Ultra Think Fast

By ANDREW PURVIS

As a salesman of high-tech communications equipment, Bill Willoughby needs to be mentally sharp at all times. Unfortunately, his 15-hour shuttles to Europe or Asia often leave him feeling more like he left his brain in San Francisco. "In this business," he says, "no matter how tired you are, if you start talking and sound dumb, it's no deal."

A few months ago, he got hold of some mysterious pills called L- phenylalanine and melatonin, sold in health-food stores, that he claims have changed his life. "It's amazing. It's like tuning up your car, only it's your mind. You take the drugs, and you're firing on all eight cylinders again. Sometimes you're firing on nine."

Welcome to the wide-eyed world of "smart drugs." Over the past two years, a growing number of IQ-hungry Americans -- from high school students to octogenarians -- have taken to chemical means of "cognitive enhancement," downing a variety of food supplements and prescription drugs to prepare for tests, prime themselves for business meetings or just burn a little brighter at parties.

Several dozen "smart bars" have opened around the country, replacing beer and margaritas with Memory Fuel, Fast Blast and Mind Mix -- amino-acid cocktails that, as one user sees it, "help restore the power edge that people lose as they get older." Smart stuff is also the drug of choice at "raves" -- '60s-style happenings now popular on the West Coast. But despite the mounting enthusiasm, many scientists say the only thing smart about these substances is the way they've been marketed. "Smart drugs," asserts Dr. James McGaugh, director of the center for the neurobiology of learning and memory at the University of California at Irvine, "are a Hula-Hoop for the mind."

The smart-pill movement blossomed in 1990 with the publication of a little book called Smart Drugs and Nutrients: How to Improve Your Memory and Increase Your Intelligence Using the Latest Discoveries in Neuroscience, by gerontologist Ward Dean and science writer John Morgenthaler. It lists three dozen steroids for the brain, or, to the cognoscenti, "nootropics" (from the greek noos, for mind). The authors claim that these substances resuscitate memory, jump-start the intellect, fuel sex drive and even reverse the mental aging process. Some, like the drugs Hydergine and piracetam, are prescription medications that have been tested as potential treatments for degenerative illnesses like Alzheimer's. Smart drinks are generally mixed from nonprescription food supplements like amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Steven Fowkes, editor of the recently launched newsletter Smart Drugs News, describes popping a couple of Hydergines before drawing up plans for a house renovation: "I walked in and was able to visualize all four levels of the structure at once -- where all the plumbing was, the electrical outlets -- without once referring to the blueprints." Another user recalls instantly becoming "witty and logical" after taking the amino acid pyroglutamate, while a third says that on Hydergine he suddenly could remember ordinary events that had occurred more than 20 years before.

Salesmen of smartness have embraced an impressive vocabulary to explain how the drugs work: one amino acid, said a pumped-up advocate, "inhibits an enzyme that breaks down the endorphins and enkephalins localized in the brain." Another "causes an increase in a particular neurotransmitter involved in mental alertness. Your arousal index is much higher."

Despite such techno talk, none of these drugs has been proved effective in properly designed, double-blind trials. "I think they are silly," says the University of California's McGaugh, who dismisses the elaborate explanations of how the drugs work as "scientific mumbo jumbo." If such substances were indeed effective -- and safe -- he points out, drug companies, which stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars from their sale, would have marketed them years ago.

Doctors warn about the risks of taking prescription drugs or even food supplements without medical supervision. One smart bar in San Francisco started serving drinks laced with a potion called DMAE, for dimethylaminoethanol, that has induced severe cramps, diarrhea and chills in some users. Prescription medicines like vasopressin, normally used to prevent dehydration in patients with a rare form of diabetes, can trigger heart attacks in people suffering from coronary-artery disease. Even some of the seemingly harmless amino acids, when given to animals in large doses, have proved dangerous and sometimes deadly.

In January the Food and Drug Administration began intercepting commercial shipments of prescription medicines from Europe and Mexico that were intended to be sold as smart drugs. Smaller supplies for personal use can still get through, however, thanks to a loophole in the law designed to help AIDS patients and others who want to try experimental therapies from overseas. The agency is considering tighter restrictions on nonprescription food supplements, like amino acids, which are being used for everything from muscle building to battling insomnia.

It is likely that in years ahead, researchers will come up with drugs that can restore lost memory, especially for people suffering from Alzheimer's and other degenerative illnesses. Until such medications have been proved safe and effective, however, leaving smart pills alone may be the smartest move of all.