Mental Health and Science

Let’s Talk About Nootropics, Transparently.

A brief review of controversial cognitive-enhancing supplements with insights from scientific and medical literature

Photo by Tazz Vaughn from Pexels

This article is not about whether nootropics are good or bad. Instead, it is about how much we know about them and why awareness of benefits and side effects matters for our health.

Knowledge and hype are two different things. While knowledge adds clarity, hype (intensive publicity or promotion) confuses consumers. I provide a preliminary and condensed review of my decades on the reading list. This post sets the context and foundational background for my future articles on the topic.

While there are promising use cases of nootropics for some mental health conditions, so far, we know very little about them, mainly covering potential side effects if they are used unsupervised.

Therefore, my purpose is to highlight what we know based on a comprehensive review of the medical and fitness literature over two decades, citing a few outstanding scientific papers.

I recently published an article reviewing 17 molecules used as nutrients in food and supplements. Some readers of my writing have shown interest in learning…