Sometime ago Ellis used some Ritalin, which is the trade name of
methylphenidate. Evidently, it increases productivity at work when
taken by non-ADHD. American online pharmacies must have read the
article as well and are selling it without an office visit for a
prescription for the purpose of getting productivity at school or
work.

Ellis, again, was ahead of the curve!

[Thanks for the nice comment... I used Ritalin after I learned about
it from a post, and some discussion here on Rejuvenation which made
me feel that Ritalin could be helpful to me. I found Ritalin to be
extremely effective to "focus" my mind on what I was doing. But I
stopped using it because, after all, it is not a natural substance
to my body or my brain... and I found a hormone which I like much
better to do what I wanted, which is EPO.

EPO is the ultimate "brain food," since it increases oxygen supply to
the brain... and it also increases oxygen to all the other organs in
the body which probably helps to prevent degenerative processes.

Here is my Ritalin page, with what we discussed at that time, on
Rejuvenation:

http://www.rajeun.net/ritalin.html

(VERY INTERESTING.... I wonder how I would feel if I use it NOW,
with 53% hematocrit?)

What impresses me the most of the article that you sent, below, is
all this discussion about the "ethics" of using Ritalin, vs. the
"ethics" of using steroids, etc. As always, they freak out on
"ethics" and athletes using good substances to improve their
results.

In my opinion (which nobody asked) there is NOTHING UNETHICAL OR
WRONG with improving your results through improving YOUR HEALTH.
On the contrary, there must be something WRONG with NOT wanting to
improve your health, if you know how you can improve it... and it is
pretty UNETHICAL for a SPORTS FEDERATION to block athletes from
improving their health, (and then to claim that it is meant to
protect their health!)

In my opinion, the real problem is blocking athletes from being
allowed to use good and natural hormones, which we know are good for
their body IF THEY ARE USED CORRECTLY. The prohibition is precisely
what has CAUSED athletes to "go underground," which is why so many
of them get into trouble, because they can't go to a doctor or a
specialist to get good advice on doses and how to avoid side effects
of various health enhancing hormones.

What is even worse is that we lose neurons at a very young age...
By age 35, a world champion boxer is just a fraction of a second
slower than he, himself, was at age 25, and that fraction of a second
causes him to lose the world championship.

I am not so interested in whether or not an athlete wins or loses
a medal or a championship as I am interested in the fact that they
lose the championship BECAUSE they are slowing down. This slow down
is caused by a LOSS OF NEURONS... and a LOSS OF NEURONS also means
they are LOSING BRAIN CELLS.

I wouldn't mind the "slow down" so much, if it wasn't also PROOF
that ***I AM ALSO losing MY NEURONS, AND MY BRAIN***!!!

The hell with the Olympic Committee, I am not going to lose my brain
if I know how to avoid it!

The loss of neurons then causes a loss of muscle, and the loss of
muscle permits an accumulation of fat, etc. This is all a part of
the process called "sarcopenia" and eventually if nothing else kills
us, this is what will kill us someday.

But it is a slow and horrible death, known as "natural aging" and if
you really study the symptoms of this horrible disease, in the extremes,
it is really sad. Most of all, the loss of brain cells and the slowdown
of the body is really very sad. Just go to a park and see all the very
old people being pushed around on a wheelchair by a nurse, and you will
see what I mean.

Can this extremely weak condition be avoided or postponed perhaps ten
years or more? Yes, I am pretty sure it can be avoided or postponed....
But not if we are forbidden (by the OLYMPIC COMMITTEE, no less) because
it is "unfair" or "unethical"... blocked from taking growth hormone,
testosterone, and EPO, etc.!

Australia is one example of a country that has fallen victim of the
hysteria against anabolic steroids... Recently I sent ONE 4 iu vial of
growth hormone WITH A PRESCRIPTION FROM AN AUSTRALIAN DOCTOR to
Australia, to somebody whose hand had been cut off and re-grafted...

It was blocked and destroyed by the Australian Government. They have
legislated the most draconian laws in the world to prevent common citizens
from using growth hormone for anything except a very narrow list, since
the Olympics were held in Australia a few years ago. Of course this
means Australian DOCTORS also are separated from the benefits that
growth hormone can bring to their patients, since they can't easily
experience it themselves.

To think that sarcopenia can be AVOIDED or POSTPONED by medicines
that are FORBIDDEN or blocked from the population in general, and that
aging in general can be made much more bearable with growth hormone and
testosterone... it seems to me that Kafka never wrote a story so
Kafkaesque as the true story that is being written every day, today, in
many countries (don't look too far away...) around the world.

I think somebody should form an organization to work for the legalization
in sports of growth hormone, testosterone, and EPO, etc. But it would
probably not get anywhere, just like the organizations to legalize
mariguana, (the use of which I am not in favor of, but the
criminalization of mariguana is extreme...) etc. have gotten nowhere.

Growth hormone and testosterone, however, are nothing like mariguana,
since they result in BETTER HEALTH, not bad health or mind distortions.

See my page, Sarcopenia, to avoid sarcopenia in yourself:

http://www.rajeun.net/sarcopenia.html

- Ellis]

Ethical Dilemma Found in Neurocognitive Enhancement Debate

April 28, 2004 — Neurocognitive enhancement, the practice by healthy
people of using stimulants indicated for attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), could be beneficial by improving
productivity at school and work, or potentially harmful by putting
additional pressure on students and employees, or a mix of benefits
and risks.

While the jury is still out, a cautious approach to restrictive
regulations and legislation is in order, according to the authors of
a perspective article published in the May issue of Nature Reviews
Neuroscience and posted online April 20. The practice of healthy
people enhancing their attention skills with these treatments is
somewhat similar to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but an
outright comparison is too simplistic, the authors said.

"The difference between athletic performance–enhancing drugs and
neurocognitive-enhancing drugs [is that] in athletics, the whole
point is the competition, so you don't want to allow some people to
have an edge that is not available to others," lead author Martha J.
Farah, PhD, told Medscape in a telephone interview.

"In school and the workplace, competition is not the main point. If
some workers are getting more work done as the result of using
enhancing drugs, it doesn't undermine the purpose of school or work,"
Dr. Farah pointed out. "Of course, if you're revving up your
attention before you sit for the SATs, then the problem is more
analogous to sports. But in general the issues are different with
neurocognitive enhancement." Dr. Farah is the Bob and Arlene Kogod
Term professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia, where she is the director of the Center for Cognitive
Neuroscience.

In the cognitive arena, she expressed concern about fairness "because
not all students or workers may be able to enhance because of cost or
access barriers." Dr. Farah also was concerned that employees and
students may start feeling pressured to enhance by employers or
teachers. "It's easy to see how an employer would encourage employees
to enhance," she said.

The article focuses on the scientific community's increased ability
to improve brain function and the use of that ability extending
beyond the treatment of mental and neurologic dysfunction to the
enhancing of the mental processes of healthy people.

"The enhancement of normal neurocognitive function by pharmacologic
means is already a fact of life for many people in our society, from
elementary school children to aging baby boomers," the authors
write. "In some school districts in the United States the proportion
of boys taking methylphenidate exceeds the highest estimates of ADHD
prevalence, implying that normal childhood boisterousness and
distractibility are being targeted for pharmacologic intervention."

They also write that many high school and as many as 16% of college
students are using stimulants such as methylphenidate and
dextroamphetamine as study aids, and that middle-aged consumers
regularly buy supplements that claim to enhance memory.

The authors explain that the question is not whether the treatments
are effective at enhancing healthy people's performances; rather, the
question is whether such treatments entail ethical dilemmas.

"With the advent of widespread neurocognitive enhancement, employers
and educators will also face new challenges in the management and
evaluation of people who may be unenhanced or enhanced," the authors
write. "Regulatory agencies may find their responsibilities expanding
into considerations of 'lifestyle' benefits and the definition of
acceptable risk in exchange for such benefits. Finally, legislators
and the public will need to decide whether current regulatory
frameworks are adequate for neurocognitive enhancement, or whether
new laws must be written and new agencies commissioned."

Particularly regarding restrictions of such use, Dr. Farah urged
prudence. "It's tempting to spring into action and demand regulation
and legislation," she said. "We need to go slowly and see how this
trend develops. We need to keep our eyes open to safety and be alert
to the effects on the lives of the people who use them. Are they
empowering or do they lead people to feel that they live to crank out
work? Let's keep our eyes open and see how this all plays out."

"This article was a thoughtful analysis of the issue and thought-
provoking," Ellen Drexler, MD, told Medscape in a telephone interview
seeking outside comment. "I think the cautious approach inviting
debate is very good. The arguments are very well made that it's
inappropriate to rush to judgment. The rush to restrict stem cell
research was premature, and I think the comparison was apt." Dr.
Drexler is the associate director of neurology at Maimonides Medical
Center in Brooklyn, New York.

She compared the use of prescription medications to boost the
cognitive performance of healthy people to the use of supplements
like gingko biloba to enhance memory. Any concern about
neurocognitive-enhancing therapies should include supplements, which
have very little regulation, Dr. Drexler said.

She expressed doubt that large numbers of healthy people without
attention deficits are using stimulants indicated for ADHD. "I don't
think any physician would encourage haphazard prescribing of [these]
stimulants for normal people," she said. "Certainly I hope that
methylphenidate is not prescribed liberally without diagnosis."