Piracetam / Nootropil articles
Piracetam – boosting your brain power
Is your brain firing on all cylinders? What is Piracetam? As the first true brain boosting ‘smart drug’, Piracetam has earned a unique place in medical history. Piracetam awoke the world to smart drugs, or ‘nootropics’, and their ability to improve key brain functions such as memory, attention and intelligence. The drug was developed in the 1960s by a Belgian team led by Dr Corneliu Giurgea. It was Dr Corneliu who coined the word ‘nootropic’ – taken from the Greek word meaning ‘acting on or towards the mind’. Piracetam itself has been described as a drug that “wakes up your brain”. Today commonly found under the brand name Nootropil, Piracetam has been a revolutionary drug - both as a cognitive enhancer [link to section on ‘What is Piracetam used to treat?’] and for delivering benefits with virtually no side effects and toxicity. How does Piracetam work? Piracetam stimulates the body’s central nervous system and bolsters the brain’s main communications network – the Corpus Callosum. This consists of millions of nerve fibres, connecting the brain’s two hemispheres and linking our logical and creative sides. Enlivening these links enables us to draw on greater brain potential. What is Piracetam used to treat? Antiaging and mental performance Helping our brains to work more effectively and delaying - or even reversing - the impact of time and disease on our grey matter, are key uses for Piracetam. Today it is renowned as a drug that improves learning, concentration and intelligence across age groups – benefiting both young and old alike. It has been shown to boost the learning power of college students, sharpen the mental performance of older people with age-related problems such as forgetfulness, and enhance alertness and IQ amongst elderly psychiatric patients. Is Piracetam beneficial for anything else? Piracetam’s status as a leading nootropic, or smart drug, is a far cry from its original use as a treatment for motion sickness back in the 1960s. Since then it has been used to treat a vast array of conditions –some of them serious and even life threatening. One area in which Piratecam has been particularly successful is in relation to head injuries - both minor and severe. It has helped with the treatment of ‘post concussion syndrome’ - where a minor to moderate head injury can lead to long term ailments such as headache, vertigo, poor memory and fatigue. Piracetam has also been used effectively in serious head injury cases, with patients who are in a deeply comatose state. Other serious conditions, including senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, have also been successfully treated using Piracetam, which has improved or slowed down the impact on sufferers. In addition, Piracetam has been used effectively in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, myoclonus (severe muscle spasms), sickle cell anaemia and Raynaud’s syndrome, a condition which causes the blood vessels in the fingers and toes to go into spasm. For epilepsy sufferers, Piracetam has boosted the effectiveness of anti-epileptic drugs and eliminated brain related ailments caused by their use. The drug has also helped people with dyslexia to increase memory and verbal learning skills, as well as the speed and accuracy of reading, writing and spelling. Piracetam has long been known to aid recovery from hypoxia – a condition where the body becomes starved of oxygen. In addition to medical treatment of hypoxia, the drug has also been used to combat hypoxia related to dangerous jobs or altitude, such as mountaineering and the effects of reduced oxygen levels during climbs. Further success stories include the treatment of alcohol and alcohol withdrawal conditions using Piracetam, while the drug has aided stroke victims in recovering from the speech impairment condition known as aphasia. And in a condition similar to a stroke known as chronic cerebral ischemia, where the brain is deprived of blood, Piracetam has helped sufferers to regain key functions such as use of limbs, speech, brain recovery and consciousness. Covering a vast array of conditions, Piracetam’s role as a key drug in both antiaging and preventative medicine, and medical treatment, is now clear. How effective is Piracetam? In the four decades since its introduction, Piracetam has undergone extensive testing and research around the world. From the drug’s first synthetic production in 1964 by Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB, led by principal researcher Dr Corneliu Dr Giurgea, hundreds of research papers and studies on Piracetam have been published. One consistent finding from the research is Piracetam’s lack of toxicity – and the same can be said of its nootropic cousins Oxiracetam, Aniracetam and Pramiracetam. There have been extensive toxicity studies on Piracetam, including research carried out by Tacconi and Wurtman, which concluded that it was “safer than salt”. Although Piracetam has earned an enviable reputation in the anti-aging arena, research has revealed its potency to help people of all ages. A ground breaking study by Dimond and Brouwers, which involved students in good physical and mental shape taking Piracetam, underlined its benefits to the young. The authors concluded: “The fact is that Piracetam improves verbal learning and appears to be a substance capable of extending the intellectual functions of man, even individuals gifted with high intelligence and good memory.” Piracetam has also been shown to boost the mental performance of older people – those generally in good health but experiencing everyday age- related issues such as forgetfulness. A Scandinavian study on ‘Normally Aging Individuals’ by Per Mindus, concluded that the elderly test group performed significantly better in a series of mental tasks using Piracetam. In a further test by Chouinard, elderly psychiatric patients showed signs of enhanced alertness, co-operation, socialisation and IQ with the drug. Piracetam’s role in helping dementia and Alzheimer’s disease has also been investigated. Studies by Stegink and Arzneim-Forsch found that Piracetam brought improvement, or slowed deterioration from both senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Similarly positive results have been found in research looking at Piracetam and dyslexia. A study by Tallal and Wilsher on dyslexic children found that use of the drug increased reading comprehension and accuracy, as well as speed and accuracy of reading, writing and spelling. What is the dosage? A common starting dose is to take three 800mg tablets twice a day, lowering to one or two tablets twice a day after a month. The effect of Piracetam can be increased if taken with brain nutritional products DMAE (short for Dimethylaminoethanol), Centrophenoxine, Choline or Hydergine. 
Piracetam (Nootropil) is known as a nootropic or "Smart Drug" It stimulates the central nervous system to improve cognitive functions including memory, attention and intelligence. What’s more, it does not contain any toxic or addictive properties.” How does Piracetam work? Piracetam was synthesized in 1964, as the first nootropic or cognitive enhancement drug of its type. Although its mechanism of action remains unknown to date, its use has precipitated increased blood flow and oxygen levels to areas of the brain. It is thought to facilitate movement of information between the brain's two hemispheres, via the corpus callosum, while improving the function of receptors responsible for memory processes. Piracetam has been sold in Europe for over 40 years, and widely studied on a variety of animals including: goldfish, mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, marmosets, monkeys and humans. Studies illustrated that, given intravenously to rats at 8gm/kg body weight, there was no resultant toxicity. Tacconi and Wurtman stated that: "Piracetam apparently is virtually non-toxic.... Rats treated chronically with 100 to 1,000 mg/kg orally for 6 months and dogs treated with as much as 10g/kg orally for 1 year did not show any toxic effect”. There is currently no evidence to suggest that Piracetam specifically addresses the cause of Dyslexia. However, meta-reviews indicate improved performance of cognitive tasks in dyslexic children, including:- verbal learning, as well as speed and accuracy of reading, writing and spelling. Equally, positive results have emerged when treating post-stroke aphasia, epilepsy, cognitive decline (following heart and brain surgery), dementia, and myoclonus. Piracetam has been used successfully in treating alcoholism and alcohol withdrawal syndrome in both humans and animals. It has slowed the deterioration rate of ‘senile involution’ dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, it has been shown to improve alertness, co-operation and socialization in elderly psychiatric patients suffering from ‘mild diffuse cerebral impairment.’ Click here to read more>>> | 
