Limitless Mindset

The placebo effect is a perplexingly persistent piece to the puzzle of health.

The gold standard of health science is double-blinded, placebo-controlled human clinical trials. If a health supplement or drug statistically and consistently outperforms placebos in studies then it’s likely worth trying to empower your mind and body or overcome health challenges. But the placebo effect is more complicated and promising than that, this article will delve into some of the fascinating science done on the placebo effect itself and the implications for your biohacking efforts.

First of all the placebo effect is nothing to disregard, it’s not a silly wuwu thing, it’s such a consistent factor in bioscience that every good human clinical study accounts for it. When hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars are spent to conduct rigorous human clinical trials, scientists must carefully account for the placebo effect, or their results will be skewed and rendered useless.

There’s a fascinating book, You Are the Placebo, that documents a number of historical and contemporary cases of the placebo effect...

* A Baylor College of Medicine study of 180 patients suffering from osteoarthritis in their knees gave 2/3rds of them sham surgery, followed up with them for 24 months, and amazingly the placebo surgery worked as well as the real surgery.

* Two other studies found that placebo heart surgery was actually more effective than real heart surgery.

* An elaborate Harvard study placed a group of men for a week in a setting precisely designed and decorated to feel like it was from 22 years ago. Fascinatingly, the men started behaving and feeling a lot younger and aging biomarkers and blood tests revealed they were actually getting younger as a result of the setting.

* People who died of cancer that upon autopsy didn’t actually have cancer (better get a second opinion if you’re ever diagnosed with cancer!)

* Along with a bunch of other fantastic cases of people curing their own cancer or healing badly broken backs with specific healing meditation protocols. I wouldn’t blame you regarding this sort of thing as rank wuwu, but it works even in clinical environments under the watchful eyes of scientists and doctors.

If you don’t believe in the placebo effect and you drink socially, do an experiment; make your drinking buddies cocktails with no actual alcohol in them. You’ll find, as researchers have in studies with college students, that your drinking buddies get drunk and even experience hangovers.

Most people understand simply that the placebo effect is the power of belief in action. You believe that a pill will heal you so it does even though it’s an inert biologically inactive substance that shouldn’t do anything. But few will question why the placebo effect works and many will just accept some sort of unfalsifiable metaphysical explanation; it’s God rewarding our faith or us manifesting reality by tapping into some sort of hypothetical quantum consciousness that inexplicably changes real things in the real world. But you might wonder...

Is there a more grounded, scientific explanation for the placebo effect?

Yes, epigenetics. The placebo effect is a manifestation of epigenetic function.

You can thank the capacity of our genome to dynamically turn on and off the right genes at the right times for the healing power of belief. Billions of years of evolution have imbued our genes with a fantastic capacity to heal our bodies. Your body has a vast number of stem cells with the potential to become blood cells, brain cells, or immune cells. Belief and faith release neuropeptides from the brain which instructs stem cell genes what to transform into and what to do in the body.

So what does this mean for Biohackers?

Biohackers are accustomed to hearing this sentiment from their skeptical friends and family...

All these supplements and “wonder drugs” you’re into are “snake oil”, they only work because of the placebo effect!

To which the pragmatic biohacker should respond...

Maybe, but I don’t care. I only care that it works. I’d happily spend my money on a “placebo product” if it has the desired effect. If it actually makes me healthier it’s worth it.

And then you should point out the placebo-controlled studies done showing a given supplement or biohack outperforms placebo. However, if you delve a little further into these studies you’ll often find that the supplement barely outperforms a placebo. Often the placebo is half or 80% as effective as the supplement. What this reveals is that when you take a special supplement, almost any supplement 50% - 100% of the effect you are enjoying is due to the power of belief. Largely when you buy health supplements or the newest cool health device you’re investing in the power of belief.

You might now be thinking...

Great! So I don’t actually have to spend all this time and money on supplements and superfoods and all the other cool biohacking things offered online. I’ll just really believe and enjoy all the fantastic fruits of self-administered placebo effect!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite like that. Belief and rationality are entangled, especially if you’re highly rational, and if you’re reading this sort of article you likely are. You need evidence to empower belief.What often persuades you to try a health supplement is when you hear from a friend, family member, or internet personality that a supplement has a fantastic life-changing effect. You’ll go research it, look up studies to understand its mechanism and be convinced by the science you’ll try it.

The Placebo Effect is the Biohacker’s best friend

This is why, if you’re a highly rational type, you’ll get a bigger biological bang for your buck if you devote some time to researching and understanding the health supplements that you take. Spending a few hours reading up on and learning about a supplement before taking it will empower the placebo effect to make it all the more effective.

But the placebo effect doesn’t always work, there are plenty of people who still die of cancer even though they pray endlessly and really believe that they’ll recover. Why is this?

Well, the placebo effect is a manifestation of epigenetic function. And our epigenetics doesn’t work perfectly which manifests as chronic disease, cognitive decline, mental illness, and ultimately, aging and death. The Sirtuins switching our genes on and off fundamentally rely on the NAD+ molecule.

The world’s top longevity scientists, like Harvard’s David Sinclair, recognize NAD+ as a game-changing anti-aging molecule. It unleashes the body’s fantastic capacity to fix itself, which makes it a powerful full-spectrum Nootropic and transformative medicine for addressing obesity, diabetes, and cognitive decline. The problem is, you can’t supplement NAD+ directly unless you want to inject it intravenously which costs about $600.

Meet...

NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide)

NMN is the Epigenetic Vitamin for Smarter Genes, a derivative of Vitamin B3 that feeds you the NAD+ molecule that your genome needs to epigenetically turn on (or off) the right genes at the right time.

* NMN is one step removed from NAD+, which it converts directly into.

* It’s a mitochondrial support supplement, that empowers the powerhouse of the cell.

* It’s a Nootropic, according to an NMN biohacker survey the majority of the users reported Nootropic effects (enhanced cognition, motivation and wakefulness) and Improved long term memory.

NMN means more NAD+, which means optimized epigenetic function, which means smarter genes, which means you can expect the placebo effect to multiply the benefits of everything you take or do to empower your health.

Share this with the next skeptical person who invokes “the placebo effect” to explain away something they know nothing about…

Support me on Substack? For $7/monthly?

This is the first book I've read about cryptocurrency, and I took away from it something invaluable, hope. Jason A. Williams, the author, gives us a lot of reason to be optimistic about a Bitcoin-powered future.

The author is a...

Bitcoin maximalist

And you will be too after reading this book.

As we’ll discover, bitcoin is the best form of money ever invented. Not only that, it’s the best-performing financial asset on the planet, swallowing everything in its path. It will devour government currencies that are printing themselves into oblivion and it will establish itself as the next global reserve currency. It might take years, decades, but it’s happening. And there’s one simple reason why: Bitcoin is hard money you can’t fuck with.

Bitcoin is the best performing asset in the last five years, the last ten years. Up 4,000% since 2015. Up 16,666,566% in the last decade.

Fascinatingly, that author operates a factory where he turns old tires into Bitcoin. Which the green crowd should really appreciate, but probably doesn't.

Why bitcoin will be the next global reserve currency

No-one controls it. No governments, no companies, no central banks, no money printing. It’s a revolution as big as the internet. And it’s never been hacked.

Not only was bitcoin the best-performing asset on the planet in 2020, it quietly established itself as the next global reserve currency as central banks around the world desperately printed their money into oblivion.

Hard Money You Can’t F*ck With explains bitcoin in simple, readable terms and maps out how this ‘magic internet money’ will grow into the best form of money we’ve ever had.

We'll revisit this topic a little later...

Bitcoin is antifragile

Bitcoin isn’t just a currency or financial system, it’s the strongest computer network in history. And it only has one job: protecting hard money. It’s a $280 billion bug bounty — the biggest reward for hackers in history if they could figure it out — and no-one’s broken it.

Why do so many people believe so much in Bitcoin? Bitcoin has NEVER been hacked. Exchanges, wallets, and even hardware wallets have been hacked but not Bitcoin. Hackers hack everything hackable if the reward is enough. And the reward for hacking Bitcoin would be billions. The fact that it hasn't happened speaks volumes about the antifragility of the blockchain. It's working the way Satoshi envisioned it in his whitepaper (which you can listen to here), it's more profitable to validate the blockchain than try to attack it.

Bitcoin should be a store-of-value first

This is one of the key things I want you to take away from this book. Bitcoin’s main use-case is not payments… yet. The best use-case for bitcoin right now is holding. It’s an emerging ‘store of value.’

New innovations like the “Lightning Network” are now being built on top of Bitcoin. The lightning network allows you to send small amounts of BTC instantly with almost zero fees. The transaction itself is batched with others and later settled on the Bitcoin blockchain. In other words, Bitcoin is the slow, steady, secure, reliable, settlement layer. A strong, impenetrable fortress. The foundation. And faster payment networks can be built on top of it.

This is not designed for buying coffee. It’s for settling gigantic payments on the most secure network ever invented. It’s designed to be a global reserve currency layer.

The world doesn’t need another super-fast payment system. We have Visa, Venmo, Cash-app, Mpesa. The revolution is bigger than that. We need a whole new system of money — one that’s fair and transparent and open to everyone, censorship-resistant, scarce and deflationary.

As Saifedean Ammous later wrote in 2017: “Using Bitcoin for consumer purchases is akin to driving a Concorde jet down the street to pick up groceries: a ridiculously expensive waste of an astonishing tool.”

Speaking of the Concorde, are you curious why you can't fly on it anymore, no matter how much Bitcoin you have? Check out this philosophical deep-dive on the book At Our Wits’ End...

The number of bitcoin addresses holding at least 0.1 BTC is over 3 million — a record high. And the number of “whales’ with over 1,000 BTC has swelled to highs of over 2,000. There are more people opting to store their wealth in bitcoin than ever before, validating its thesis as a store of value.

The arguments made in the book are compelling, until I'm convinced otherwise I'm a "small-blocker," we need an antifragile, bulletproof store-of-value that can't be fucked with a lot more than we need another digital payment tool. For fast, low-fee cryptocurrency transactions we have Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin's integrity should not be compromised so people can buy coffee with it.

Bitcoin is scarce

One point the book really drives home is the scarcity of Bitcoin. It's scarcer than you think. In fact, it's mathematically engineered to become scarcer with time, over the course of 4-year "halvening" cycles. If you're going to get into Bitcoin you need to have at least a 4-year vision, it may crash and lose value temporarily, but through the halvening cycles, it grows in value. It must.

It is absolutely, completely finite. Only one other thing like it exists: time.

I often tell friends and family, as long as governments are irresponsible Bitcoin will rise in value. And, at this point in history, the one thing we can count on is governments being irresponsible.

Inflation is coming...

To America at least. It's hard to understate how badly the US government has fucked us all by printing so much bloody money...

About the 2008 financial crisis...

Bernanke printed $7.7 trillion in emergency loans for the banks in just a couple of years, in complete secrecy. That’s ten times more than the original bailout. If people knew this was going on, there would have been riots

Now the national debt has soared to unprecedented heights

We’re running at 128% debt-to-GDP as I write this. Historically, anything over 77% slows down growth according to the World Bank. And anything over 130% is game over. In the last 200 years, 51 out of 52 countries defaulted when they went over 130%. Either a ‘hard default’ or a massive currency devaluation. We are right on the cliff edge. 

I'd disagree with the author by contending that a hard default would be great. Why the hell should future generations of Americans be made to pay off the insane amounts of debt that our idiot politicians got us into? Debt is NOT sacrosanct, as Larry Kudlow, the Director of the National Economic Council, said - it's a risk that internationalist bankers choose to take on. I don't see how a sovereign hard default could be worse than the financial straights we are in now.

It's important to point out that the elites love inflation because they hold hard assets, namely real estate which just appreciates in value while the outstanding debt remains the same. Let's say you bought a house in Berlin at the end of WW1, you had a mortgage on the property that you had to pay interest on monthly, so ten years later you could travel to America, sell your wedding ring to a pawnshop, take the dollars back to Germany and pay off your loan. You'd be pretty pro-inflation too.

The same economic incentive drives the behavior of politicians and financial "masters of the universe." The COVID crisis gave the Federal Reserve just the excuse it needed to go crazy with money printing.

The Fed printed more US dollars in those two months than it did in the first two centuries of America’s existence. Seriously. More money printing in a few weeks than almost 240 years. The balance sheet swelled to almost $7 trillion.

If you're an American reading this, please don't use those stimulus checks to go on vacation, eat out, or buy the latest smartphone. Pay the bills you absolutely have to and put as much as you can into a hedge-against-inflation investment like Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin opportunity has NOT passed

While I wish I had those two Bitcoins that I once spent in Barcelona in two weeks back in 2015,…

Antibiotic resistance, another front in Iatrogenic medicine's losing war on disease.

Superbugs is a well-written deep-dive into the fascinating history of antibiotics and a glimpse into the frontline struggle of doctors and scientists versus some seriously nasty strains of infectious bacteria and fungus. The book is written by Dr. Matt McCarthy, a staff physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Sorry guys and gals, this is another doom and gloom book review! Lately, I've been reviewing some books about the very troubling and very real threats to your life and well-being perpetuated by Iatrogenic mainstream medicine and bad science. Taking these red pills about the monstrous betrayals of humanity committed by the institutions of sciences and medicine can be depressing but the antidepressant is action, in this book review we'll include some evidence-backed biohacks that you can and should implement to fortify yourself against this world rife with microscopic villains.

"First, do no harm." is the cornerstone of the Hippocratic Oath, which doctors are supposed to honor in their profession.

But often they don’t, in modernity, many of the medical and scientific institutions wipe their collective ass with the Hippocratic Oath. This is why Biohackers must take extreme ownership of their health and practice rigorous risk management.

For better or for worse, the internet has created a thriving and vast wild, wild west health supplement market. On the internet, you can buy or sell whatever the hell you want, it’s quite the libertarian wet dream come true. You can yield this unprecedented freedom of choice to empower your health or you can impulsively punch those Buy Now! buttons and ingest things that may actually do more harm than good.

Rational skepticism should be your default mindset when considering ordering or consuming supplements (and also really when taking your doctor’s advice).

* Spend a minimum of 60 minutes researching the science supporting a supplement (read abstracts on Pubmed, read articles, watch YouTube videos, and listen to podcasts).

* Consider the sentiment of a meaningful abundance of anecdotes (skim testimonials and forum discussions online, watch YouTube vlogs, read verified Amazon reviews, etc).

* Listen to your own logic, reasoning, and intuition.

Here I’ll list some popular supplements and drugs that can be found for sale across the internet that fall into a higher risk category - but too often the websites selling them aren’t honest about their downsides. Before using any of these, consider alternative supplements and biohacks...

5-HTP

This is a commonly sold remedy for improving mood or managing symptoms of depression but rigorous research done indicates that it’s not a very good monotherapy for depression, it didn’t outperform placebo when used alone for depression. The real concern with it though is Serotonin Syndrome; 5-HTP spikes the neurotransmitter Serotonin, and too much Serotonin results in a bunch of nasty symptoms leading up to and possibly including death (in rare conditions). A few capsules of 5-HTP are not going kill you but combining 5-HTP with other serotonin boosters (St. John’s Wort, Amphetamines, Ecstasy, MDMA, or some pharmaceuticals) is risky.There are much better solutions to regulating mood and addressing depression. Pass on 5-HTP.

Adrafinil

This nasty-tasting drug is the pharmacological antecedent to Modafinil. Developed in the 1970s, it’s an anti-narcolepsy drug that doesn’t enhance cognition, wakefulness, and motivation nearly as much as Modafinil does. There’s also some liver damage risk if you’re taking it regularly. Since it’s off-patent it’s very cheap and for some reason, a lot of newer biohackers order and try it. Like most things from the 1970s, Adrafinil belongs in the dustbin of history!

Amphetamines (Ritalin, Adderal, Vyvanse)

To keep rowdy kids sedated in painfully boring public school classrooms big pharma created this category of amphetamine-based ADHD drugs for little 10-year-old Tommy and Sussy to take daily. Amphetamines probably do help some struggling with ADHD but doctors are way too willing to prescribe them for frustrated parents. But they have a number of well-documented side effects...Sleep issuesIrritabilityDecreased appetite.Stomachaches and headaches.Addiction risk.Unless your doctor can thoroughly explain why you should be using these ADHD drugs, don’t take them. If you need a little extra energy, motivation, and focus there are a lot safer options.

Cerebrolysin

This is an injectable drug for cognitive decline, it may be helpful for Grannies who keep forgetting their grandchildren’s names but I’m baffled that otherwise healthy biohackers choose to use it for an uptick in cognition. It’s formulated from pig brains and I have my doubts about injecting other animals’ DNA into my body.

If peptides pique your curiosity, look into BPC-157, this anti-aging peptide is derived from natural human gastric pentapeptides and works by optimizing the Gut-Brain axis.

DMAE

This pseudo-Nootropic is way too popular considering its concerning side effects...

* DMAE may cause birth defects.

* DMAE can disrupt the metabolism and function of the acetylcholine system.

* DMAE often causes hyperactivity along with several other unpleasant symptoms.

Fasoracetam

While ostensibly a Racetam, it’s an unpredictable, unproven research chemical that needs a lot more science done before people should be taking it.

Huperzine

This nutriceutical is often found in cheapo Nootropic stacks because it’s extremely cheap (costing about 2 cents for a month's supply) and potent in very small amounts. It is stimulating, it will give you an energetic buzz but the problem is that it hangs around in your system for at least 24 hours. As it bioaccumulates, it causes gastrointestinal problems along with cardiac and hypotension issues. Pass on a Nootropic stack with Huperzine if it contains more than 50 micrograms per dose.

A safer Nootropic would be something like NMN, which is a high bioavailability version of Vitamin B3 that supports Mitochondrial and epigenetic function, this results in a highly praised energizing and cognition-enhancing effect.

Kratom

This is an extremely popular (and extremely unregulated) herb from Southeast Asia. For many, it’s a benign opioid that helps with pain, along with recovery from trauma and addiction. The big problem is that it’s addictive, countless casual users develop a dependency and experience withdrawal when they cut back. Every year a handful of people die of an overdose after combining Kratom with other recreational drugs and/or booze.Only a single Kratom source that I’m aware of lab tests their product for purity. A plethora of negative side effects are reported online by users, perhaps this is because so much Kratom sold is untested and likely tainted by toxins.

Metformin

This Diabetes drug is highly contentious among biohackers. If you’re diabetic or pre-diabetic you should probably use Metformin, it’s one of the few drugs that actually help Diabetics. There’s some concern about it causing Mitochondrial dysfunction and if you’re going to use it you need to supplement extra B-Vitamins as it affects B-Vitamins’ metabolism in the body. If you’re an anti-aging enthusiast listen to some of the podcasts where it’s debated before using it.

There are a lot better supplemental options for empowering longevity, like C60 Olive Oil, a safe super-antioxidizing form of high-absorption carbon that impressed longevity researchers worldwide when it nearly doubled lifespan in a landmark study.

Modafinil

This is a nearly household-name drug, popularized, perhaps by the movie Limitless with Bradley Cooper, as a smart drug. Modafinil will probably make you feel a lot smarter as it’s a potent cognitive enhancer that will make you very awake for 8-12 hours. But, nearly a 3rd of biohackers report some kind of negative effect from it...

* It causes a major histamine dump; this can result in annoying autoimmune symptoms like itchiness, rashes, soreness, etc.

* It’s an anti-empathy drug for many. It makes you less sociable, maybe even anti-social.

* Steep tolerance curve; use it multiple times a week and it won’t be such a potent smart drug.

Phenibut

An admission, Phenibut is one of my favorite drugs. It can’t be called a Nootropic as it doesn’t enhance cognition or memory. It’s a Gabaergic anxiolytic that pharmacologically works a lot like alcohol. I use it as a socially lubricating alternative to booze and I’ve had some amazing late nights out on the town dosed on Phenibut.But, being a Gabaergic, it’s addictive, particularly for those with chronic anxiety and stress issues who use it daily and become dependent.

Tianeptine

This opioid-based antidepressant can be bought in a number of places online, I tried it and it does make life feel a lot peachier. But, unless you suffer from treatment-resistant depression you probably shouldn’t use it as a shortcut to happiness. It’s addictive and can be dangerous, at least one d…

A new Biohacker faces a bit of a dilemma as they begin researching Nootropics or anti-aging supplements; should you buy capsuled or powdered stuff?

It depends. We’re accustomed to seeing supplements and medicine sold on pharmacy store shelves as capsules and pills but that’s not always the best way to consume something. The average consumer is used to taking vitamins and supplements as tasteless white capsules and is understandably a bit intimidated by the idea of consuming a weird-tasting powder.In this article, I’ll break down the pros and cons of both, so you can make the right decision about the form of supplements to take.

Economics

The first major difference is that powders are cheaper. Capsuling a supplement is a tricky, time-consuming process and the manufacturers pass that cost on to you. When choosing between buying capsuled or powdered you want to do a little math...

Product cost / grams = price per gram

But you’ll need to take a look at the products’ labels and verify how much of the desired ingredient is contained in a capsule. Sometimes a 500-milligram capsule will only contain 300-milligrams of the ingredient. You may need to multiply the...

Number of servings X Dose per serving

... that is displayed on the label.

For example: NMN, an epigenetic anti-aging Vitamin B3 derivative, runs $48 for 7.5 grams in the capsuled form (that’s $6.40 per gram). Powdered it costs $75 for 15 grams (that’s $5 per gram), a 30% savings, that’s not bad! Unless you’re a millionaire you should be happy about saving 30%.If you are bad at math or confused, email the manufacturer and just ask - a decent source of any supplement is always happy to answer questions.Sometimes you’ll find that powdered is a significant saving, but it might still be smarter to get it capsuled...

Convenience

There’s a good reason why the masses choose capsuled supplements, they are a lot more convenient to consume. Drop a capsule or two, wash it down with a glass of water and you’re done.

Consuming powdered supplements is a bit more of a process, with many supplements you need to take a specific dosage consistently so you need to measure out 300 milligrams, 500 milligrams, or a gram (or whatever the clinically efficacious dosage is) with a scale. If you’re committed to rigorous accuracy in your biohacking you need to measure it out with a scale every time, which can get time-consuming but you might not be, then you can eyeball the dose after you’ve measured it out a few times.Often powdered supplements come with a helpful little spoon that you can use to scoop out the powder you can eyeball the dose in the scoop but it’s still not quite as accurate as measuring it out every time.

If you’re taking something like the racetams which are potent (and sometimes pricy!) at even small dosages accuracy is important. Capsules contain a consistent dose of a given ingredient, if you have more money than time and consistency of dosage is important, capsuled is better.

Powders also sometimes taste awful, particularly the synthetic, lab-formulated supplements, like the Racetams. If you find the taste of something really unpleasant, just take it capsuled.

Powders are messier, inevitably you’ll accidentally spill powder on the floor or dump it on your desk.

Despite these downsides of powdered supplements, I still prefer powdered when it comes to the supplements I really like and use regularly because you can get greater quantities more economically. In your experimentation and research, you’ll figure out which supplements work for you and you might as well stock up in bulk on those so you don’t have to place eCommerce orders monthly. For the same reason, if I want to try a new supplement but I’m not sure if I’ll use it long-term, I get just a month’s supply of the capsuled stuff.

When it comes to organic Nutriceuticals and adaptogenic herbs, I prefer powdered over capsuled.

* Herbal supplements are much nicer capsuled. They have a hearty, earthy taste that makes for a great Adaptogenic tea.

* Their absorption is better when taken as a hot tea.

* With herbs and Nutriceuticals, precision dosage is less important. You don’t need to do exactly 2.75 grams of Ashwaghanda daily.

* With powdered herbs, you don’t need to worry that an extra 500 milligrams are going to result in overstimulation or an undesirable side effect. You can eyeball the dose, I take about a half teaspoon of Horny Goat Weed daily to naturally support my testosterone levels, but before an epic horizontal session with Mrs. Roseland, I’ll do a heaping full teaspoon. Unlike pharmaceuticals like Viagra, you don’t have to worry about an overdose of herbs resulting in a penis amputation (yikes!)

Absorption

Usually, there’s not a big difference in the absorption of the ingredient between capsuled and powdered.

But you’ll want to do a little research and find out if Biohackers (on Reddit or Longecity.org) or the scientists conducting human clinical trials (listed on Pubmed) are taking the supplement sublingually - holding the supplement under your tongue so it absorbs into the blood vessels there. If the clinical or anecdotal evidence leads you to believe that the sublingual absorption is better, you’ll want to dump the powdered ingredient under your tongue.

Stacks and Multivitamins

Around the internet, you’ll find a lot of stacks advertised; multivitamin cocktails of different vitamins, nutrients, and Nootropic ingredients combined in capsules. You should be more skeptical of these products...

* When a product contains 5, 10, or 15 (or more!) different ingredients I worry that each individual ingredient may not be of the highest quality. When I find a company, team, or product that focuses on a single ingredient, I know that their quality testing and manufacturing standards will be higher.

* Often these products offer NO proof that they actually contain the advertised ingredients.

* Worse are those one-a-day multivitamins that you see advertised on TV and sold at the grocery store. They come in these solid vitamin tablets that are infamously hard for us to digest (they often end up clogging plumbing or get stuck in our bodies and show up in X-rays) and researchers at Johns Hopkins, evaluating data from large-scale clinical research, warn that multi-vitamins provide little real health benefit.

* As a rule of thumb, before buying or consuming a stack or multivitamin, demand to see a certificate of analysis verifying the purity of the individual ingredient.

There are a couple of excellent Nootropic stacks I’ve tried, they weren’t cheap as they contained real high-end, high-absorption ingredients (which they proved with COAs). Joe Rogan's Alpha Brain was NOT among them...

But generally, I prefer and recommend single-ingredient products because when you take a stack of multiple things you can’t draw subjective causality between an effect and an ingredient.

Risks

A concern with powders is confusing them, as many of them look nearly identical. Insufficiently attentive Biohackers could actually kill themselves by confusing powdered Piracetam and caffeine, for example. I have NO IDEA why anyone would want to take pure powdered caffeine but apparently, a handful of people kill themselves yearly this way.

Less deadly is just the risk of taking too much of a given supplement which is easy to do with powders. Every veteran Biohacker has a story about accidentally doing a mega-dose of something and then being overstimulated, getting paranoid, puking, or spending half the day in the bathroom. Biohackers do die of overdoses, it’s rare but preventable. Don’t be one of them, pay attention to the dosage of what you’re consuming.

The other (endlessly joked about) problem with powdered supplements is that they are often conspicuous white powders. Don’t travel with these powders as you’ll have a lot of explaining to do to any police officer or authority who might see them.

As a digital nomad, I’ve crossed dozens of borders carrying bottles of capsuled supplements that never got a second look from border guards, bu…

Mrs. Roseland and flushed-red Jonathan begin this Q&A podcast with some pretty salacious Biohacker gossip (with some edifying personal antifragility philosophy takeaways); I explain why I don't trust Dr. Andrew Huberman (life lesson on cognitive quickslicing here). Then we move onto a bit of fan mail, address the free will question, and bring science to bear on the question does Niacin (Vitamin B3) supplementation cause cardiovascular heart disease?

Listen to the full Q&A podcast on the go with Castbox, here 

Disclaimer

What you find on this website is NOT medical advice. I'm not a doctor. I'm just an experienced unlicensed self-experimenter practicing free speech in talking about my own extensive experiences and my interpretations of published science. Please see my guide on How to Biohack Smart and Safe. You should consult a doctor about any biohacking you're doing and ideally, also get a second opinion.

#41 Questions

Q

Responding to 10 things I've done "WRONG" with Limitless Mindset

You have certainly correctly identified the best monetization strategies. These are clearly lucrative and popular.I would dare say however that many of these are antagonistic to your ethos.What is awesome about you is many of the things you do 'wrong' (especially the first few) are what you do 'right', when not looking at just the money. The work, the research, the personal trials and the self reliance for personal health and achievement; The deep dives.You can't live on good deeds alone (unless you are Zen to the n-th degree, a super saiyan) - You have to make money, I get it. Don't lose yourself though. You are unique and extremely valuable. Angels would truly cry. I'd be among them.I hope that you can strike a balance. I'm glad you seem to already get that.

Q

But, do we even have free will? And how can we be sure? That's a dangerous premise to have at the core of your mission.

Q

Want to be a great man who doesn't need "hacks" that probably don't work? To be trusted, moral, and virtuous. First read about STOICISM and then practice it. Stoicism is a way of life. It's what whole "mindfulness" fad came from. They stole it from the Stoics. Notice this modern mindfullness doesn't tell you why or how it works. The Stoics do. In GREAT detail. 2000 years ago these great men were ahead of their time and have yet to be second to none. Wouldn't it be wise to read what they have spoke about? After, we still know their name and will continue to for centuries and even millennia more. Their work is someone of the most important works ever.I'd start with Epictetus: The Book. There is also an app called Stoa that is amazing... Want to know why the people that made the app did not do it for money, but rather to share the incredible knowledge passed down from the Greeks and Romans? You can subscribe monthly (you do get a free trial), BUT if you can't afford to pay it, you can contact them and they will let you use it for free.

Q

Responding to Atlantis Existed.

Based on scientific evidence (Real Evidence) the earth is either far far larger than we've been told, or it is not a globe. There is a firmament above us, this has already been proven, yet still the bought and paid for science refuses to acknowledge this. Even if you do not believe in a great creator of the universe as it is, you cannot deny that the firmament is real. In the 1950’s numerous nuclear rockets were fired on the firmament and it didn’t even make a crack in it. As for a curvature on earth proving it’s a globe? lt doesn’t exist. Or the earth is so vast a globe that the curvature is ever so slight that we can’t measure it as it is, or it is relatively flat so to speak. Either way? We’ve been lied too on an obviously massive level. Unfortunately, people are put into propaganda centers from the age of 5 to 18 and if they want to get ahead in the world then they must go for additional programming in these fake institutions of higher propaganda programming. After all they must keep up with Jones as Hollywierd has made it a goal for all these lost souls to focus on, rather than they find out the truth because they are focused on facts not fantasies.

A

Watch: The Futility of the Flat Earth Debate

Q

Thoughts on kratom as an alcohol alternative?

A

Recommendations

Phenibut is the best alcohol alternative

Kava Kava - Herbal anxiolytic and aphrodisiac

Q

Responding to Take THIS and you don't have to be as paranoid about EMFs 🔬 Biohacker Review of Niacin

What's your opinion of niacin and its metabolites 2py and 4py and risk for heart disease?? Any substance to this?

A

Further reading

Recent observational study: A terminal metabolite of niacin promotes vascular inflammation and contributes to cardiovascular disease risk

However 60% of subjects were treated with statins and apparently, most people get their B3 from fortified breakfast cereals. All negative meta-analyses were done analyzing the Niacin levels of people on statins.

2013 Meta-analysis: The current state of niacin in cardiovascular disease prevention: a systematic review and meta-regression

Eleven eligible trials including 9,959 subjects were identified. Niacin use was associated with a significant reduction in the composite endpoints of any CVD event... The consensus perspective derived from available clinical data supports that niacin reduces CVD events and, further, that this may occur through a mechanism not reflected by changes in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration.

Niacin and heart disease prevention: Engraving its tombstone is a mistake

Mealtime dosing of niacin, as opposed to bedtime dosing, may avoid a counter-regulatory hormone response, including catecholamines, because of altered fuel supply potentially leading to unexpected cardiovascular outcomes.

Bottom line; you should get your personal genotyping done and if you have the genetic variant rs10496731 on ACMSD you maybe shouldn't supplement Niacin every day for the rest of your life.

Lean Life Coaching biohacking consulting

As mentioned in the podcast, this is a very lean biohacking consulting/life coaching program. Here's how this would work...

* The Biohacking Consultation is 1 hour and 45 minutes total - which is actually two consulting calls.

* First Call 1 hour - Discovery & Strategizing call, I need to ask you some questions, we'll discuss your history and outline a biohacking strategy and action plan to overcome your issues.

* Second Call 45 minutes - Follow-up call in 30 - 90 days to see how you're doing with the plan we outlined; how you've improved, what you're struggling with, etc

 There are a few important reasons we split the time up into two calls

* It's a significant motivation hack for you to follow through on the biohacking habits and plan we'll outline because you're accountable to me in 30 - 90 days.

* I'm incentivized to come up with an effective biohacking strategy for you because I have to talk to you after you've been following it for a month or two.

* It timeboxes us with a deadline of 30 - 90 days for you to make improvements and accomplish your goals.

PLEASE fill out this form

Take a few minutes to answer a few questions, if your issues are far outside my areas of expertise I'll decline the consultation. My time is finite and very valuable so I only want to spend it consulting the people I can help. Thanks in advance for your understanding!

INVEST at least $150 in your own mind with these recommended sources and get a Biohacking consultation

Share this with a Huberman fan…

Support me on Substack? For $7/monthly?

I had a wide-ranging discussion with Lucas Aoun: Ergogenic Biohacker, self-experimenter, prolific Instagram educator, and creator of the BrainX Nootropic Stack.

Listen to this on the go (or while icing your balls) with the Castbox.FM app here

We discuss…

1:53 Insulin Biohacks: Metformin, Berberine, and Rapamycin9:09 Hacking GABA-B with Homotaurine (Order)Longecity - a Community of Transhumanists "Ending the Blight..."15:10 Catuaba as a Nootropic20:32 About Lucas Auon, Ergogenic Biohacker23:16 Uncommon testosterone hacks31:15 Sunscreen is toxic - Use Organic Zinc-Oxide Sunscreen36:20 The darkside of Vitamin D37:55 Cordyceps as a Nootropic40:00 Are SARMS worth the risk?42:24 Is salt healthy?49:00 Advanced sleep hacks - check out Lucas's Sleep Masterclass54:10 KSM-66 Ashwagandha breaks your brainBook Review: Food Forensics1:01:45 How did traditional medicine arise?1:10:30 BPC-157 is a sleep hack1:14:40 The BrainX Nootropic Stack

Lucas’s Site: https://www.ergogenichealth.com.au/

Lucas on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ergogenic_health/

Share this with someone who wears sunscreen…

Support me on Substack? For $7/monthly?

I answer the May Biohacking and lifehacking questions in the Q&A podcast below.

And I share some philosophical thoughts on the contraction of freedoms due to the global pandemic and explain why personal and interpersonal freedom matters more than political freedom in living a good life. Listen to it on the go here on Castbox.

Disclaimer

What you find on this website is NOT medical advice. I'm not a doctor. I'm just an experienced unlicensed self-experimenter practicing free speech in talking about my own extensive experiences and my interpretations of published science. Please see my guide on How to Biohack Smart and Safe. You should consult a doctor about any biohacking you're doing and ideally, also get a second opinion.

#29 Questions

Q

I have something for you regarding this statement

"Personal and interpersonal freedom matters more than political freedom in living a good life."

The issue is ultimately populatoin health, rather than personal liberty and the reality is, "equal for all and all are equal" is the deepest lie in this, thus, the most persistent expression of control...The controling bodies,(media outlets, branches of government, lobbyist, and Dr's are also not in on this campagn) influence us to further control each other don't they, and they do that by convincing us, we are all equal, when, that is THE aspect that is true less and less. Thus, we become blind to the specificities of our own lives, or our own health, in deed, of our neighbor and of population health. Your statement about persona and interpersonal freedom, is now about as false and useless as one could come up with.There literally is not population health, without measures of population control, and, you are promoting what the source of the problem is. My specialty is "the human condition" and that is one set of problems that just don't change, not ever.

Responding to my newsletter A funny story about tyranny...

Q

Regarding products for sale, I am a bit reticent about any exotic nootropics.I rely on caffeine (one weak coffee very early in the morning only every second day, no caffeine on the alternative day).I love the film "Limitless" starring Bradley Cooper and I guess that film is sort of describing Modafinil.However, as I mentioned, I prefer to keep my intake as natural as possible. Caffeine is about as exotic as I get and even that substance I limit to keep myself sensitive to its effects.I am, however, having trouble moving from Dual 1-Back to Dual 2-Back using some free software I downloaded (brainworkshop.net).I have an impaired working memory capacity due to anxiety.Do you have any strategies (techniques) that you could recommend for me to be able to progress from Dual 1-Back to Dual 2-Back?

Recommendations

The Adaptogens: Rhodiola, Chaga, Ashwagandha, Eleuthero, Red Reishi, etc

The Brain Rehab Protocol

Dual N-Back brain training

Q

I saw an article on your site about SuperMemo from 2013. Are you still using it? I’m not super familiar with your site but if you’re interested in better and more learning I’m not sure there’s a better way. If you’d like some help trying out the desktop version let me know. I’m not affiliated with them, I’m just a SuperMemo addict.

Recommendations

Use the Supermemo app

Q

hi Jonathan, I'm a long time subscriber and I have 2 questionsdo you drive a car? and do you think some smart drugs should not be taken when we drive?

INVEST at least $150 in your own mind with these recommended sources and get a Biohacking consultation

Lean Life Coaching biohacking consulting

As mentioned in the podcast, this is a very lean biohacking consulting/life coaching program. Here's how this would work...

* The Biohacking Consultation is 1 hour and 45 minutes total - which is actually two consulting calls.

* First Call 1 hour - Discovery & Strategizing call, I need to ask you some questions, we'll discuss your history and outline a biohacking strategy and action plan to overcome your issues.

* Second Call 45 minutes - Follow up call in 30 or 60 days to see how you're doing with the plan we outlined; how you've improved, what you're struggling with, etc

 There are a few important reasons we split the time up into two calls

* It's a significant motivation hack for you to follow through on the biohacking habits and plan we'll outline because you're accountable to me in 30 or 60 days.

* I'm incentivized to come up with an effective biohacking strategy for you because I have to talk to you after you've been following it for a month or two.

* It timeboxes us with a deadline in 30 or 60 days for you to make improvements and accomplish your goals.

PLEASE fill out this form

Take a few minutes to answer a few questions, if your issues are far outside my areas of expertise I'll decline the consultation. My time is finite and very valuable so I only want to spend it consulting the people I can really help. Thanks in advance for your understanding!

Share this with someone exacerbated with modern politics…

Support me on Substack? For $7/monthly?

In this live call-in-show, listen in on my Biohacking consultation with Daniel. I share Biohacks for overcoming mental health challenges like anxiety, analysis paralysis, rumination, and emotional triggers. We also discuss Piracetam vs pharmaceuticals, chelation, how to meet good wingmen as a single guy, and my wife's thoughts on "Lady" by Roosh V.

Also mentioned

Intermittent antidepressive meditation - a happiness hack

Dual N-Back training for emotional resilience

The Piracetam Protocol - For optimizing the effect of the iconic smart drug

Rhodiola - A caffeine alternative

Cordyceps mushroom - A herbal performance enhancer

Where to meet good wingmen online - Real Social Dynamics Facebook groups or Gameglobal.net has a geomap with game groups in over 300 cities. If there's not one in your hood, start one!

Biohacking Consulting & Coaching

This is my favorite part of my job as an Applied Neuroscience Strategist; sitting down on VOIP with someone, listening to what they are struggling with, and then giving them a bespoke Biohacking/lifehacking action plan for a breakthrough. There are few things that make me feel as alive as doing a 90-minute coaching session with someone where I'm able to give them some powerful transformative tools and knowledge for getting what they want in life.

Support me on Substack? For $7/monthly?

Some bad news for the single men out there: no woman will ever enthusiastically give you a blowjob because you…

* Have done 20 minutes of meditation every day this week or do Dual N-Back brain training to build mental muscles and be less at the mercy of your impulses and negative thoughts.

* Suffer through cold showers every morning just to get uncomfortable.

* Have been staying up late and waking up early for the last six months working on an Entrepreneurial project that will get you out of the rat race.

* Spend three hours weekly pushing heavy metal in the gym.

* Have been taking public speaking courses to improve your communication skills.

* Your eyes hurt from studying engineering textbooks all night so that you can get good grades in your next exam and the master’s degree that you need for a lucrative professional career.

* Just dropped $300 at the mall to upgrade your wardrobe.

* You’ve chosen to read a long dense non-fiction book about some meaningful subject instead of binging on mindless Netflix shows.

* Avoid the temptation to watch internet porn.

* Read countless Pubmed studies to try to figure out how to fix your health problems.

* Have spent months learning a new language.

*  Eat your broccoli or spinach and say "No!" to all that tempting junk food.

No woman is going to say…

He’s just trying SO hard, I must have his dick in my mouth right now!

The point I’m making with comedic vulgarity is that women particularly and people, in general, do not care about your personal development efforts, they only care about your personal development results.

Thanks to my secret society infiltration model for “networking” I don’t hang out with a lot of chumps, the guys I’m friends with are doing meaningful things with their lives. We don’t sit around and shoot the breeze talking about sports, the news, or celebrity scandals, we talk business, we talk about where we’re traveling and we talk a lot about our personal development projects and efforts. Consistently, some sharp young man I know will be telling me about the meditation methods or fitness efforts he’s devoting time to and will then lament that his dating life is not going swimmingly — girls are flaking and wasting his time or he’s having a tough time meeting the kind of girls he’d actually like to date. It might seem that his personal development efforts are in vain and on the other hand, we’ve all known guys who were real pieces of shit, who couldn’t care less about personal development that got laid like crazy. They made extraordinarily little effort to be better men and women loved them for it!

You might be saying…

Well, you’re just talking about idiotic men fucking vapid sluts. The kind of quality women that I’m interested in wouldn’t kneel before cocky assholes and felate their inflated egos. They would appriciate a guy who is a decent person going places with their life.

Yes and no. There are good women out there in the world who are attracted to virtue. Here in the red pill sphere of the internet, we recognize that all women potentially have a dual mating strategy, they want a man who is an exciting, sexy stimulating lover but they also want a man who is a stable provider. By avoiding women who display some conspicuous red flags you can focus your seduction efforts on women who might appreciate you for what you might become in 5, 10, or 20 years as opposed to women who will spread their legs for you tonight because you’ve fed them the required dosage of vodka and cocky banter. But still, even the highest quality women don’t care that much about your personal development efforts, in fact, they may backfire.

Get dressed up and go someplace that you might imagine yourself meeting quality women — whatever that means to you, it could be church, it could be a high-end networking group, it could be the library of a medical college, it could be a meditation seminar, it could mean volunteering for a local charity — and tell whatever fine ladies you meet there all about all the fascinating (and challenging!) personal development projects that you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into. And guess what… They’re going to want to “network” with you (expect a LinkedIn connection request!) They will certainly be attracted to you but in a dry vertical sense, as opposed to a wet horizontal one, if you get my drift.

Does this make them bad people? No. All your rational and pragmatic personal development (and broccoli consumption) makes you in their eyes a very rational perspective platonic friend or maybe even a mentor who could help them advance their career. Women are also fundamentally risk-averse, they are keenly aware that dating and romance are risky endeavors that more often than not result in heartbreak, drama, and breakups. Talking about all your personal development makes you a downright intimidating romantic prospect. By stimulating her rational side you make it all too easy for her to categorize you as a guy who would make a great support friend, not the guy whose name she would moan in a moment of sexual ecstasy.

Storytime

There was this very attractive Thai woman in Denver that I once tried and failed to date who had her shit together. She owned a high-end beauty salon downtown, she lived in this luxury condo in a very fashionable neighborhood and she drove this beautiful white BMW. At the time, I also had my shit together. I lived in the same neighborhood in this gorgeous, panty-dropping high-rise condo.

I had a walk-in closet full of fly threads. I was in great shape thanks to my client’s gym two blocks away. I was an entrepreneur operating my own marketing firm. I had an active (sometimes overactive) social life. I could be found eating, drinking a living large in the stylish restaurants and bars in downtown Denver 3 to 4 nights a week. I had a freaking tan salon membership! I was about as attractive as a 26-year-old guy could be, we flirted and had some chemistry yet she was uninterested in dating me. Here’s why, her boyfriend was in jail! She was in an It’s complicated relationship with this guy who was some kind of criminal and had stolen $30,000 from her and she was just not so keen on dating me — certainly one of Denver’s most eligible bachelors. All that I had going for me made me a serious romantic prospect and she was in the process of ending an awful long-term relationship. If I was kind of a loser, I bet I would have slept with her or had some kind of transient fling.

You may be thinking…

Great, so personal development is a big waste of time! I should just be an intoxicated, entitled asshole and unto me, the universe will deliver pussy!

No. Personal development does make you a man that women and the world will succumb to. But, Rome was not built in a day, it takes time. And you want to let people discover how awesome you are, don’t tell them.

I’m now married

Being married has made me happier than anything else (even driving a brand-new Maserati!) Almost every day my lovely wife makes me Bulletproof-style coffee just the way I like it, a smoothie that would cost $14, and a very nutritious salad (with broccoli!)

For the longest time, I thought that love was mostly just a marketing scam until I actually experienced it. True love is really worth all that arduous personal development. If you asked my wife what she saw in me that made me attractive, she’d tell you it was my vibe and energy — not anything specific.

Long-term devotion to holistic personal growth imbues an irresistible attractive vibe that does half the work of seduction. The arduous journey through the landscape of life with its satisfying heights and surprising precipices leading down depressing valleys imbues you with an attractive cavalierness and outcome independence in your practice of seduction. Years of devotion to health and some kind of mindfulness practice optimize the invisible hormonal signaling of sex-worthiness and imbue fearlessness and directness in your words.

Yo…