17min chapter

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis cover image

The 5 Biohacks Anyone Can Implement To Live Longer w/ Dave Asprey | EP #109

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

CHAPTER

Enhancing Cognitive Function with Nootropics and Biohacks

The chapter explores the use of natural and pharmaceutical compounds to enhance cognitive function, including the discussion of prominent nootropics like modafinil and anarasitam. It delves into biohacks such as increasing blood flow to the brain, improving mitochondrial function, and raising BDNF levels through supplements and plant compounds for optimal brain health. Additionally, the chapter touches on familiar substances like caffeine and nicotine, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and caution when using cognitive enhancers.

00:00
Speaker 1
I
Speaker 2
will be there next week. I will be going to spending two weeks I haven't taken a vacation a while so I'll call it research instead.
Speaker 1
Well when you pour your olive oil on the feta cheese on The platter just remember there's fat in that feta, too. I know You
Speaker 2
know, I want to I want to go cognitive um, yeah Because at the end of the day, you know, you can feel great, look good. But thinking clearly, I mean, if that's the single most important asset, right? Just when your brain is on fire and it's got, you've got clarity and you're enjoying life, you're, you're experiencing full spectrum of everything. Let's go there. How do you rate your cognitive ability right now on a zero to 10 scale?
Speaker 1
My brain has never worked better in my entire life, Peter. I love this and people look at me and say, how do you remember all this stuff? And the answer is complex, but I have this whole picture for longevity and aging and I remember a Delta V disaster. The reason is because it's all in a picture in my head that I could not do when I was 25 or 30. And I use a variety of compounds, some pharmaceutical, a lot of them natural. I've been formulating and taking nootropics for 25 plus years, and I'm taught by the guy who wrote the first newsletter called Smart Drug News, which was a print newsletter in the 80s, my mentor. His name is Steve Fokes, just a total genius of a biochemist. And so this has helped. I've also spent six months of my life with electrodes glued to my head, developing and perfecting the 40 Years of Zen program where 1,500 elite executives have come through and reprogrammed their brains
Speaker 2
to be lectured. I'm coming through soon. I promised myself that as a gift. Anytime, Peter. Have you talked to Naveen? He just went through. He's been real public about it. Yeah, I have. And let's dive into nootropics. So define nootropics and what are you doing? I want me some.
Speaker 1
All right. Nootropics are compounds that enhance cognitive function. People say, well, hold on. Is that a drug or is that a nutrient? It doesn't really matter. If it makes your brain work better, it's a nootropic. There are nootropic drugs and there are plant compounds. The two drugs that are probably most impactful, one of them modafinil. This is a, actually I have to create a new category of drug. It's called arousal promoting because it's not a stimulant. It affects dopamine and something called orexin in the brain. It has a very good safety profile, safer than Advil, but about five out of a million people can have a genetic reaction to it. Same exact reaction that Advil can cause. It's a actually life threatening skin reaction, but it's exceptionally rare. What it does
Speaker 2
is - And full disclosure, I use Modafinil and have been for some time. And I have spoken to every neurolog
Speaker 1
warnings that concern me at all. The only one that might matter is it does increase histamine in the brain. Histamine is a neurotransmitter. It's not all bad. And there are some people who get hives from it. So if you have weird allergic responses when you take it, maybe no. But in terms of long -term harm, I've been on this since about 2001. And I went to Daniel Amins Clinic, and today I'm so grateful to be on the Amins Clinic's board of directors that Scan changed my brain because it documented a hardware problem. One thing that Modafinil does, it increases blood flow in the brain, and this is one of the nootropic effects that you wanna look for, is how do I get blood up there? And I had brain damage from toxic mold exposure, and that meant low blood flow. So when I when I'm a daffodil That's why I graduated from Wharton Business School because I was on my daffodil and my brain wasn't working very well at the time It's I had to fix it The other pharmaceutical that is worth Noticing there's a class of compounds called the rassetam RAC et am and paracetam is the most famous This was made by Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, it still is. And it wasn't even in the PDR, the Physician's Desk Reference in the US for many, many years, probably still isn't. It's almost like it doesn't exist here, even though it's sold by a big pharma in Europe. And there's an analog that's fancifiable called anarasitam, A -N -I -R -A -C -E -T -A -M. I have been on anaracetam most days for 25 years. There's two reasons. One is it's neuroprotective of the brain. Two, it increases memory I -O. Peter, you and I are both engineers. You're a doctor. I'm not. But input output bandwidth is one of the primary performance enhancers of computing systems. In fact, I'm a network engineer by training in Silicon Valley. So, More IO, you mean maybe I remember stuff because I'm doping for my brain? Yes, so can you, and your brain will probably last longer if you do this. Anaerocytam and vedafenil are the two big ones. Then from like a other cognitive enhancing function, my big book on brain function, I hit the New York times list, sandwich between homo deuce and sapiens, which is like the hugest honor ever. It's called head strong. And the two big theories in that are number one, increase mitochondrial function in the brain via any means necessary. And I go through those. And the second one is increase BDNF and endosome. BDNF is brain derived nootropic factor. This is a compound that causes nerves to grow and nerve growth factor does the same thing. It turns out there are some supplements and some practices that will cause this to happen. If you have the neuroplasticity of a young person because your brain can change itself and you have enough energy to do it, you'll have a nootropic effect. So I even interviewed Eric Kandel who won the Nobel Prize in 1994 for proving neuroplasticity was real. And in fact, talk about an unusual guy at 94 years old, still has a lab off Central Park and just cranking away on new ideas to this day because he gets it. So how do you raise BDNF? Well, exercise, intermittent fasting, some of the core biohacks I've been writing about for a long time and so have you. But there are also some plant compounds that raise this and some interesting pharmaceuticals. The number one plant compound is lion's mane, mushroom. The problem is it doesn't work. I got so excited when I read the studies, I took lion's mane every kind for three years and gave up on it back when I started Bulletproof before I left the company. And I found out the reason is that for this to work, you have to have fruiting bodies and it has to be extracted with alcohol and hot water. So a high quality one will work, but the stuff they put in coffee doesn't do anything. And you'll know it's working because if you take Lion's Mane or anything that raises BDNF, you have vivid dreams. It's a very good sign that it's working. I can imagine that. Sure. Normal growth is going to excite functionality while you're sleeping. I actually just had a couple PhDs in the studio about 15 minutes ago here working with a supplement called Broccolite. And they went through a bunch of research on how it increases BDNF. So this is sulforaphane from precipitous vegetables. And the hack for listeners is if you're not to use a supplement, if you're eating, say, cooked broccoli, you need a bite of radish or a bite of raw broccoli to activate the enzyme that lets the sulforaphane out of cooked broccoli. So cooked broccoli won't affect brain function. Cook broccoli with a little bit of
Speaker 2
raw will. How is that? I mean, I need to go into detail here but I love broccoli and I love sulforaphane. I mean my number one food you know is if I if you said okay what's the food you would not want to eliminate from your diet right now it's broccoli. I love broccoli with olive oil and lemon that's what I will obsess about. But why the why the raw broccoli requirement? When
Speaker 1
you cook broccoli, you inactivate the enzyme that releases the sulforaphane.
Speaker 2
And it's present in, and just to, if you get it a little bit of it, it cascades and provides release.
Speaker 1
Yeah, it turns out it's a very active enzyme. So all it takes is one radish or even a slice of radish. So when you were going to the upgrade cafe in Santa Monica, yes, whenever you had cruciferous veggies, there was always a piece of watermelon radish on top. It was a enzyme that was there for a reason and It's funny. It's so active if you want to be really fancy You would take like one little stalk and just smash it because the more smashed it is more exposed to air the more of the enzyme Is released and then you just have one bite of that, and then your broccoli does something extra for you. And I would put that in the realm of nootropics. And interestingly, almost every psychedelic, I'm working on these for my book that'll come out later, sometime in 2025, don't even know the title yet, almost every psychedelic increases BDNF meaningfully. And the one that I'm most intrigued with is ketamine because it's legal and well studied. So I just hired Dr. Mark Bronstein to be the medical director for me at 40 years of Zen. So we're using ketamine as an optional add -on on top of intense personal development neurofeedback, because every dose of ketamine, even a low dose, not the kind where you're gonna go see aliens, this is a low, it's called a cyclitic dose, it causes 72 hours of profound brain plasticity. So that if you're gonna be doing some resetting of old patterns, you might as well have a brain that's ready to receive a reset with less work. And so ketamine, DMT, LSD, and psilocybin work, I'm even an investor in Paul Stamos' company where he said, well, what happens if you stack lion's mane and psilocybin and a B vitamin called niacin that causes basal dilation? Well, he's showing whole brain nerve regeneration. Right now, lion's mane and all the other ones, they only do hippocampal regeneration. So he's fixing things that are brain injuries and things like that. And if you stack that with hyperbaric, and I've got a hard -sided oxyhealth chamber, the medical grade one downstairs, that also will regrow things in the brain. So if you stack your hacks in the right way for your goals, there's an argument. there's two other nootropics that we just have to talk about because of the most common ones out there. And some people are already triggered going, you can't, you can't talk about nootropics. That's cheating. Okay. 90% of the population has this one. This is caffeine. Yes. Okay. Caffeine is a well studied.
Speaker 2
I love that you tattooed caffeine on your arm. It's funny, right? Because I talk about, you know, the reason I memorized caffeine structure and name is, you know, it's important to know what drug you're addicted to when you end up on an alien planet so you can recreate it there. Okay,
Speaker 1
that is awesome, Peter. I loved you before, but I love you even more now because you're such a nerd. I love this. Like this one, I need this one. The reason I tattooed it there is way back in 1991 or 1992, I sold a t -shirt with that molecule printed on it. It was the first product ever sold over the internet before the web browser was embedded. So the first e -commerce on the planet was a caffeine t -shirt. And I sold it to 16 countries out of my dorm room. So this is like, plus Bulletproof is a big company, now Danger Coffee is getting big. So it's like caffeine has served me well and so I, how can I not have fun with it? If I had a tattoo on the other arm though, it would be nicotine. And this is the controversial one. You want to talk about a well studied smart drug. You'll type 15% faster on modafinil or nicotine. Almost every great work of literature was written on caffeine and nicotine and not very often alcohol or THC. They're not good for cognitive enhancement.
Speaker 2
I get
Speaker 1
that. Are you doing nicotine and metofenil at the same time? Yeah, you wanna have a great day. So here's the thing about nicotine. Smoking and vaping will shorten your life. They are bad for you, right? So when I say nicotine, everyone hears tobacco. No, this is pharmaceutical nicotine extracted from tobacco. One cigarette has 20 milligrams. I'm talking one to five milligrams of nicotine delivered either orally or through the skin.
Speaker 2
How do you deliver your
Speaker 1
nicotine? I usually use a nicotine spray. And you can buy it in Mexico, all of Europe, all of the Middle East and Australia, but it's not approved in the US. It's from Nicorette, God knows why. So in the US, you can get little sachets. Lucy gum is good, but watch out for artificial swimmers. Lucy gum? You don't want that. You want? What's it called, Lucy gum? Yeah, Lucy, chewlucy .com or dot co or something like that. And full disclosure, I'm a small investor advisor, but I just wanted a nicotine without Nutra -suite in it because Nutra -suite is not good for brain function. So why would I want to take a cognitive enhancer that also punched my synapses in the face? That seems rude. I
Speaker 2
love, I love this story. I love this study done years ago in university students and they studied a whole slew of drugs to determine what increased their test scores. And there were two particular molecules that increased their test scores the most. And it was glucose and caffeine. Yeah, Coca -Cola. I actually
Speaker 1
write about this for college students. I'm like, guys, if you really want to ace the test, you need to test yourself ahead of time so you know dosing. But it's probably a double espresso with sugar and one to two milligrams of nicotine. And you go into this hyper -focus mode and just you can do anything. And everything is easy and it's all right there. And the problem is nicotine is addictive. And when you're young, I don't think you want to use it regularly. At about age 40, I recommend one to three milligrams a day. The reason for this is research out of Vanderbilt, Dr. Andrew Newcomb, I believe is his name. I call him Dr. nicotine. He's been publishing study after study showing that nicotine stops Alzheimer's disease in Parkinson's. You don't want neurodegeneration. So is it possible that we threw the baby out with the bathwater and that smoking is bad for chewing is bad for you, tobacco is bad for you, but a tiny dose of pure nicotine is cognitively enhancing so you feel good now and you don't have an aging brain? I think so. It's part of my recommended stack for people, but it's controversial. Yeah. I remember reading about Modafinil,
Speaker 2
provigil is the other name it goes by. Yeah. And reading that it was developed for fighter pilots to be sharp during long missions. And if you decide to try it, it is a prescription drug. It typically goes to 200 milligram. I usually do 100 milligrams. You don't want to be drinking alcohol along with that.
Speaker 1
a lot of people who do drink alcohol with it. If you did that you might want to take some glutathione because of liver pathways. It's not particularly hard on the liver but it could have a longer action in the body so I don't drink alcohol. It gives
Speaker 2
you weird dreams if you're doing that and you don't want to take any of these things later in the day. Sleep is important. Yeah.
Speaker 1
They used to use amphetamine for the military. It turns out amphetamine makes you want to kill people, which is bad if you're flying a $100 million jet. They replaced it with modafinil. I tried amphetamine when I was in Wharton, just prescription. I did focus better, but it hurt my brain. I felt horrible afterwards, even on low doses. And when I switched to modafinil, I was like, wow, the lights came on. But all nootropics have this problem. Everyone around you feels slow. And if you have personal development work to do, and you're angry all the time, you're gonna be a bigger jerk you're already a jerk. So the worst thing you do is take someone with lots of trauma, lots of triggers, lots of hyper reactivity, give them 100 milligrams of modafinil and coffee, then they run around just acting like a jerk. It'll make you more of what you are. So your job, if you do use, if you do use nootropics, is to be more self -aware because self -awareness plus a faster brain equals kindness and a faster brain without self -awareness equals big asshole and we don't want that. Yeah.
Speaker 2
The other benefit of modafinil for me is the dopamine element. It makes me feel happy and joyful and filled with energy. So anyway, it's something which
Speaker 1
- Peter, thank you for openly talking about modafinil and testosterone. Yeah, of course. There should be no controversy about these at all. These are life -enhancing, anti -aging, just powerful drugs that let you show up better in the world. And I've been so open about it and see people get really mad and like, you're cheating, you're thin because you're on thyroid. I'm like, you're fat because you're not on thyroid. Like, it's okay.

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