muscleupcrohn what are your thoughts on the FocusXT profile? Just got some recently and it looks like a good introduction to Nootropics.
Sorry in advance for the messy post. I'm not going back and check it until later, so hopefully it makes sense:
The prop blend bothers me a little bit, but since SNS is a good company that knows how to formulate a product, and the feedback is good, we can figure out approximately how much of each ingredient there is.
First we have choline bitartrate. I'm going to say that the dose should be between 2g and 4.8g based on the research.
Here's a study with 2g choline bitartrate given to healthy adults (I just found this study today, sorry for just quoting random bits of text):
We found that choline bitartrate administration improves visomotor performance and decreases pupil size of healthy humans. This is the first scientific evidence for a rapid change in the nervous system and behavior after choline ingestion, pointing at choline’s wide-ranging effects on cognition...
The most obvious explanation for the null-results of previous studies on humans is that choline specifically affects fine motor control rather than ballistic movements and repetitive muscle movements as in cycling or running...
The outcomes of this study may be of direct help to, for example, athletes who can benefit from improvements in motor coordination despite slower reaction times. The current sample consisted of healthy young students with well-developed cognitive performance...
In summary, choline supplementation biased the speed-accuracy trade-off towards more accurate responses, improving the spatial coordination of hand and arm movements...
A particularly interesting observation from the present study was that individuals that were more effective (i.e., produced fewer misses) benefitted more from choline supplementation than less effective individuals. While this outcome pattern seems counterintuitive as one would expect more room for improvement in the less efficient individuals, we have observed similar patterns in other cognitive-enhancement interventions (e.g.,53). One possible explanation for such patterns might be that, at least in the cases being tested so far, the pre-interventional performance did not only reflect the current skill level but also the individual degree of short-term plasticity of the skill.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4536529/
Prior to reading this study, I had only seen studies showing some sort of cognitive enhancement in healthy and non-elderly individuals with CDP-choline (2 studies that I'm aware of), but now it seems that choline bitartrate may be a much more affordable, but still effective, choline source for cognitive enhancement, contrary to the typical belief parroted on many nootropic sites.
Here's a study with 2.4g taken twice daily:
Twenty-two female athletes (15 taekwondo and 7 judo athletes) were selected from different weight categories and divided into two groups, according to weight. The players in the experimental group took choline tablets for one week before a competition. The results revealed significant differences between pre- and post-competition measurements of leptin, free plasma choline, urine choline and urine malondialdehyde levels; body mass was also reduced in the post-competition measurements. In conclusion, choline supplementation could rapidly reduce body mass without any side effects on biochemical levels or static strength.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096089/
Next up is l-tyrosine, which research tends to dose at 100-150mg/kg, or 6.8-10.2g for a 150lb person. However, this dose is often split into multiple servings of about 2g, so we'll figure that there's probably around 2g in Focus XT. Research shows that it's an effective ingredient.
Up next is ALCAR. An effective daily dose is 2g, although this is often split into two 1g doses. We'll figure that there's 1-2g here.
I haven't done much research on DMAE, so I'm not sure really how much there should be or if it's effective, but I've seen doses range from 100mg to over a gram. I haven't seen any studies on healthy humans though. I remember Cooper saying "DMAE doses likely won't exceed ~250mg" in regards to Focus XT, so let's go with that.
Vinpocetine and huperzine both have some promising research in healthy adults, and the doses needed are quite low (only a few mg really for vinpocetine and less than one mg for huperzine), so its likely that they're dosed properly.
So, based on these numbers, it's very likely that Focus XT is properly dosed, as we can fit all of the ingredients at effective doses in the total blend in the order they appear on the label. Choline bitartrate, tyrosine, ALCAR, vinpocetine, and huperzine are all effective ingredients with research supporting their use in healthy humans. DMAE I'm less sure of, but it's safe and, at the worst, isn't going to hurt the effectiveness of the product.
In conclusion, I'd say it is a good introduction to nootropics, and is much better than the vast majority of nootropic supplements on the market, which tend to be extremely underdosed. It is a very good base to be used as the foundation for a more advanced nootropic stack, and there are other ingredients that can be added to it, such as racetams and/or herbal nootropics/adaptogens, to make a more advanced and versatile stack, but it's still going to be effective alone.