The effects of (legal) amphetamines on the body

Endeavor

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Hey D+S, I lurk a lot but don't post much. Really appreciate the good advice and discussion thrown around here, and I have a question that I haven't yet seen discussed, so...

How hard are amphetamines (long-term) on the body? Will taking them impede muscle growth? I am referring specifically to ADHD/Narcolepsy medications such as adderall and dexedrine, and to higher-end medicinal doses (say, around 200 mg a week).

I know that amphetamines suppress the appetite, but is it not possible to get sufficient calories/protein from peanut butter and milk and similar stuff when the medicine kills the appetite? If one takes them early in the day, they shouldn't interfere with rest very much. I would like to know if amphetamines stunt muscle synthesis by their chemical nature, not by their effects on appetite, rest, etc.

I'm also curious as to how hard these medicines are on the body and the brain. If any of you know, please share. I'm curious to hear the truth, including your opinions on whether these medicines have significant risks the drug companies don't talk about. Thanks.
 
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They're good for burning out your adrenal glans, what goes up has to come back down
 
If adderall counts, it keeps you awake and focused. Also you can mix it with caffeine if you like shaking.
 
Symphony is right, long-term use of amphetamines can do serious damage to your adrenals and thus, wreck your insulin response by thrusting it whichever way you go naturally, meaning you'll have a hard time getting skinny if you're designed to be fat, or getting bigger if you're designed to be skinny.

Receptors burn out, this is not a good thing. The reason it kills the appetite has to do with insulin response (which is directly tied with brain chemistry and adrenal function). Depending on how much and how long they're used, when the body fights to stay the way it is and sets down-regulation in motion, it could lead to a laundry list of health concerns.
 
I wish I had never been prescribed Adderral back in high school/ college.

I agree with Symphony and Sinister. I am not sure how severe any long term affects have been on me but that combined with cutting weight for wrestling over the years has definitely had a negative affect on me (10 years later), in terms of weight/strength gains, body composition etc.
 
Are we talking primarily about adderal or does caffeine come into play in this topic?

I've read so many back and forth studies on long term caffeine and insulin problems. Most have followed through with diabetes "almost always" genetic. At the same time, I read an article(i'll try and find it) on caffeine/appetite suppressants and basically what you don't eat now, @ a younger age, you will just eat double, or make up lack there of food when you're older?
 
Are there studies that can confirm this?

I don't necessarily know about studies, it's like asking if there's studies to confirm the Kreb's or Randall cycles. Stimulants effect the adrenals, that's how they work. Receptor burnout and down-regulation is often a by-product of that. It should be in biology or physiology books. Stimulants also effect insulin sensitivity, which also effects adrenal function (being as insulin governs, or has part in the mobilization of pretty much every hormone, respectively).

There's a lot of info on these processes. The workings of the alpha and beta receptors, how sensitive some of them are, and how they're effected by what. Amphetamines work for what they do because of their action on these receptors. It just so happens that because the body is a hard-wired machine, these receptor agonist actions had side benefits, like thermogenesis. Funny part is you can achieve almost the same reaction via environmental stresses, such as immersing yourself in cold water. All the same receptors will activate, inflammation will go down, heart rate increases, fat is oxidized at a rapid rate, breathing is deepened (bronchial dilation), etc. Simply to warm you up.

So if one considers themselves tough and want the same benefits of amphetamines only without the long-term side-effectsor the possibility if failing a piss test (for the athletes), ice baths. Time-tested method. BUT, will the adrenals eventually resist? Absolutely, the body doesn't want to overheat. B2 receptors are particularly shy and will go as far as to "burrow" into tissue, and eventually completely deactivate. And to answer Pathogenic, yes sensitivity is USUALLY eventually restored. If anything was severely damaged it should have been notable in blood tests, and there'd be side-effects.
 
downregulation is different than actual burnout or potentiation though or any number of longer term processes though. some cells can be back to normal quick as fuck (think how short of a time period you ignore a fart and how quickly you're able to smell a new one).
 
Great analogy. But yes they're definitely different. That's why time of use (and dosage) is important. Adrenal function isn't difficult to fuck up, though, which is why amphetamines have become such a dirty word on this side of the industry, and the lesser cousin ephedrine (and even lesser pseudoephedrine) is greeted with far less scrutiny. And there were even quite a few people who messed themselves up there, or with astronomical doses of caffeine.
 
Fuck I'm gonna sound so smart when I explain all that to this girl I've been trying to hook up with. She's got an adderall scrip and she's always all like "Whys it so hard for me to stay skinny even though I don't eat anything wahhh"
 
Some great discussion on amphetamines and "brain food" / legal "kickers"
"Smart Drugs"
Note: a "hacker" (coder) centric website with very detailed and indepth discussion. MD's tend to pop in / experts pertaining to the related topic, but you will field some noise from smart people with no actual experience.

Hacker News | Wow! Yet another article about "smart drugs" that's actually about stimulants! I...

This site is very informative, easily the best hub of nootropic information I have seen. There are links from each of the drugs to the medical studies, user surveys, etc.

Nootropics Thread Index - ImmInst.org Forums...

Also read: Ten months of research condensed - A total newbies guide to nootropics: Ten months of research condensed - A total newbies guide to nootropics - ImmInst.org Forums...

Choline + Piracetam + Melatonin are what I use. All are 100% legal, nonprescription, effective and safe (according to all scientific research so far).

Routine exercise has been shown repeatedly to provide tremendous gains to mental cognition. Get yourself to a baseline that includes daily cardiac exercise before jumping into the great chemical unknown.

I have tried both adrafinil (legal/unregulated in USA, metabolized in vivo to modafinil) and armodafinil. The best way I could describe them is that they provide the wakefulness provided by caffeine, without the attention deficit hyperactivity. While they are certainly both interesting and effective, cost is prohibitive.

Stay away from amphetamines. Regardless of the potential for physical dependence, you will rapidly develop a mental dependency on them. For a short while I had a prescription for ritalin and adderall (stopped taking them on my own accord)and can admit that they made me feel superhuman. However, they also provide a hellish overconfidence that can cripple you. I was not more creative and was ironically less focused upon the important aspects of my work. Information triage is far more difficult when everything in the world suddenly becomes worth of intense study.
 
I don't necessarily know about studies, it's like asking if there's studies to confirm the Kreb's or Randall cycles. Stimulants effect the adrenals, that's how they work. Receptor burnout and down-regulation is often a by-product of that. It should be in biology or physiology books. Stimulants also effect insulin sensitivity, which also effects adrenal function (being as insulin governs, or has part in the mobilization of pretty much every hormone, respectively).

There's a lot of info on these processes. The workings of the alpha and beta receptors, how sensitive some of them are, and how they're effected by what. Amphetamines work for what they do because of their action on these receptors. It just so happens that because the body is a hard-wired machine, these receptor agonist actions had side benefits, like thermogenesis. Funny part is you can achieve almost the same reaction via environmental stresses, such as immersing yourself in cold water. All the same receptors will activate, inflammation will go down, heart rate increases, fat is oxidized at a rapid rate, breathing is deepened (bronchial dilation), etc. Simply to warm you up.

So if one considers themselves tough and want the same benefits of amphetamines only without the long-term side-effectsor the possibility if failing a piss test (for the athletes), ice baths. Time-tested method. BUT, will the adrenals eventually resist? Absolutely, the body doesn't want to overheat. B2 receptors are particularly shy and will go as far as to "burrow" into tissue, and eventually completely deactivate. And to answer Pathogenic, yes sensitivity is USUALLY eventually restored. If anything was severely damaged it should have been notable in blood tests, and there'd be side-effects.

Thank you very much!
 
PLEASE be cautious. I was a heavy heavy user of prescribed stimulants and they absolutely fucked my physical goals. My training is a back and forth struggle. I have days where i suddenly just burn out, energy levels drop, sugar cravings are overwhelming, focus is lost. It's an incredibly tedious, difficult, and frustrating task to repair the damage inflicted by stimulants.

Think of stimulants as energy on loan. You have to pay it back, with interest.
 
To the TS: I've used the EC (Ephedrine + Caffeine) stack as a pre-workout supplement. I used to take the Aspirin with it, too, but I stopped when I read a post by Terumo where he informed me that the aspirin simply slowed the breakdown of the EC in the blood (ergo, you should take ECA more for weight loss purposes, but EC is more desirable as a pre-workout supplement).

If you know anything about strength & conditioning programming, then you're probably familiar with periodization and the basic unit of programming: the microcycle. The average athlete's microcycle lasts a month; this is usually broken into four 1-week blocks. The same exercises are done each week, but the intensity is increased from weeks #1-#3 in some way (volume, weight, etc.) Then week #4 is your deloading week where you do the exercises again, but slightly less intensely, in preparation for the next microcycle. So week #3 is your peak week.

To avoid down-regulation, I would only take the EC during that week. This is the week that I was aiming to hit my PR's on sets, so I wanted the benefit of the increase CNS activity during this week. I took 1 tab of Vasopro (25mg Ephedrine) and 1 pill of straight caffeine anhydrous (200mg) before each of my 4 lifting sessions during the week. I never increased the dosage of ephedrine...ever.

I haven't done that in a while, as I'm not quite the cock diesel I was, but that's how I organized my usage of legal amphetamines. It's also probably a really good idea to take a couple months off each year.
 
Some great discussion on amphetamines and "brain food" / legal "kickers"
"Smart Drugs"
Note: a "hacker" (coder) centric website with very detailed and indepth discussion. MD's tend to pop in / experts pertaining to the related topic, but you will field some noise from smart people with no actual experience.

Hacker News | Wow! Yet another article about "smart drugs" that's actually about stimulants! I...
That's a great post, redjako. Yeah, I experimented with Nootropic concoctions, too. I remember learning that Lecithin is one of the best precursors to acetylcholine release, and Lecithin is commonly found in Greens+ type supplements. So I would take a serving of my Greens supplement anywhere from 30-60 minutes prior to working out. Unlike the stimulant stack, I did this for every workout.
 
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