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The Game: Can Hydergine Help?

Lee Karlsson

9/20/06

Introduction:

Optimal brain function is essential for success in life. In an ever-competitive world, those people who can think faster, remember more information, and work more efficiently usually get ahead. This instinctively leads humans to explore varieties of brain boosters and shortcuts to fast learning. An example of a quest for cognitive enhancements is the search for a “smart pill.”

The technical name for “smart pill” is nootropic, a substance that enhances cognitive ability, memory, and facilitates learning (Webster, 2006). Cognitive enhancement could also include positive effect on attention, focus, analytical skill, decisiveness, and social skill. One drug researched recently that is commonly used for these purposes is hydergine.

Fun Fact: “nootropic" comes from Greek - "noos" = mind and "tropos" = changed, toward, turn

So What is hydergine?

As with most other cognitive enhancing drugs, hydergine was originally intended as a treatment for people with a neurological or mental deficiency or disease. In this particular case, the targeted disease was senility and dementia as the result of small strokes or Alzheimer’s. The effects of strokes and Alzheimer’s Disease include accelerated effects of aging, such as rapid formation of free radicals in the brain and decreased nerve cell, or dendrite, function. Hydergine works by dilating the blood vessels of the brain. This fulfills the purpose of allowing more oxygen to be delivered to neurons and other brain cells.

Supplemental hydergine claims to be able to slow normal aging reactions in healthy people by increasing oxygen to the brain and decreasing nerve cell dendrite function decline. Thus, memory can be maintained, and cognitive function enhanced.

Fun Fact: Hydergine is derived from ergot, a type of fungus that grows on rye. The hallucinatory drug LSD is also derived from ergot (Hofmann, 1979).

A Little History of Hydergine:

The first decisive studies of hydergine occurred in the 1960s. Hydergine has since been used in European hospitals for heart attacks and strokes. Hospitals administer hydergine to patients before an operation to stabilize brain oxygen levels in order to gain protection in case complications prolonging the operation occur (Mason, 1991). If brain oxygen levels are too high, hydergine lowers them; and if they are too low, hydergine improves them.

Hydergine became less frequently used beginning in the 1980s due to speculations about its effectiveness.

However, hydergine is still widely marketed on the web as a safe “smart pill” that is effective for increasing cognitive function in healthy people.

There has been new research recently detailing the effects of hydergine.

Claims About Hydergine:

The International Anti-aging Systems website claims “hydergine stimulates oxygen flow to the brain, relieving symptoms of deteriorating mental capacity.”

http://www.antiaging-systems.com/a2z/hydergine.htm

Hydergine: A Smart Pill?

“One of the most popular and widely used smart-drugs that has been in use for over 40-years- Hydergine”

http://www.smart-drugs.com/Ward-Dean-Hydergine.htm

Clinical Studies Backing Dean’s Research:

Both of the websites above touting the beneficial effects of hydergine are associated with the research of Dr. Wade Dean. The websites cite two studies involving the effects of hydergine on healthy people, neither of which actually involve healthy people.

The first study is on the effectiveness of hydergine to protect the brain from free radical damage and oxygen starvation in cats. This is a European study that proved hydergine-treated cats were more likely to survive decreased blood and oxygen flow to the brain and heart. Two control groups were set up.

The first was not treated with hydergine, and after doctors reduced blood flow, the cats showed brain damage within five minutes.

The second group of cats was treated with hydergine, and after doctors decreased blood flow, survived forty-five minutes with strong brain wave patterns.

While this study sounds legitimate and is referenced on other medical websites, there were no scientific citations of this research. It is not detailed how blood flow was reduced, or what the measured standards for diagnosis of brain damage were.

Link to Site for American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine Referencing the Cats Study

The second study referenced on web pages associated with claims about hydergine also does not have scientific research citations. This research also seems legitimate, but unlike the first study, did not turn up results in searches on biomedical research websites or easily findable related web pages.

This study involved Italian scientists who studied the effects of hydergine on ultra-cellular features of mitochondria, the cell’s energy centers. In twelve month old rat dendrites (nerve cells), there are numerous small mitochondria. (Twelve month old rats are equivalent to twenty-five year old humans). In elderly rats, there are less numerous, larger, less efficient mitochondria. One group of elderly rats was treated with hydergine. After treatment these rats showed increase in volume and decrease in size of dendrite mitochondria to a rate equal to the volume and size of youthful rats. This shows that hydergine can maintain mitochondrial youth and function.

However, there was no control group mentioned, and improvements in mitochondrial function could have resulted from confounding variables or other environmental or behavior changes.

Link to Hydergine Website Including Unscientific Reference to Italian Study

WHAT Does This Mean?

While the claims for effectiveness of hydergine in healthy people are based on research, both studies proving effectiveness were conducted by Ward Dean, M.D. Dr. Dean is a legitimate doctor, even having worked at one point for the U.S. Army. He attended a medical school in Korea while working with the Army. He has published relevant books: Biological Aging Measurement, Neuroendocrine Theory of Aging and Degenerative Diseases, Smart Drugs 1, and Smart Drugs 2.

However, Dean is also the Medical Director for Vitamin Research Products (http://www.vrp.com/), a major seller and distributor of supplemental hydergine on the web. There are links to the Vitamin Research Products page on five of the top ten non-sponsored hits for “hydergine” on Google Search. Dean is probably benefiting financially from the sale of hydergine and would naturally want to scientifically prove its effectiveness to increase sales.

Thus, his research on this topic could be biased.

Other Studies:

In a study of anti-dementia drugs, Allain and Bentue-Ferrer (2006) studied how pharmacology has taken a new understanding that “the brain is the permanent area of the confrontation between neurogenesis and apotosis, or cell death(1).” Previously-used drugs like hydergine have been renamed with terminology such as “psychostimulants, cerebral oxygenators, vasodilators, eumetabolizers, nootropic drugs, and more recently, cognitive enhancers (1)”. There is a new goal to equally prevent decline of the neuron and enhancing cognitive performance. Allain and Bentue-Ferrer mention that drugs such as hydergine have been tested for Alzheimer’s Disease in large-scale, double-blind, randomized clinical trials with various degrees of success. They believe hydergine could be included as an anti-dementia drug, but no regulatory authority has approved this.

The Anti-Dementia Drugs: Myth, Hype, or Reality

In a review of “Complementary Medicines in Psychiatry,” Werneke et. al. (2006) found that “hydergine was reported to lead to significant improvement of cognitive impairment in dementia, but most studies were performed before standardized dementia criteria were agreed (Olin et al, 2001).” This means that the people diagnosed with dementia could have had varying states of health, cognitive decline, and memory loss. Werneke et. al. concluded that more studies specifically defining healthy people versus people with dementia are needed.

Complementary Medicines in Psychiatry

            A beneficial research review of clinical practices and animal experiments by Ukraintseva, Svetlana V., et. al. (2004)

involving examination of use of hydergine and other dementia drugs prescribed for anti-aging.  During the past

thirty years, “physicians in many developed countries have successfully prescribed several medicines to cure

various symptoms of senescence (64).”

Data from human clinical practices and experiments with animals show that learning, memory, and brain efficiency and

retention all improved with use of these drugs that were originally intended for other purposes. “Modern medicine already

has ‘anti-aging’ treatments at its disposal…We provide evidence in support of the idea that the consumption of medicines

exerting anti-aging properties may contribute to the increase in human longevity (64).”

Conclusion:

So next time you have to prepare for a big test, presentation, or proposal, should you consider the option of hydergine?

The results are unclear. Hydergine has been shown to have a positive effect on cognitive function in people who suffer dementia from small strokes or Alzheimer’s Disease. There are very few well-designed studies using normal healthy people. While some studies show hydergine has positive effects on memory and learning in healthy people, other studies show no effects.

While websites will try to market hydergine as a cognitive enhancer for healthy people, the supportive evidence is weak. There are also side effects possible such as insomnia, headache, nausea, and others if doses are not increased gradually.

Although hydergine is prescribed for use in dementia patients, the best bet at present for healthy people to maintaining cognitive fitness is to maintain a balanced diet including, but not exceeding, the recommended daily vitamins and minerals. Vigorous exercise and adequate sleep are other natural ways of increasing oxygen-rich blood flow to the brain.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Recommended Daily Values