Wakefulness, Cognitive Enhancement, AND Improved Mood?
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Old Drug, New Tricks?
Modafinil (also known by brand names including Modalert and Provigil) is a dopamine uptake inhibitor.
What does that mean? It means it won’t put any extra dopamine in your brain, but it will slow down the rate at which your brain removes naturally-occuring dopamine.
The result is that your brain will get to make more use of the dopamine it does have.
(dopamine is a neutrotransmitter that allows you to feel wakeful and happy, and perform complex cognitive tasks)
Modafinil is prescribed for treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness. Often that’s caused by shift work sleep disorder, sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, or narcolepsy.
Read: Overview of the Clinical Uses, Pharmacology, and Safety of Modafinil
Many studies done on humans (rather than rats) have been military experiments to reduce the effects of sleep deprivation:
Click Here To See A Military Study On Modafinil!
They’ve found modafinil to be helpful, and more effective and more long-lasting than caffeine, without the same “crash” later. This is for two reasons:
1) while caffeine works by blocking adenosine (so you don’t feel how tired you are) and by constricting blood vessels (so you feel more ready-for-action), modafinil works by allowing your brain to accumulate more dopamine (so you’re genuinely more wakeful, and you get to keep the dopamine)
2) the biological half-life of modafinil is 12–15 hours, as opposed to 4–8 hours* for caffeine.
*Note: a lot of sources quote 5–6 hours for caffeine, but this average is misleading. In reality, we are each genetically predetermined to be either a fast caffeine metabolizer (nearer 4 hours) or a slow caffeine metabolizer (nearer 8 hours).
What’s a biological half-life (also called: elimination half-life)?
A substance’s biological half-life is the time it takes for the amount in the body to be reduced by exactly half.
For example: Let’s say you’re a fast caffeine metabolizer and you have a double-espresso (containing 100mg caffeine) at 8am.
By midday, you’ll have 50mg of caffeine left in your body. So far, so simple.
By 4pm you might expect it to be gone, but instead you have 25mg remaining (because the amount halves every four hours).
By 8pm, you have 12.5mg remaining.
When midnight comes and you’re tucking yourself into bed, you still have 6.25mg of caffeine remaining from your morning coffee!
Use as a nootropic
Many healthy people who are not sleep-deprived use modafinil “off-label” as a nootropic (i.e., a cognitive enhancer).
Read: Modafinil for cognitive neuroenhancement in healthy non-sleep-deprived subjects: A systematic review
Important Note: modafinil is prescription-controlled, and only FDA-approved for sleep disorders.
To get around this, a lot of perfectly healthy biohackers describe the symptoms of sleep pattern disorder to their doctor, to get a prescription.
We do not recommend lying to your healthcare provider, and nor do we recommend turning to the online “grey market”.
Such websites often use anonymized private doctors to prescribe on an “informed consent” basis, rather than making a full examination. Those websites then dispense the prescribed medicines directly to the patient with no further questions asked (i.e. very questionable practices).
Caveat emptor!
A new mood-brightener?
Modafinil was recently tested head-to-head against Citalapram for the treatment of depression, and scored well:
See its head-to-head scores here!
How does it work? Modafinil does for dopamine what a lot of anti-depressants do for serotonin. Both dopamine and serotonin promote happiness and wakefulness.
This is very promising, especially as modafinil (in most people, at least) has fewer unwanted side-effects than a lot of common anti-depressant medications.
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Reasons to Stay Alive – by Matt Haig
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We’ve previously reviewed Matt Haig’s (excellent) The Comfort Book, and now it’s time for his more famous book: Reasons To Stay Alive. So, what’s this one, beyond the obvious?
It narrates the experience of anxiety, depression, and suicidality, and discovering how to find beauty and joy in the world despite it all. It’s not that the author found a magical cure—he still experiences depression and anxiety (cannot speak for suicidality) but he knows now how to manage it, and live his life.
You may be wondering: is this book instructional; is it reproducible, or is it just an autobiography? It’s centered around his own experience and learnings, but it gives a huge sense of not feeling alone, of having hope, and it gives a template for making sense of one’s own experience, even if every person will of course have some points of differences, the commonalities are nonetheless of immense value.
The writing style is similar to The Comfort Book; it’s lots of small chapters, and all very easy-reading. Well, the subject matter is sometimes rather heavy, but the language is easy-reading! In other words, just the thing for when one is feeling easily overwhelmed, or not feeling up to reading a lot.
Bottom line: whether or not you suffer with anxiety and/or depression, whether or not you sometimes feel suicidal, the contents of this book are important, valuable insights for everyone.
Click here to check out Reasons To Stay Alive, and see through the highs and lows of life.
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How To Clean Your Brain (Glymphatic Health Primer)
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That’s not a typo! The name “glymphatic system” was coined by the Danish neuroscientist Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, and is a nod to its use of glial cells to do a similar job to that of the peripheral lymphatic system—but this time, in the CNS. Today, we have Dr. Jin Sung to tell us more:
Brainwashing (but not like that)
The glymphatic system may sound like a boring job, but so does “sanitation worker” in a city—yet the city would grind to a messy halt very very quickly without them. Same goes for your brain.
Diseases that are prevalent when this doesn’t happen the way it should include Alzheimer’s (beta-amyloid clearance) and Parkinson’s (alpha-synuclein clearance) amongst others.
Things Dr. Sung recommends for optimal glymphatic function include: sleep (7–9 hours), exercise (30–45 minutes daily), hydration (half your bodyweight in pounds, in ounces, so if your body weighs 150 lbs, that means 75 oz of water), good posture (including the use of good ergonomics, e.g. computer monitor at right height, car seat correct, etc), stress reduction (reduces inflammatory cytokines), getting enough omega-3 (the brain needs certain fats to work properly, and this is the one most likely to see a deficit), vagal stimulation (methods include humming, gargling, and gagging—please note we said vagal stimulation; easy to misread at a glance!), LED light therapy, and fasting (intermittent or prolonged).
For more on each of these, including specific tips, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Ask Not What Your Lymphatic System Can Do For You…
- The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)
- Casting Yourself In A Healthier Light
- Intermittent Fasting: How Does It Work?
Take care!
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Leek vs Scallions – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing leek to scallions, we picked the leek.
Why?
In terms of macros, scallions might have a point: scallions have the lower glycemic index, thanks to leek having more carbs for the same amount of fiber. That said, leek already has a low glycemic index, so this is not a big deal.
When it comes to vitamins, leek has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, E, and choline, while scallions have more of vitamins A, C, and K. Noteworthily, a cup of chopped leek already provides the daily dose of vitamins A and K, and the difference in levels of vitamin C is minimal. All in all, an easy 8:3 win for leeks here, even without taking that into account.
In the category of minerals, leek has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while scallions have a little more zinc.
Both of these allium-family plants (i.e., related to garlic) have an abundance of polyphenols, especially kaempferol.
Of course, enjoy whatever goes best with your meal, but if you’re looking for nutritional density, then leek is where it’s at.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
Take care!
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The Truth About Statins – by Barbara H. Roberts, M.D.
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All too often, doctors looking to dispense a “quick fix” will prescribe from their playbook of a dozen or so “this will get you out of my office” drugs. Most commonly, things that treat symptoms rather than the cause. Sometimes, this can be fine! For example, in some cases, painkillers and antidepressants can make a big improvement to people’s lives. What about statins, though?
Prescribed to lower cholesterol, they broadly do exactly that. However…
Dr. Roberts wants us to know that we could be missing the big picture of heart health, and making a potentially fatal mistake.
This is not to say that the book argues that statins are necessarily terrible, or that they don’t have their place. Just, we need to understand what they will and won’t do, and make an informed choice.
To which end, she does advise regards when statins can help the most, and when they may not help at all. She also covers the questions to ask if your doctor wants to prescribe them. And—all so frequently overlooked—the important differences between men’s and women’s heart health, and the implications these have for the efficacy (or not) of statins.
With regard to the “alternatives to cholesterol-lowering drugs” promised in the subtitle… we won’t keep any secrets here:
Dr. Roberts (uncontroversially) recommends the Mediterranean diet. She also provides two weeks’ worth of recipes for such, in the final part of the book.
All in all, an important book to read if you or a loved one are taking, or thinking of taking, statins.
Pick up your copy of The Truth About Statins on Amazon today!
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Chocolate & Health
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Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?
“Chocolate Is Good For The Heart”
“When making chocolate chip cookies, you don’t measure using cups, you measure by heart”
…but how good is chocolate when it comes to heart health?
First, what is heart health?
A healthy heart typically has a low resting pulse rate and a strong, steady beat. This is affected strongly by exercise habits, and diet plays only a support role (can’t exercise without energy from food!).
It is also important to have blood pressure within a healthy range (with high blood pressure being a more common problem than low, so things that lower blood pressure are generally considered good).
- Flavanols, flavonoids, and polyphenols in chocolate contribute to lower blood pressure
- Dark chocolate is best for these, as milk chocolate contains much less cocoa solids and more unhelpful fats
- White chocolate contains no cocoa solids and is useless for this
- Some of the fats in most commercial chocolate can contribute to atherosclerosis which raises blood pressure and ultimately can cause heart attacks.
- If you’re diabetic, you will probably not get the usual heart-related benefits from chocolate (sorry)
The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, can support good heart health.
“Chocolate Is Good For The Brain”
Chocolate has been considered a “brain food”… why?
- The brain uses more calories than any other organ (chocolate has many calories)
- The heart benefits we listed above mean improved blood flow—including to your brain
- Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a powerful chemical that has a similar effect to amphetamines… But it’s metabolized in digestion and never makes it to the central nervous system (so basically, this one’s a miss; we had a good run with the other two, though!)
The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, can support good brain health
“Chocolate Is An Aphrodisiac”
“If chocolate be the food of love, pass me that cocoa; I’m starving”
Most excitingly, chocolate contains phenylethylamine, the “molecule of love” or, more accurately, lust. It has an effect similar to amphetamines, and while we can synthesize it in the body, we can also get it from certain foods. But…
Our body is so keen to get it that most of it is metabolized directly during digestion and doesn’t make it to the brain. Also, chocolate is not as good a source as cabbage—do with that information what you will!
However!
Chocolate contains theobromine and small amounts of caffeine, both stimulants and both generally likely to improve mood; it also contains flavonoids which in turn stimulate production of nitric oxide, which is a relaxant. All in all, things that are convivial to having a good time.
On the other hand…
That relaxation comes specifically with a reduction in blood pressure—something typically considered good for the health for most people most of the time… but that means lowering blood pressure in all parts of your body, which could be the opposite of what you want in intimate moments.
Chocolate also contains zinc, which is essential for hormonal health for most people—the body uses it to produce testosterone and estrogen, respectively. Zinc supplements are popularly sold to those wishing to have more energy in general and good hormonal health in particular, and rightly so. However…
This approach requires long-term supplementation—you can’t just pop a zinc tablet / bar of chocolate / almond before bed and expect immediate results. And if your daily zinc supplementation takes the form of a 3.5oz (100g) bar of chocolate, then you may find it has more effects on your health, and not all of them good!
The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, may promote “the mood”, but could be a double-edged sword when it comes to “the ability”.
“Chocolate Is Good During Menstruation”
The popular wisdom goes that chocolate is rich in iron (of which more is needed during menstruation), and indeed, if you eat 7oz (150g) of dark chocolate made with 85% cocoa, you’ll get a daily a dose of iron (…and nearly 1,000 calories).
More bang-for-buck dietary sources of iron include chickpeas and broccoli, but for some mysterious reason, these are not as commonly reported as popular cravings.
The real explanation for chocolate cravings is more likely that eating chocolate—a food high in sugar and fat along with a chemical bombardment of more specialized “hey, it’s OK, you can relax now” molecules (flavanols/flavonoids, polyphenols, phenylamines, even phenylethylamine, etc) gives a simultaneous dopamine kick (the body’s main “reward” chemical) with a whole-body physiological relaxation… so, little wonder we might crave it in times of stress and discomfort!
The Verdict: it helps, not because it serves a special nutritional purpose, but rather, because the experience of eating chocolate makes us feel good.
Fun fact: Tiramisu (this writer’s favorite dessert) is literally Italian for “pick-me-up”
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Mango vs Pineapple – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing mango to pineapple, we picked the pineapple.
Why?
It was close! Both of these tropical fruits have almost identical macros, and when it comes to vitamins and minerals, mango has slightly more vitamins while pineapple has slightly more minerals, so that balances out too. Their glycemic loads are 11 and 13 respectively, so: very low, and very similar.
See also: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
In terms of what sets them apart:
Mango has a lot of vitamin A, to the point that it can interfere with blood-thinners if you take those.
Pineapple has bromelain, an enzyme with unique anti-inflammatory properties that we must devote a Research Review Monday to one of these days, because there’s a lot to say, but the short version is, it’s very powerful.
Since bromelain is found only in pineapples, whereas vitamin A is easy to find in abundance in many foods, we went with the pineapple.
Enjoy!
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