Obama says he has a finsta and now everyone is trying to find it

On the list of celebrity finsta accounts we'd most like to find, President Barack Obama's name is right up top — just below Beyoncé, but way above Ben Affleck(Opens in a new tab).

While it's unclear if the former president actually has a fake Instagram account, in a recent voter PSA he recorded for ATTN, Obama sent the internet into a frenzy by hinting that he's the proud owner of a finsta.

In the three-minute video, Obama speaks to young people about the importance of voting in the 2020 election and thanks them for teaching him about how to successfully quarantine, how to "make a mean sourdough starter," and how to do the popular TikTok dance, the "Renegade challenge." ("Renegade" was also Obama's secret service code name, so he's a real big fan of the challenge.)

"You showed me the 'Renegade Challenge' —great name by the way — which I've been enjoying on my finsta," Obama says in the video. A definition for finsta ("Secret Instagram account") then flashes on the screen before Obama moves on.

The American people however, cannot move on. Not without knowing if Obama actually has a finsta or not.

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It's very likely that Obama was just trying to stay hip and appeal to young voters by joking about having a finsta, but the sheer prospect of its existence is one of the most exciting things to happen all year.

Sure, Obama may have had no idea what a finsta was until he read the script for this video. But we're desperate for something good in this world, so we're choosing to imagine that somewhere out there is a Barack finsta full of photos of Bo and Sunny, books he's reading, and bowls of his legendary homemade chili(Opens in a new tab). Maybe Malia and Sasha helped him set it up.

While the actual message of Obama's voting PSA and the resources he shared in his tweet(Opens in a new tab) are extremely important, Twitter users couldn't help but get a little distracted by the idea of a finsta.

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If the finsta is out there, we have faith some social media mastermind will uncover it. Until then, let's all keep dreaming about its possible content. Oh, and GO REGISTER TO VOTE!

McDonalds new Spicy Chicken McNuggets pulled me out of the hell zone

McDonald's new Spicy Chicken McNuggets are everything you love about the classic nuggs with a bit of spice.

I'll be the first to admit that I was feeling a little off Thursday morning. There wasn't a specific reason, but I was definitely in the hell zone(Opens in a new tab), a state of mind that's become the status quo in the life of quarantine. I was in a bad mood, and there's too many awful things happening in the world right now to pick just one reason as to why.

So I decided I'd take my lunch break to test out the newly released spicy McNuggets from McDonald's. It was a good reason to get out of my house where I've been diligently quarantining since late February, and also I have a not-so-secret soft spot for fried food, especially nuggets and tendies.

After a speedy transaction at the drive-thu (I'm talking 3-minutes, tops) I parked my car in the parking lot and decided to eat the nuggets while they were in their best state possible. I find that McDonald's, like most fast food has a super short shelf life. Every precious minute your food sits in the bag it's essentially steaming, turning your fried nuggets and fries into a soft and mushy meal.

Nostalgia quickly poured over me as I opened the familiar bag and was greeted with a box of nuggs. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they looked nearly identical to the original, but were instead a weird shade of reddish orange. I threw the first one back and was happy to hear a "crunch" as I bit into the tempura coating. These new nuggets reminded me exactly of the original McNuggets, but are obviously packed with a little bit of heat.

How much heat? Eh. Not much heat at all. I was honestly a little underwhelmed with the spice level, but the cayenne and chili pepper coating was still tasty. The amount of crunch I got was impressive.

Now, for those who want even more heat, McD's created the new Mighty Hot Sauce, which is a vinegar-based sauce that tastes like hot trash. Sorry, it is just NOT a good hot sauce. There are plenty of good hot sauces out there, but I was happy that I asked for ranch to dip as well, because the new sauce was a nugget ruiner. It overpowered the good that was the spicy nugget.

I really try my best to keep my fast food consumption to a minimum. But the magic that happens when you cram 10 nuggets and a bunch of fries down your gullet was exactly what I needed to pull myself out of Thursday's Hell Zone, if only for a brief moment.

I felt a little better leaving the McDonald's parking lot than when I entered. Maybe that was just the large fry sitting in my cup holder waiting to be eaten on the drive home.

The Bottom Line

McDonald's Spicy Chicken McNuggets are good! They have all the best qualities of the original with a small added kick. Would I order them again? Probably. But McDonald's is only releasing them "for a limited time at participating restaurants," so it's unclear if I'll even have another opportunity. I'd also be totally fine with dipping the original nuggets into some buffalo sauce or an actually good hot sauce.

Icon, champion, Supreme Court Justice: Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

At a time of great conflict, stress, and uncertainty in the U.S., Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday, sending her supporters into a state of shock on social media.

Ginsburg, a beloved figure who was famous for her historic career as much as her workout routine that inspired Saturday Night Live sketches, died due to “complications of metastatic pancreas cancer," according to a Supreme Court statement as reported by the New York Times.(Opens in a new tab) She was 87.

It had become a bitter Twitter joke, something said as an aside at gatherings, back when we could still gather: Stay healthy, RBG, don't pass before Election Day. She became a liberal symbol for justice and dignity, as the country swirled into hatred and division during the Trump administration.

Days before she died, according to NPR(Opens in a new tab), she told her granddaughter, "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

A week before she died, President Trump announced a list(Opens in a new tab) of possible Supreme Court nominees.

This wasn't her first bout with cancer. She also fought colon, lung, and liver cancer in the past.

Ginsburg's supporters almost immediately began calling for action upon hearing of her loss. "May her memory be a revolution," said Amanda Littman, executive director of Run For Something, which encourages young people to seek office. "Choose fight over fear," said SNL writer Paula Pell. "We gon fight. That's what we're gonna do," said Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of Campaign Zero, which fights to end police brutality.

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Former President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second woman to become a Supreme Court Justice. After Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired in 2006, she was the lone woman justice until Former President Barack Obama nominated Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2009.

Before being nominated, she was a prominent women's rights advocate who fought for equal rights and constitutional protections against sex discrimination. She did so several times(Opens in a new tab) in front of the Supreme Court prior to taking the bench and her admirers nicknamed her the "Thurgood Marshall of Women’s Rights."(Opens in a new tab) (Later, she also became known as the "Notorious R.B.G"(Opens in a new tab) due to her powerful dissents. Her face became synonymous with badass online.)

One of her cases(Opens in a new tab) set in a lower court, where she argued that her client, a man, should be able to receive a tax deduction for the nursing care of his elderly mother despite the law limiting such a deduction to women and widowers, got the Hollywood treatment in 2018's On the Basis of Sex. That 1970 case, a minor one in her storied career, was just one of dozens of sex discrimination cases she championed.

Two years later, she co-founded (Opens in a new tab)the ACLU's Women's Rights Project and Columbia University Law School granted her tenure, making her the first woman to receive the title.

In 2012(Opens in a new tab), Ginsburg spoke plainly about women's equality: "So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. I'm sometimes asked 'When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]?' and I say 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."

Lindsey Graham said in 2016 to use his words against him. Twitter followed through.

Senator Lindsey Graham's own words are being used against him, thanks to old videos recirculating on Twitter.

Graham is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the cohort of senators who review judicial nominations. In the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, he's facing pressure to reject any nominee chosen by Donald Trump to take Justice Ginsburg's seat. Ginsburg was a progressive on a largely conservative court, and any nominee Trump puts forward is sure to be conservative as well.

In years past, Graham has repeatedly insisted that Supreme Court vacancies should remain vacant during election years so the next president has a chance to fill them. When President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to fill Justice Antonin Scalia's seat in 2016, Graham led the opposition(Opens in a new tab) against the nomination.

"I want you to use my words against me," Graham said during a 2016 Senate meeting. "If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination."

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In the video, which resurfaced hours after Justice Ginsburg's death was announced, Graham added that he was setting a precedent for future Supreme Court nominations.

"We're setting a precedent here today, Republicans are, that in the last year...that you're not gonna fill a vacant seat of the Supreme Court based on what we're doing here today," Graham continued. "That's gonna be the new rule."

He affirmed his stance in a video posted to Twitter as well, recorded after Graham met with Garland. The video was thoroughly ratio'd following Ginsburg's death.

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Twitter users took the videos as leverage against Graham, who's running for reelection against Democrat Jaime Harrison for his South Carolina Senate seat. Support for Harrison has surged(Opens in a new tab) as the election draws closer, with both candidates polling at 48 percent. Many expressed skepticism that Graham would stay true to his word if Trump nominates a replacement for Ginsburg.

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Graham has not publicly commented on the video's resurgence. In a tweet(Opens in a new tab) on Saturday, he promised, using shaky justification blaming past Democrat actions, to support Trump "in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg."

Twitter users, though, kept their word.

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BBC weatherman intros Rick Astley in most hilariously awkward way possible

In life, you're never going to be everyone's cup of tea. That rule applies to famous people, as this BBC clip proves.

Rick Astley — the much beloved singer of "Never Gonna Give You Up" — received a rather awkward introduction when appearing on BBC Breakfast.

Meteorologist Matt Taylor, having just finished a weather update on the show, was asked whether he was a Rick Astley fan by BBC Breakfast presenter Charlie Stayt. "Err not a massive one," he replied in a very unenthused tone.

"That was the wrong thing to say," said Stayt. "He's listening and he's coming up in just a moment."

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Thankfully, Taylor got another bite at the cherry. "I'll ask you again," said Stayt. "Are you a Rick Astley fan?"

"Love Rick Astley. Best! Grew up with him!" Taylor said.

Thankfully Astley, waiting patiently to be interviewed, didn't take offence. In fact, he could barely contain his laughter at the awkwardness of the mishap.

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Astley then went on to chat to the BBC Breakfast team about the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the hospitality sector(Opens in a new tab). Astley owns a bar called Mikkeller in Hackney, London.

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As the lyrics go, you wouldn't get this from any other (famous) guy.

That could have been me: ESPN reporter gives emotional speech about Breonna Taylors killing

"I have prided myself in being able to be objective and cover these sorts of issues," said ESPN reporter Malika Andrews(Opens in a new tab) on Wednesday, tearing up as she spoke. "But when it is so clear that the system of objectivity in journalism is so whitewashed and doesn't account for the fact that...Breonna Taylor was 26 and I am 25, and that could have been me, it is very hard to continue to go to work."

On March 13, Louisville police broke down 26-year-old Breonna Taylor's door and killed her, shooting the unarmed medical worker at least eight times(Opens in a new tab) in her home. Yet despite widespread protests and calls for justice, a grand jury decided(Opens in a new tab) on Wednesday that none of the police officers involved would be charged with killing Taylor.

Instead, a single officer, Brett Hankison, has been charged with "wanton endangerment," a charge not even directly related to Taylor's death. Rather, it is for allegedly displaying an "extreme indifference to the value of human life" — by firing his gun into a neighbour's apartment(Opens in a new tab).

In a clip that has since gone viral, Andrews reported for ESPN on Wednesday on the impact of this result on NBA players(Opens in a new tab), with many having been visibly supportive of the protests, calling for justice(Opens in a new tab) following Taylor's killing, and even later staging walkouts against police violence.

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"It reverberated everywhere," said Andrews. "Players were hurting. That's not to say that they didn't expect this... [Boston Celtics' player Jaylen Brown said] what do you expect about a system that is rigged against, that was founded on an unfairness against people who look like him, and people who look like me?"

Andrews became audibly upset as she spoke about the disappointment and devastating lack of surprise amongst NBA players, sharing the personal, emotional toll the decision had on her as a young Black woman.

"I'm sorry that I'm getting choked up here, because this is about the players and their response, but it's been hard for them," she said. "This is something that... they fought for the entire time they've been down here and they were hoping for a different outcome."

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Displaying remarkable strength and composure after her emotional speech, Andrews quickly shifted back to how the decision in Taylor's case impacted the NBA's players. This was an impressive feat, but she should never have needed to be so strong in the first place.

Whoop Strap 3.0 is a complex and cool fitness tracker, but not suited for the casual user

I've been in the market for a fitness tracker for a while now — it felt like a responsible choice during a pandemic that's made gyms nearly obsolete — and I couldn't stop hearing about the Whoop Strap.

Podcast commercials, news stories, internet ads, everything was pointing me toward Whoop(Opens in a new tab).

You might've seen Whoop around, too. If you like golf, for instance, the PGA Tour purchased a Whoop for every golfer and caddie in an effort(Opens in a new tab) to help detect potential COVID-19 symptoms. Or you might've heard that other famous athletes like Michael Phelps use it(Opens in a new tab).

I reached out to Whoop for a review unit to give it a whirl and see what the experience is like, since most folks have heard of or tried other similar products like the Apple Watch or a FitBit Versa.

I've used the Whoop Strap 3.0 for nearly two months now. Here's the TL;DR: It's an unquestionably detailed and impressive fitness tracker; it's a good-looking product; I can see why some folks love it, but it might not be the thing for me. In some ways, it's just too much for my needs. I'm probably a pretty average user: I jog, I go on walks, I cycle. I do my best to get decent sleep and move around while mostly stuck inside my home. The Whoop Strap 3.0 basically wrote a thesis about my body. For the more casual user, it might be information overload.

The Whoop device

The Whoop tracker is different than most anything else on the market. Let's get into how that's the case.

First: It's a simple band that's mostly fabric. It has no display, no clock, no step-counter, nada, nada, nada. The Whoop band clasps on your wrist and the massive amount of data it collects (more on that later) gets sent straight to Whoop's app, which is available for iOS and Android. I actually really loved the look: It's simple and sharp. It doesn't scream "Look at this high-tech thing on my wrist." There are also a ton of different colors and styles to choose from(Opens in a new tab).

The cost is different, too. Whoop is membership-based and costs $30 per month(Opens in a new tab). That's right, the Strap itself is now technically free with a membership. That's not how things used to work. As Mashable wrote in a 2017 Whoop Strap review, an earlier iteration of the tracker cost $500.

The Whoop is 100 percent waterproof and you never — actually never — have to take it off. I wore it in the shower, swimming in bay water, on sweaty long runs. Everywhere, everything, no problem. It recharges via a battery that slides over the strap while it's still on your wrist. (You just better be sure you battery is charged when the strap is near death. Did I forget to do that? Of course, but I am quite forgetful.)

So what does this tracker actually...track. The short answer: The Whoop measures nearly everything. It auto-detects and registers every minute of your sleep. It auto-detects and auto-sorts workouts and physical activity. It tracks how many calories you've burned. It measures your recovery and daily strain, which factors in sleep, your heart rate variability, your physical output, and a whole mess of other complicated things.

The experience

Alright, let's get down to the nitty gritty. It'd be tough to explain everything the Whoop does, but you should know this thing is more detailed than you're probably imagining. To me, that felt slightly overwhelming. It's easy to see why pro athletes would be drawn to this sort of thing: Their bodies are part of their profession, so the more info, the better. For me, I want baselines and benchmarks, but knowing every last bit of info made it hard for me to focus on simple goals. It's hard to figure out what to do to make your resting heart rate better, for instance, but it's simple to up the mileage you move in a day.

Sleep tracking

It's the gold standard in sleep tracking because of the amount of data it collects. Its sensors are collecting data 100 times per second(Opens in a new tab).

Here look at the data from my sleep one night, which happened to be a pretty good evening of rest for me.

I can see my time in bed (8 hours, 3 minutes), time actually slept (6 hours, 59 minutes), disturbances (18), sleep efficiency (89 percent), respiratory rate, latency, and how much time I spent in each sleep stage. For instance, I can see I got nearly two hours of REM sleep and 1.5 hours of SWS sleep. The Whoop folks told me SWS sleep is an especially important part of recovery, which is their metric that effectively tells you how ready you are to work out.

It's often interesting to see how much sleep you got vs. how much time you spent in bed. For me, so much is wasted during disturbances and latency (which basically is how long it takes you to fall asleep). And of course, very often, my Whoop was really unhappy with my sleep levels. But, you know, the world is crumbling so who could blame me?

And let me be clear: The Whoop app has graphs on graphs on graphs on graphs. You can zoom in on an exact moment of your sleep and see what's up; ditto for heart rate. You can compare any given stat to its 30-day average. You can see a bar graph of every day's strain. Seriously, if you love math or you're into massive troves of data, holy hell are you in luck. You can spend hours diving deep into every last thing going on with your body.

At times, though, this amount of information was overwhelming to me. The app can really feel like labyrinth of data and visualizations. There's so much to look at, so much to click through, that often I found myself ignoring the app altogether. It could be tedious to parse through all that info. Where do you even begin?

Workout tracking

So, what about workouts? I mean, if you're looking for a fitness tracker, you almost certainly want to track workouts and athletic performance. The Whoop is quite good at that. You don't have to really do anything, it'll pick your workout up on its own because, you know, it's constantly measuring your heart rate. A month in, after the Whoop had really homed in on my body's trends, it was comfortably able to register even a brisk walk as a physical activity. Here's what a workout looks like in the app.

The app does all this on its own, and you can go check any date and see what your workouts looked like that day. For every workout, you can also fill out how you felt that day, how well things went, or if you were injured.

If you're a runner, one thing to note is that the app does not track your route via GPS. Still, I was pretty shocked the Whoop could tell when I was cycling, walking, running, or whatever, then immediately categorize it and process the data.

I found it nice to have every exercise stored away, and it was pretty cool to see my performance over time, in detail. It's helpful to see how you're improving or struggling over time. I mostly stayed the same, but that's cool too.

Do you notice what I haven't talked about yet? A step count. Whoop argues that step counts are kind of meaningless as a measurement(Opens in a new tab) of overall health. And sure, reaching 10,000 steps in a day isn't an end in itself and neither is standing for a certain amount of time. But part of me definitely missed having those easy benchmarks. There's a part of your brain that simply loves hitting nice, even numbers or closing rings on an Apple Watch.

Whoop will be your sleep coach or your workout coach, but it all feels more like a demand to suck less. One note from the early days with mine reads,"oh man, guess my sleep sucks." That was after the app told me I needed at least seven hours the next just to get by. You get the data, but there are no easy benchmarks to give a sense of accomplishment, just lots of numbers to fuss over.

All the other things it tracks

Besides the vast amounts of data, the auto-generated graphs of changes over time, and the different design, Whoop has a few other unique features that may be selling points for some people.

Strain and recovery

Basically, each day you're given a strain score that reflects how much strain you've taken on that day. You're also given a recovery score. If you haven't reached optimal recovery, the app's strain coach will tell you to take it easy and vice versa.

HRV

HRV, or heart rate variability(Opens in a new tab), is a measurement unique to Whoop. It's a super-sensitive piece of data and is key in determining recovery. Basically, it's a good judge of how well your body is functioning and if it's working hard behind the scenes.

Respiratory rate

This is a pretty stable stat and, honestly, didn't mean much to me while testing the Whoop. But it can be a way to spot early symptoms of certain health problems, like COVID-19. PGA Tour golfer Nick Watney noticed his numbers were off(Opens in a new tab) and found out he had the coronavirus before he had any symptoms. So, that's obviously a big feature for some.

Daily diary and monthly reports

Every day, after you wake up, you're supposed to fill out a diary where you answer certain questions. (You choose the questions.) From there, you can see how your sleep quality and recovery are affected by daily life choices. You get a weekly and monthly report showing how certain actions have affected your body. The folks at Whoop told me people really start to notice how alcohol affects your body. And (sigh) yes, it ain't good. My diary was pretty clear that my sleep suffers when I drink. Not anything super revelatory, sure, but It's wild to see just how much it affects your sleep via a hard measurement.

Whoop Live

Basically Whoop Live(Opens in a new tab) lets you film your workout and have your live Whoop stats displayed as you go. You could even share it with friends. For a Whoop user who is a fitness influencer this might be super helpful. For me, I'm just trying to get through my workout.

The takeaway

So, there's all this stuff — pages of graphs, lots of stats, impossibly minute details. But...I didn't totally love the experience. I certainly didn't hate it, but it all felt like too much. I think if you're already super in shape, if you already track your calorie intake and workouts maniacally, and you're trying to reach peak performance, then the Whoop is for you. If you're a super data-driven person, the Whoop is for you. If you're quite curious about your sleep, then the Whoop is for you.

To be clear, It's a useful, very cool tool. It just might not be the right activity tracker for people who have a more casual relationship with fitness. I've discovered I don't necessarily want what felt like a full-body readout. I wanted something to check in on, but the Whoop gives you data you could very easily obsess over.

There is not anything necessarily bad about the Whoop, but I'd rather have something less intense. Personally I'd love to see if I managed a few thousand more steps in my small apartment on Tuesday vs. Monday. I am fully aware that is not a perfect way to measure physical activity, but it is a nice way to see how much I'm getting around is isolation. Seeing my sleep suffer, answering daily questions about my anxiety, I didn't love that so much. It was less like taking control, more like being reminded. Maybe things would be different if we weren't in a pandemic, but I wanted to try the Whoop out for the pandemic.

I personally would not pay $30 per month(Opens in a new tab) for a Whoop. But I totally see the person who would. In fact, back in a different time — when I was a college soccer player or when I was training for a marathon – I think I would have loved the Whoop Strap. I might give it another go some day. But right now, I could really use the serotonin boost from hitting those 10,000 steps.

Silicon Valley loves nootropics. But the brain boosters arent always what they claim.

It turns out that neurohacking your brain is not quite the same as hacking a machine.

Search for ways to improve focus or memory on Google, and you might run into powders and tablets with names like "Alpha Brain" or "Neuro Peak." These products are known as nootropics, a broad class of supplements that claim to boost cognition. The substances have been popular in Silicon Valley(Opens in a new tab) for years among tech workers trying to "optimize" their performance(Opens in a new tab) as human beings, or simply get an edge in the grind of the coding world. Students burning the midnight oil, or elderly people looking to improve their memory, also use nootropics.

They all need to be careful.

A study published Wednesday in Neurology: Clinical Practice(Opens in a new tab) shows that twelve nootropic supplements listed on the National Institutes of Health(Opens in a new tab) and Natural Medicines(Opens in a new tab)’ supplements databases advertise that they contain a drug that's not approved for use in the United States. Some even contained up to five, and didn't always list the full ingredients on the label.

The drugs have various approvals and usages around the world (and side effects). Despite a lack of evidence(Opens in a new tab), some claim they can help with memory and cognition. The drugs, as described by the study, are:

• Omberacetam: "a medication available in Russia used to treat traumatic brain injury, mood disorders, cerebral vascular disease, and other indications." (Piracetam analog, also called Noopept.)

• Aniracetam: "a drug approved for use to treat dementia in several countries including Italy, Argentina, and China." (Piracetam analog.)

• Vinpocetine: "a pharmaceutical drug available in Germany, Russia, and China used to treat acute stroke and cognitive impairment."

• Picamilon: "used in Russia to treat cerebrovascular ischemia, mood disorders, and alcohol withdrawal."

• Phenibut: "a prescription drug available in Russia used to treat anxiety, insomnia, alcohol withdrawal, and other indications."

Some of the supplements outwardly list the drugs on the bottle, but the stated dosage doesn't match the amount that is actually in the pills or powder, often far exceeding the recommended pharmaceutical doses in countries where they are prescribed. Other products list drug ingredients that aren’t present. Worse, others don’t list the true mix of synthetic drugs — some of which might come in higher-than-recommended doses, or in combinations that have never been proven as safe.

In other words, the efficacy (or lack thereof) of these products as brain boosters is the least worrisome thing about them. The many combinations make it impossible to know what the short-term or long-term side effects of these sometimes addictive and dangerous substances might be.

“All bets are off, really, in terms of what health effects that would have on the human body,” Dr. Pieter Cohen, a Cambridge Health Alliance physician, professor at Harvard Medical School, and the study’s lead author, said. “The market is so unpredictable... it's just not safe to try to improve your cognitive function by using over-the-counter nootropics that are sold in the United States. That's just the reality of our marketplace.”

(Brain) melting pot

A nootropic supplement can contain a variety of ingredients. There are herbs and botanicals like ginseng that deliver a caffeine boost, artificial caffeine in powder form, synthetic versions of amino acids that supposedly juice up the neurotransmitters in your brain (their ability to do so is unproven(Opens in a new tab)), and more.

They can also include synthetic pharmaceuticals that are developed and tested in other countries, but are not approved in the United States. That's despite the fact that, in the country where use of the drug is actually permitted, users would need a prescription from a doctor for a specific dose.

In a 2019 study(Opens in a new tab), Cohen found that five "cognition enhancing" supplements contained one such class of drug, piracetam — openly listing the unapproved ingredient on the label. With his most recent study, Cohen took the investigation one step further.

The National Institutes of Health, and a leading supplements information portal called Natural Medicines, both keep databases of substances available for purchase in the United States, along with their ingredient lists. Cohen searched the databases, and found 12 nootropics products with claims like “outlast, endure, overcome,” that advertised the presence of piracetam analogs.

Cohen decided to take a closer look. His team used an analysis method that enabled them to determine what substances were actually in the supplements, and in what quantities. The results weren’t pretty.

The most widespread problem was dosage. In 75 percent of the supplements, the dose of a piracetam analog was inaccurate, ranging from zero percent to 135 percent, which was up to four times the recommended daily intake.

Piracetam analogs have been studied and approved in countries including Russia, China, and others, used to treat a range of ailments from mood disorders to strokes. It can have side effects like variations in blood pressure, mood, and agitation. However, those are the known side effects at specific doses.

“What a drug does is so dependent on the amount of that drug and playing around with the quantity can lead to horrendous effects,” Leticia Shea, a professor of pharmacy practice at Regis University who studies the composition and safety of supplements, said of the study’s findings. (Shea was not involved in the study). “The underlying point is that, although it seems as if it might provide a solution short term, it's really going to more likely cause more harm long term."

Another head-scratching problem was that some supplements listed ingredients that simply weren’t present. Don’t rely on your sketchy supplement purchase to actually deliver that hit of Russian brain juice, although you’re probably better off without it.

Finally, the researchers found that two of the analyzed supplements contained a mix of synthetic foreign drugs. Some were declared, some were not. Either way, a combination of unapproved drugs at non-standard or unknown dosages is extremely dangerous; one of the substances was Phenibut, which is addictive, and can cause overdoses that have landed people in the hospital.

"Our study also shows how the main players here are not infrequently combining different unapproved drugs that together have never been tested in humans," Cohen said. "No matter how fluent you are in Russian, there would be absolutely no way to know how dosages of Noopept plus Aniracetam, combined with Vinpocetine, are going to affect your body, much less your mind."

How is this happening?

It seems like the sale of unapproved drugs would be something U.S. health authorities would care about, right? Technically, they do. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates supplements. But thanks to a 1994 law(Opens in a new tab), it is all too easy and common for potentially dangerous products to make their way to market.

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) allows registered supplement makers to sell their products without getting approval from the FDA. As long as they steer clear of specific medical claims (e.g., “treats alzheimers”), they don’t have to back up the more general claims of their products with studies or evidence. And while they have to state what’s in a supplement, there’s no regulator confirming that information. DNA studies have shown that this problem is widespread(Opens in a new tab) in the supplements industry as a whole.

When the FDA gets wind that a company is selling a product that has the potential to cause harm, or has already had adverse effects, whether through unapproved ingredients or misleading labeling, it can issue warning letters to stop. However, this puts the FDA in a reactive position, finding bad actors only after they’ve sold their product.

In this environment, supplement companies flout the law, hoping that the FDA is too busy playing whack-a-mole to bring the mallet down on them.

"There's no barriers to entry to introduce a supplement onto the U.S. market," Cohen said, and "that permits easy access to the market for anyone that wants to sell just about anything."

Meanwhile, the supplements industry has exploded. And in more recent years, so have nootropics. A 2019 study(Opens in a new tab) from Reports and Data valued the 2018 nootropics market at just under $2 billion; by 2026, it’s projected to reach $5.3 billion.

"In the United States, you can pretty much sell anything in these supplements and label it as if it will improve brain health,” Cohen said. “The law is incredibly flexible in permitting companies to promote their supplements as if it will improve brain health. You do not need a single study in humans to demonstrate that it does anything to the brain, and in fact, no one’s checking."

Forums and social media posts also allow people looking for ways to improve memory and cognition to stumble into the world of nootropics and foreign drugs. Reddit’s 238,000-member strong r/Nootropics(Opens in a new tab) subreddit contains posts with first-person analyses(Opens in a new tab) and reviews of the drugs, citing foreign studies and anecdotes about the power of these substances.

"All of this creates a very dangerous marketplace for some young, healthy people who are doing their own research and want to stay on top of everything they can to be as sharp as possible and think this might be a good approach,” Cohen said. “I think our study really explains why that's not wise."

The posts showcase a group of people trying to perfect their personal brain-enhancing cocktails(Opens in a new tab), as if through enough research and trial and error they can unlock the secret to their best brain. Some posts ask about known side effects. But few appear to consider that what nootropics users think they’re taking (and in what quantities) is actually inside the bottles. Thanks to a lack of safety and reliability in the supplement industry, Shea says that taking nootropics to improve cognition is like “playing Russian roulette.”

"Perhaps, you know, it's exciting to think of one as a guinea pig, but it isn't fun when the side effects and the adverse events happen,” Shea said. “A lot of times, some might think well if I feel anything weird, then I'll stop it. But what if it's something that takes time over years. At that point, it really just isn't worth the risk."