By MA Labs...
Vicaine Ingredient Profile
60 capsules
Serving Size: 2-3 capsules
Servings per Bottle: 20-30
Tianeptine: 100 mg @ 2 caps/ 150 mg @ 3 caps
TeaCrine: 125 mg @ 2 caps/ 187.5 mg @ 3 caps
Caffeine: 75 mg @ 2 caps/ 112.5 mg @ 3 caps
Fluorinated Modafinil: 35 mg @ 2 caps/ 52.5 mg @ 3 caps
Sunifiram: 10 mg @ 2 caps/ 15 mg @ 3 caps
L-theanine: 100 mg @ 2 caps/ 150 mg @ 3 caps
Choline Citrate: 350 mg @ 2 caps/ 525 mg @ 3 caps
Vicaine
“Prohedonic Opioid-Stimulant Complex”
Vicaine at a Glance....
• Produces both Stimulatory and Opiate-like Effects
• Induces Euphoria and Increases Energy Levels
• Enhances both Physical and Mental Performance
• Promotes a Positive Outlook and Increases Motivation
• Provides Potent Analgesic (e.g. pain killing) Effects
• Significantly Reduces Cortisol Levels
• Potent Kratom Alternative
• Modafinil Replacement
• Ideal for Pre-Workout Use, Contest Prep, or Anytime its Effects are Desired
• Unmatched in the Industry—the 1st and ONLY Product of its Kind
It’s all in the Name, or is it?
After spending weeks trying to come up with a concise description for this product, I was finally forced to concede the futility of my task. You see, Vicaine’s effect profile is so diverse that attempting to convey the totality of its effects through drug comparison alone just isn’t feasible; at least not without imparting a partial and skewed impression of its true nature. Panting a clear picture requires the employment and dissection of a wide variety of different terms, some of which include: revolutionary pre-workout, modafinil replacement, Kratom alternative, physical performance enhancer, pain-killer, cognitive amplifier, euphoriant, speed-ball in a bottle, stress-reducing agent, energy-booster, etc. While all of these terms accurately reflect different aspects of the Vicaine experience, we need look no further than its name to gain a fairly good understanding of what it is all about.
As its name (a portmanteau word) suggests, Vicaine possesses both stimulatory and opiate-like properties with a strong dopaminergic element, making it suitable for a vast array of potential applications both inside and outside of the gym. In fact, it is the first and ONLY product of its kind, created specifically to provide the user with an experience previously unobtainable in the supplement world. But rather than engaging in product flattery, let's bypass the vague promises and worthless hype typically found in ads of this nature and instead provide you with all the information you need to make an educated decision regarding Vicaine's potential place in your program.
At its core, Vicaine is a combination product comprised of two primary components, or halves, which are responsible for generating the majority of its effects and shaping its unique character. Containing potent dopaminergic-stimulants and a full-opioid agonist, its functions might at first appear to be contradictory, even oppositional in nature. Yet, experience has shown that when these two elements are combined in a balanced fashion, the end result is nothing short of spectacular, providing the user with the best of both worlds and ensuring a highly memorable (and pleasurable) experience. However, this only describes Vicaine in its most basic sense. In order to truly understand what we are dealing with we need to look at each ingredient separately.
It’s Role as a Stimulant
When deciding on the ideal stimulant profile for the Vicaine formula, the criteria for selection was 4-fold:
• It must be able to produce a stimulant effect powerful enough to sustain even the most grueling training sessions/physical activity.
• It must be a pleasure to use, lacking all the dirty/bad feelings that often accompany other stimulants on the market (DMAA, anyone?).
• It cannot cause anxiety, the jitters, or post-use crash, as these are some of the biggest complaints associated with traditional stimulant-based products.
• Lastly, it must be cardiovascularly friendly—no significant increases in heart rate and blood pressure.
This automatically precludes the majority of stimulants on the market today, but we are in luck because the best stimulants are capable of doing all this and more! You don’t think so? You will in a minute, but first let’s start out with the most well known of the bunch—caffeine. Yeah I know, caffeine has been around forever and is nothing exciting, but it is the most popular stimulant in the world—and for good reason—because it works and it works well. It produces a strong, energizing, feel-good effect that appeals to the majority, while possessing a relatively benign side effect profile when used responsibly. Although caffeine is capable of causing an increase in heart rate and blood pressure when administered at higher dosages, research has shown that these side effects are non-existent when used at 200 mg or less. As a result, its inclusion in the Vicaine formula was a no-brainer.
The next stimulant on the list is theacrine (also commonly referred to as TeaCrine; a patented version of theacrine). I am sure most of you have heard about this stuff by now, as it drew quite a bit of attention when it was first released a couple years ago. However, its high production cost has stopped many supplement companies from including it in their products and when they do it is usually severely under-dosed, preventing the user from experiencing its full benefits. Just as using 25-50 mg of caffeine isn't going to provide anywhere near the mood and energy boosting effects of 200 mg, neither will 25-50 mg of theacrine (the dose typically found in most other products) come anywhere close to providing the same benefits as 200 mg (the dose found to be most effective in clinical research). This is an important point to consider...because if you've purchased a theacrine containing product in the past, chances are it was severely under-dosed—a problem you don’t need to worry about with Vicaine. Overall, I believe theacrine shares the top spot with caffeine as the best CNS stimulant on the market, but what exactly is it?
Extracted from the Kucha plant, theacrine is a purine alkaloid with close similarities to caffeine in terms of both molecular structure and effect. In fact, it is naturally synthesized from caffeine in various plants throughout the world and functions primarily as an adenosine receptor antagonist; the same mechanism through which caffeine mediates its beneficial effects. However, there are also distinct differences between these two substances. Whereas tolerance to caffeine develops rapidly, theacrine appears to be resistant to tolerance build-up, allowing the individual to continue experiencing its full effects with repeated use. It is also more forgiving in the side effects department, being much less likely to cause the jitters, anxiety, or post-use crash than its harsher brother. Theacrine provides a variety of additional benefits, all of which are useful for bodybuilders. These include analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects, as well as a significant degree of hepatic protection. Together, these qualities help create an environment more conducive to intense training and muscular recovery, while also helping to mitigate the negative effects of methylated (e.g. oral) AAS use on liver function.
Both of these compounds have received high praise from consumers and researchers alike, but what happens when we combine them? Well, researchers did just that in an attempt to find out how this combination affects both the mind and body, measuring subjective feelings such as mood and energy levels, as well as cardiovascular markers like heart rate and blood pressure. The results were impressive, to say the least. Not only did this combination provide superior improvements in mood and energy levels compared to caffeine alone (suggesting an additive dopaminergic effect), but even when using moderately high dosages of both drugs, blood pressure and heart rate remained unaffected!
Even if these were the only stimulants I chose to include in the Vicaine formula, it still would have been superior to most other stimulant-based products on the market, but this wasn’t good enough. I knew it needed something more; something that was truly complimentary and capable of enhancing the overall experience in ways that other products were failing to do. Adding in another CNS stimulant would’ve been overkill. After all, if I wanted additional horsepower in that area I would’ve just increased the caffeine and/or theacrine dose. But as most of you know, increasing the dose of CNS stimulants beyond a certain point rarely produces a better result, as it usually tilts the ratio of positive to negative effects in favor of the negative. This ultimately makes the user feel worse and leads to a decrease in performance.
We’ve all seen companies go down this road before. They load their products with gross amounts of CNS stimulants so they can claim to sell “the most powerful pre-workout on the market”. Unfortunately, when it comes to CNS stimulants this “more is better” philosophy is more of a marketing gimmick than a product improvement. If total dosage was the sole determinant of product efficacy, why not just gobble down 1,000 mg of caffeine and 150 mg of DMAA every time you need a pick me up? It will certainly give you a jolt, but it will also make you feel horrible and probably put you in the hospital with heart palpitations. The truth is that creating the ideal stimulant-based product is about much more than just dosage. It’s about finding a combination of ingredients that, when administered in the correct dosages and ratio, enables the user to feel and function to the best of his/her ability. This can only be accomplished by carefully considering and manipulating all the necessary variables. Simply dumping a ton of low quality CNS stimulants into a product is a cheap, lazy, and inferior approach to product design.
This is why I chose sunifiram—considered by many to be the world’s most powerful nootropic. Belonging to the ampakine family of compounds, sunifiram activates a specific sub-set of glutamate receptors known as the AMPA receptor and according to researchers, it possesses an estimated potency 1,000 times greater than piracetam. However, because it works through a completely different pathway than traditional stimulants, it is able to further improve the product’s effectiveness without causing an increase in CNS related side effects. Sunifiram’s effects are primarily cerebral in nature, leading to improved cognition, focus, and mood, as well as increased wakefulness and the enhanced interpretation of sensory input. When used in combination with CNS stimulants like caffeine and theacrine, performance is enhanced in ways that cannot be obtained with traditional stimulants alone.
And now it’s time to reveal what I consider to be the most fascinating component of Vicaine’s stimulant complex. I am talking about fluorinated modafinil, an extremely potent variant of the prescription medication modafinil and armodafinil (brand names Provigil and Nuvigil, respectively). Despite providing stimulant-like effects, fluorinated modafinil (which will henceforth be referred to as flmodafinil) is not a stimulant in the traditional sense, but belongs to a unique class of compounds known as eugeroics (meaning “good arousal”). Flmodafinil has been getting rave reviews in the nootropics-research community and is currently undergoing Stage 4 clinical testing for use as an ADHD drug.
A full 4 times stronger than modafinil, flmodafinil is not a precursor molecule like adrafinil, but a fully active modafinil analogue with incredible potency. That’s right, this stuff is superior to modafinil/armodafinil and the pharmaceutical companies know it, which is why they are scrambling to get this stuff onto the market as soon as possible. Diverse in its mechanisms of action, it works through the dopaminergic, glutamanergic, histaminergic, and orexinergic systems, but its most fascinating characteristic is the way that it interacts with the dopaminergic system. In short, Flmodafinil is a dopamine re-uptake inhibitor, which means it works through the same exact pathway as cocaine. This provides a feel-good effect similar to, although not as strong as this rec. drug. However, Flmodafinil is not a rec. drug substitute, but a safe, genuine performance enhancer that works through multiple pathways to improve both physical and mental performance, as well as mood. MA Labs is the first company to bring this powerful new compound to the bodybuilding-fitness community.
It’s Role as an Opioid Receptor Agonist
If you thought the previous section was interesting, I'm about to take things to a whole new level and prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Vicaine is truly the first of its kind and completely different than any other product ever released. But first, let’s address the skepticism that typically accompanies the following claim. For most people, after hearing that a product produces “opiate-like” effects, the natural reaction is usually something akin to “yeah, right...sure it does, buddy...this is nothing but a bunch of marketing B.S.” Given the sheer magnitude of the claim, this reaction is understandable. After all, we all know that opioids are illegal and only found in highly controlled drugs like Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin, etc. I will admit I was skeptical in the beginning too, which is why I am going to temporarily forgive your lack of faith. However, once I started doing some research I quickly learned that the following compound not only has the ability to function in this capacity, but it does so with a surprisingly high degree of efficacy. No matter where I looked, everyone and everything was saying the same thing—that this stuff provides undeniable opiate-like effects on par with prescription medications. This has been confirmed not only anecdotally, but scientifically as well, with decades of literature attesting to this fact. Ultimately, any lingering doubts I may have had were removed through self-experimentation.
This raises a big question, which is
“why on Earth would I include a compound like this in a bodybuilding product?” Certainly, most, if not all of us have used opioids at some point in the past, whether due to injury or otherwise. As a result, we quickly learned that these drugs are more conducive to lying on the couch than picking up weights, but this is where prescription opioids end and tianeptine—the compound in question—begins. This will all become clear in a moment, but let me start off by asking you to keep an open mind for the next few minutes as I kick things off with a few relatively unknown facts. First off, tianeptine is the ONLY full-opioid agonist (kratom is a partial-opioid agonist) that hasn’t yet been scheduled as a controlled substance in the United States. Truthfully, it probably won’t be long before this happens, as it has already occurred in many European and Asian countries (note: tianeptine is officially recognized as a controlled substance in numerous countries around the world). However, tianeptine differs from other opioid agonists significantly in terms of both function and safety, as we will soon see below.
Originally developed as a mood-brightening agent by The French Society of Medical Research, tianeptine was initially classified as a selective serotonin re-uptake enhancer, or S.S.R.E. (the first and only compound of its kind), and used as an anti-depressant with great success. But later research cast doubt on its efficacy as an S.S.R.E., leading researcher’s to re-evaluate its primary mechanism of action. It was eventually decided that the majority, if not nearly all of tianeptine’s positive effects on mood were attributable to a single trait—its ability to activate opioid receptors.
There are 3 primary opioid receptors in the brain (delta, kappa, and mu), each of which produces different effects in the body. Activation of the delta-receptor provides analgesic (i.e. pain-killing) and anti-depressant effects, while the mu-receptor provides analgesic and euphoric effects. The kappa-receptor is the bad guy of the bunch, providing effects contrary to those usually associated with opiates, such as depression and agitation. Tianeptine attaches to these receptors in the same way that traditional opiates do, displaying strong activity at the mu-receptor (primarily responsible for triggering euphoria), moderate activity at the delta-receptor (partially responsible for triggering euphoria), and negligible activity at the kappa-receptor. In other words, this stuff works through the same feel-good mechanism as traditional opiates, but with an even higher degree of selectivity for the mu and delta-receptor.
Up this point I have focused primarily on tianeptine’s ability to activate opioid receptors and the subsequent feel-good effect that results from it. Naturally, this draws a close association between tianeptine and the various prescription opiates; an association I previously pointed out. However, if you think its sole purpose is the make the user feel good, think again, as that would wholly mischaracterize the reason for its inclusion in the Vicaine formula. You see, one of the biggest differences between prescription opiates and tianeptine is that when administered at efficacious doses it does not result in cognitive decline, decreased psychomotor activity, or sedation. In other words, it will not hinder your workouts. In fact, it has even been shown to have the opposite effect by helping to augment cognitive function, increase attention span, and improve exercise performance!
This is a big deal and must be acknowledged if the reader hopes to gain a full understanding of this amazing substance. Although the mechanisms through which tianeptine works have not yet been full elucidated, researchers believe that, in addition to activating the opioid receptor, it also possesses activity at the AMPA receptor, dopamine receptor, and NDMA receptor. This would account for (at least in part) its unique ability to provide mild stimulant-like effects in the face of opioid receptor activation. Basically, tianeptine provides all the positive effects of traditional opiates without causing the CNS depression (drowsiness, impaired motor skills, etc) of prescription opioids, thereby eliminating the one trait that could negatively impact exercise performance. This is something that has never been witnessed before and why it functions so marvelously as part of the Vicaine formula. With that said, it is important to note that tianeptine’s opiate-like effect can overpower its stimulant effect when administering large dosages. For this reason Vicaine has a number of different dosing options available, which allows users to tailor their dose according to their needs (training vs. pain-relief, for example).
For those of you who haven’t yet drawn the connection, tianeptine’s potency as an opioid receptor agonist means it functions as a highly effective analgesic (e.g. pain-killer) and when I say “highly effective”, I mean HIGHLY effective! Just to make sure you are properly understanding me here, I will remove any subjectivity from that comment by stating unequivocally that it works just as well as most of the prescription opioids found on pharmacy shelves. With such a large number of bodybuilders suffering from chronic/debilitating aches & pains, the potential implications as a training aid are obvious. Up until now, many of these individuals were forced to rely on N.S.A.I.Ds, which are not only damaging to the kidneys and cardiovascular system, but also inhibit protein synthesis. Tianeptine provides an alternative to this side effect heavy class of drugs while exhibiting far superior pain-killing effects.
Further enhancing Vicaine's pain-killing properties is flmodafinil (mentioned above), which has been clinically demonstrated to potentiate the analgesic effect of drugs which bind the opioid receptor. In other words, it transforms tianeptine into an even more powerful pain-reducing agent—without the slightest detrimental effect on exercise performance. L-theanine (another compound in Vicaine that I will talk about shortly) functions in a similar capacity by reducing tolerance build-up and limiting physical dependence in opioid-abusive individuals.
Tianeptine also provides several other benefits unrelated to those listed above, one of which is the ability to significantly reduce cortisol levels. As the most catabolic substance in the body, excessive production of this hormone can have a profoundly negative effect on our physiology, resulting in impaired muscle growth, accelerated fat gain, and insulin resistance. Bodybuilders need to remain particularly diligent when it comes to cortisol management, as the presence of multiple risk factors (intense physical exertion, cardio, stimulant use, etc) nearly guarantees the presence of elevated cortisol levels. Unfortunately, few bodybuilders are aware that they even have this problem or the degree to which it can negatively impact their progress, while even fewer take steps to correct it. Tianeptine can help correct this hormonal imbalance, accelerating one’s muscle building and fat loss efforts. As an added perk, it has also been shown to provide powerful neuroprotective effects, promoting brain health via an increased rate of neuronal survival and improved synaptic plasticity. Many have speculated that this may have long-term benefits in terms of degenerative brain disease prevention. Lastly, tianeptine tends to balance out the stimulant half of the product by alleviating any anxiety or restlessness that may transpire through stimulant use.
Guys, I know all this is hard to believe. No matter how many people put up reviews confirming everything I’ve just said, I still get tons of people sending me personal messages asking
“Mike, does it really do everything you say it does?” Being that no other OTC product has ever provided an effect profile even remotely similar to Vicaine, some people just can’t believe it. They wonder how it is possible for a legal product to produce effects normally reserved for only the most powerful prescription drugs. Some people simply have to try it before their doubts are lifted.
Interesting Additions
In addition to Vicaine’s core components, I have also included a variety of supportive ingredients designed to further enhance the overall experience. One of these is choline, a nutrient essential for proper neurotransmitter function and which enables several of the ingredients within Vicaine to work to their maximum potential. Unfortunately, most modern diets are deficient in this important nutrient, making one more likely to experience a number of health problems, such as muscle damage, liver damage, cardiovascular damage, diabetes, impaired cognitive function, degenerative-mental disorders, and many others. Choline supplementation becomes particularly important when engaging in activities and/or using drugs/supplements which deplete this vital nutrient. L-theanine has also been included because of its ability to combat caffeine’s potential CNS related side effects (jitteriness, anxiety, etc) and its positive effects on dopaminergic function.
The First of Many
Once again, MA LABS has pulled out all the stops in an effort to make sure that you, our brothers and sisters in iron, have unbridled access to one of the most cutting-edge and controversial products ever released in the bodybuilding-fitness community. In addition to its profound and multi-faceted effect profile, every ingredient found in the Vicaine formula has been dosed for maximum effectiveness. You won’t find any half-ass measures here, nor will you ever. At MA LABS we are committed to excellence on every front, while relentlessly pursuing best-in-class status in all product categories. As the first product of its kind, we are excited to release to you our latest creation. We hope you enjoy it thoroughly.
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