behind the Iron Curtain for Soviet cosmonauts.
• It has a handful of clinical trials; a few of them recent, all of them Russian.
• Online you can find many veteran Biohackers highly praising it.
• One Biohacker took Phenylpiracetam for 3 months and reported: When I started phenylpiracetam I had some bad side effects from it. I tried two different online sellers of powdered phenylpiracetam (they are not the most popular sources, but they are still well known sources), and after a few days of uses I would get a strange chest pain and difficulty sleeping. I almost discontinued my usage of this nootropic until I decided to use the original branded phenylpiracetam called Phenotropil. This is the one I have been using for the past three months and I haven't experienced any side effects from it.
• The only negative side effect reported consistently about it is choline headaches if you dose too much without supplementing an ACh precursor.
• Unfortunately, it doesn't deserve to get a higher grade because of the relative lack of human clinical trials done specifically on Phenylpiracetam at labs and universities around the world.

Risk Grade: B

Noopept

Noopept by RUPharma

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: B
Number of Clinical Trials: 3

• The Racetams are noted for their virtually non-existent toxicity. It's molecularly similar and in the same category as the very well-tolerated Racetams.
• Thousands of savvy Biohackers have reported their experiences with it and there's a real lack of undesirable side effects.
• It doesn't deserve an A because there have only been three clinical trials rigorously evaluating Noopept in humans.

Semax

Semax by RUPharma

 

3.3

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: B-
Number of Clinical Trials: 3

• All three clinical trials were done in Russia but none were placebo-controlled.
• A BDNF-mediated long-term memory promoter that you take nasally.
• Approximately 15% who wrote Biohacker reports online reported pretty tame negative side effects like lack of motivation, tiredness, slowness, lethargy, irritability, or moodiness.
• From a Russian study of 187 patients: Semax treatment resulted in significant clinical improvement, stabilization of the disease progress and reduced a risk of stroke and transitory ischemic attacks in the disease course. The drug is featured by minor percent of side-effects and is well tolerated by patients, including those of older age groups.
• One researcher reported: As the safety profile is extremely good, the LD50 (the dose at which 50% of the test animals die) is undeterminable. This means that in spite of increasing the dose HUNDREDS of times the therapeutic dose NONE of the animals died. Hence you find that the dosage for every indication is quite flexible.
• Strangely, there appears to be a correlation between hair loss and Semax usage, so if you really care about your hair you may want to pass on Semax.
• Even though this drug has been around a while and you can find a lot of studies on Pubmed, it's lacking breadth and quality of clinical trials.

Fabomotizole

Grade: B-
Number of Clinical Trials: 5

•  There are 5 clinical trials, all Russian, the most recent of which is what I consider a high-quality, human study encompassing 100 patients given Fabomotizole.
• It's a relatively younger drug, invented in the early 2000s.
• From the high-quality 2016 study: There were a total of 15 and 199 adverse events in the afobazole... groups... No manifestations of afobazole withdrawal syndrome were found... Afobazole is an effective and safe drug to treat patients with [generalized anxiety disorder] and [adjustment disorders] and non-inferior than diazepam in the treatment of these disorders, however it is superior in terms of several variables, including the safety profile.
• It's not as popular as the Racetams or other Gabaergic drugs, so there's not a significant amount of good Biohacker reports about it. Although, amongst the ones out there on Longecity and Reddit, I came across no reports of egregious side effects.
• It's a safer alternative to Diazepam or Valium, the Benzodiazepine-based tranquilizer.
• I don't have any major objections to this Anxiolytic, I just don't think it deserves a higher grade because the clinical research is limited to the Russosphere.

Selank

Selank

Category: Nootropic Ingredients

Grade: B-
Number of Clinical Trials: 3

• Like its cofactor Semax, it has a grand total of three clinical trials, all are from Russia and none were placebo-controlled.
• From a 2016 Russian paper that you can find the whole text of online: Clinical studies have shown that the effect of Selank is similar to that of tranquilizers at low doses, but is not accompanied by the unwanted side effects of benzodiazepine tranquilizers.
• I came across one very negative report from an anonymous Biohacker of bad side effects when combined with Semax and NSI

Mildronate

MILDRONATE [MELDONIUM]

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: B
Number of Clinical Trials: 25

• It does have some recent placebo-controlled trials
• All the clinical trials are either Russian or Chinese, apparently, the drug is not on the radar of researchers in the Western world.
• A recent Chinese study reported No serious adverse events were observed. A 2015 trial of 67 Russians agreed No side effects were registered during the course of mildronate treatment.

Bromantane

Bromantane

Category: Nootropic Ingredients

Grade: B
Number of Clinical Trials: 8

• 10 articles of human research in the past 10 years
• A significant trial was published in 2010; it was carried out in 28 different clinical centers and included data from over 700 Russians.
• It was developed in the 1970s in Russia so it's been around for +40 years and it's a highly praised smart drug by some very veteran Biohackers but I would expect it to be more studied internationally by now.
• From the study of 700 Russian patients, Adverse effects were observed only in 3% of patients, the therapy was discontinued in 0.8%. No serious adverse effects were found.

Cerebrolysin

CEREBROLYSIN®

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: B
Number of Clinical Trials: 64

• Around the internet, you can find numerous reports from younger, otherwise healthy Biohackers who used Cerebrolysin as a performance-enhancing smart drug. This contrasts with the vast majority of the studies that were done with elderly patients suffering from cognitive decline.
• Anti-aging drugs typically have a performance-enhancing effect when taken by healthy people and in the case of Cerebrolysin, you can find veteran Biohackers praising it as a quite effective smart drug.
• It is derived from the proteins of pig brains, which seems a little weird. Could they not just synthesize the proteins?
•  There are also some fairly well-reasoned objections to otherwise healthy people using it. So I would NOT categorize Cerebrolysin as a low-risk Biohack that everybody or anybody should use.
•  Its specific purpose is to treat diseases of cognitive decline. I would not recommend it to new Biohackers or those who are just looking for a study drug.
• It's an injectable drug and clumsy people should not be using needles.
• It was first approved in 1954, so it's not a newer drug that we don't know if it may or may not cause cancer in its users after 10 years of dosing.
• Ultimately I feel the risk is small with Cerebrolysin because it's produced and patented by a major Austrian pharmaceutical company. If they produced a drug that passed a pig pathogen to their customers they would face titanic lawsuits and a deluge of brand-sinking negative press. They would be out of business fast! I did a bit more research on this and Google searched: 
  "Ever Pharma" "Cerebrolysin" "Lawsuit"
  Which produced no lawsuits involving either Ever Pharma or Cerebrolysin. Then I thought, well this is an Austrian company so I searched:
  "Ever Pharma" "Cerebrolysin" "Klage" (German for lawsuit)
  Nothing interesting. I even Google Translated a few articles.
• Finally, I searched:
  "Cerebrolysin" "Lawsuit"
  Which similarly yielded no lawsuits involving the drug. So, it's a +60-year-old drug with no lawsuits serious enough to have made it onto the Internet. Not bad! Compare this to Piracetam which is unpatented and produced by hundreds of anonymous laboratories all over the world. The financial incentives are stacked for EVER Pharma to produce a safe product.

Risk Grade: C

Cortexin

Cortexin by RUPHARMA

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: C
Number of Clinical Trials: 19

• It's synthesized in a very sterile laboratory environment.
• According to a study that evaluated it in 45 patients: The drug was well-tolerated, no side-effects were observed.
• It's been studied extensively in Russian but lacks international studies that have been peer-reviewed and published in English for the public in open journals.
• It's an injectable drug and clumsy people should not be using needles.
• However, a few Biohackers noted an undesirable side effect of persistent muscle fasciculations.

Risk Grade: D

Phenibut

Phenibut by RUPharma

Category: Nootropics & Anti-Aging

Grade: D+
Number of Clinical Trials: 4

• There are only 4 trials, non-recent, all in Russian with limited or poor translations into English.
• Phenibut is a popular drug amongst Biohackers and lifehackers.
• It gets a poor risk grade because it is habit-forming for a significant proportion of people who try it. It works on your Gaba receptors in a way similar to alcohol. So if you have any personal or family history of alcohol addiction Phenibut is a bad idea for you.
• On the other hand, I've used it myself for several years on and off. I use it not more than 2-3 times a week and I've never had problems or experienced negative side effects. But I don't have an addictive personality. If you're a disciplined person with healthy psychology you'll be fine using Phenibut in moderation. It is a great anti-anxiety agent; a quintessential social smart drug.
• Similar to alcohol if you consume too much you may act a little stupid, trip up a flight of stairs, oversleep, and feel a little hungover the next day.
• If you make a daily habit out of Phenibut you'll get hooked and experience some real unpleasant withdrawals if you run out of it.

Get a Helpful Biohacking Consultation

Because RUPHARMA and the other vendors that I link out to here have the indicators of credibility that I look for and I've spent some time now researching their products and getting familiar with them I'll do a free 30-minute biohacking consultation with anyone who purchases $100 or more worth of their products. More details here about the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.

Comment here...

Let me know what kinds of Biohacking risks you've taken. What was worth it? What wasn't?