THE SMART GUY’S GUIDE TO BRAIN BOOSTERS
JOANNA HELMUTH, M.D., a neurologist at the University of California San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center, is concerned. She’s worried about vulnerable people like vapenaysh6969, a Reddit user who recently asked for advice on the Nootropics subreddit, a message board where more than a quarter of a million people are trying to sort their way through all of the allegedly brain-boosting chemicals on the market. “Ordered some phenylpiracetam,” vapenaysh6969 wrote. “In desperate need of some motivation after being unemployed for a year now.”
Dr. Helmuth has studied the rise of pseudomedicine in products for brain health, and she believes that the industry—worth a startling $7.2 billion—preys on people desperate for solutions. It reminds her, in fact, of the days when nostrums were sold to cure cancer, before science-backed treatments became available. People who
