Are Nootropics Legit Or Just Another Health Fad?

People take supplements for all kinds of reasons: for a healthy pregnancy , for thicker hair , for fewer headaches, for stronger bones, and so on. But some health-conscious people are drawn to a type of supplement called nootropics, because they promise to improve your mental performance and make you smarter. Moon Juice sells a nootropic Reishi mushroom powder that it says is a, "powerful brain tonic, long used to energize and enhance mood, and support concentration." Sounds promising, but what even does that mean? "Nootropic" essentially means something that enhances your cognition, says Philip Muskin , MD, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry. "There are a bunch of things that fall into that class," he says. For example, stimulant drugs like Adderall and Dexedrine are nootropics. And even things like caffeine, nicotine, and L-theanine could be considered nootropics, because they have a stimulant effect, he says. "Though, honestly there’s nothing that is truly like, Wow, this will make you a genius ," he says. Some nootropic supplements claim that they’ll make you so smart that you’ll have an "unfair advantage," but that is a stretch. For a quick neurology lesson, we know that memory and cognition have to do with various circuits in the brain, Dr. Muskin says. The only way to make your brain work better, so to speak, is to keep using these circuits. "The more we use circuits, the more the synapses grow, and the faster and more efficient [the brain] is," he says. Best Psoriasis Treatment First Symptoms Of Rheumatoid Arthritis So, taking stimulant drugs or supplements can’t make you smarter, but they could make you more focused, which would allow you to get more done, Dr. Muskin says. For example, lots of people assume that taking Adderall makes […]

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