Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhancement” supplements in the US found both to a) contain multiple unapproved drugs and b) lack some ingredients listed on the label

Study: Your Brain Sup­ple­ments Could Con­tain Dan­ger­ous, Ille­gal Ingre­di­ents (Being Patient): Brain sup­ple­ments that claim to boost cog­ni­tive func­tion are increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar, grow­ing from a $4 bil­lion indus­try of about 4,000 unique prod­ucts to a $40 bil­lion indus­try with as many as 80,000 dif­fer­ent prod­ucts on the market. 

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Study: Some “brain-boosting” supplements sold in the US contain not-approved drugs at supratherapeutic doses, exposing users to unknown side effects

___ Some brain-boost­­ing sup­ple­ments con­tain an unap­proved drug that could harm users, study warns (STAT news): “Promis­ing to lift brain fog or improve mem­o­ry, brain-boost­­ing sup­ple­ments have joined sex­u­al-enhance­­ment and weight-loss reme­dies in the light­ly reg­u­lat­ed world of dietary sup­ple­ments. These prod­ucts may be sold legal­ly with broad-brush come-ons like these, as long as they don’t…

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Limitless evidenceless trend: The growth of nootropic supplements

_______ The all-too-under­­­s­tand­able urge to buy a bet­ter brain (Vox): “… unfor­tu­nate­ly, Bradley Coop­er is part­ly to blame for the boom of the edi­ble brain-improve­­ment indus­try. In 2011, he starred in Lim­it­less, a movie about a man who takes a spe­cial pill and becomes smarter and more capa­ble than any­one else on Earth. I’m joking…

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AARP: A majority of Americans believe dietary supplements improve brain health, despite the lack of evidence

_____ New Report Dis­cour­ages Adults From Using Brain Health Sup­ple­ments (Pre­ven­tion): “This morn­ing, the Glob­al Coun­sel on Brain Health released a report con­clud­ing that dietary sup­ple­ments do not improve brain health or pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline, demen­tia, or Alzheimer’s dis­ease. The report, released by the AARP, flat­ly rec­om­mends that most con­sumers do not take sup­ple­ments for…

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The FDA cracks down on dozens of supplements claiming to prevent or cure Alzheimer’s Disease

___ FDA takes action against 17 com­pa­nies for ille­gal­ly sell­ing prod­ucts claim­ing to treat Alzheimer’s dis­ease (US Food & Drug Admin­is­tra­tion): “The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion today post­ed 12 warn­ing let­ters and 5 online advi­so­ry let­ters issued to for­eign and domes­tic com­pa­nies that are ille­gal­ly sell­ing more than 58 prod­ucts, many that are sold…

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Time to update the regulatory framework for cognitive enhancement–especially nootropics?

Seek­ing an edge, these brain hack­ers mix up risky chem­i­cal cock­tails for break­fast (Stat): “…A 31-year-old entre­pre­neur, Gutiér­rez has thrown him­self into the emerg­ing move­ment of body hack­ing — or, more pre­cise­ly, brain hack­ing. He’s a con­nois­seur of “nootrop­ics,” a broad cat­e­go­ry that includes phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs, dietary sup­ple­ments, and do-it-your­­self con­coc­tions, all of them meant…

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