The Effect of Maca Root on Energy and Libido – Experiment Conclusion

The mighty Andes, home of maca root. (Photo by alvazer)

It's time to conclude my experiment with Peruvian maca root, the supposed health food of the Incas.

During the past month and a half, I have been consuming various amounts of powdered maca. The recommended amount on the label was one teaspoon, which is what I ate on most days. However, keeping with the inhuman spirit of the blog, I also experimented with bigger dosages on some days. The most I took was two tablespoons, about six times the recommended amount.

The nice thing about maca is that it doesn't taste too bad. At first, I mixed it with yoghurt, which made a decently enjoyable snack, but in the end I found it easiest to add the powder into my morning shake.

Unfortunately, I can't say I noticed much of the positive effects maca is supposed to have. Granted, my energy level and libido were good during the experiment, but they were good before and still are, even though I have stopped taking it. My approach certainly could have been more scientific as far as sperm count and motility is concerned, but if there was an effect, it wasn't visible to the naked eye.

I also had days where I skipped the maca entirely, just to see whether there would be differences in how I felt between the days I took it and the days I didn't. I didn't notice any. Changing the size of the dosage didn't seem to have much effect either.

These results are a bit disappointing, given that there are studies on maca that seem pretty conclusive. The rat studies I wrote about in my previous post showed increased sperm counts, and in human studies the subjects who took maca reported increases in sexual desire, sperm counts and sperm motility.

One could argue that maca only has an effect in those whose energy level or libido is lacking to begin with, but the studies suggest that it should work on anyone. The double-blind study on humans included healthy, young men as well, and in one of the rat studies the sperm counts of the maca-fed rats exposed to high altitudes were not only higher than the control group's but also higher than the sea-level group's that was not fed maca.

Another thing that is noteworthy is that the amounts used in the studies were very small. The humans were fed either 1,500 mg or 3,000 mg maca. That's even less than a teaspoon, so you'd think two tablespoons would have at least some effect.

One of the studies mentioned that the only type of maca that showed benefits was "red maca". Yellow and black maca had no effect on prostate size. The maca powder I purchased was clearly yellow, which could be one reason I didn't notice much.

In short, I can't completely rule out the possibility that consuming between one teaspoon and two tablespoons of maca affected me, but any effect must have been fairly small. Since there's no evidence of maca being toxic at even high doses, you may want to try it for yourself and see what happens. Or if you already have, drop a comment and let me know how you felt while taking it.

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End Aging to End Anxiety: Filmmaker Jason Silva Talks about Immortality

Jason's short film "The Immortalist"

Brave New Traveler has an interview with Venezuelan-American filmmaker Jason Silva about how to end aging and live forever. The answer: science.

In the interview, Jason mentions looking for answers in different religions at first, but in the end settling on scientific research. He also drops names like Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil, who are some of the biggest names in the field of anti-aging.

Kurzweil is also featured in Silva's short film "The Immortals" (posted above), which I warmly recommend watching if dying and aging don't strike you as the finer things in life. And if they do, well, I still recommend watching it!

Here's a quote from the interview:

"I believe humans have always overcome their biological limitations. It is what has brought us out of the caves and onto the moon.

We have cured ourselves of diseases, we fly remarkable machines through the air at 500 miles per hour. We communicate instantly and wirelessly across the world.

Why is it such a stretch to imagine us re-programming our biochemistry (much like computer software) so that we may alleviate suffering, decay, and death?"

Clearly, Silva and I agree that natural does not always equal good. It's precisely our ability to change that which is natural that is the reason humans have evolved and survived for so long. Silva also quotes a line from Ernest Becker's book The Denial of Death to illustrate his point. The quote sums up the problem of the finitiness of life perfectly, though horrifically:

"Man creates illusions under which to live in order to distract himself from the awareness of his mortality, which is unbearable."

I'm glad there are people who dare to attempt to solve the problem of mortality. Maybe then we can get rid of the illusions once and for all.

For more information on anti-aging and longevity, see these posts:

Growing New Body Parts: Breakthroughs in Regenerative Medicine
Drinking 10 Cups of Green Tea Daily and Not Smoking Could Add 12 Years to Your Life
Green Tea Reduces the Formation of AGEs
How the Accumulation of Minerals Might Cause Aging in Humans

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Playing a Memory Game to Improve Intelligence and Increase Your IQ Score?

Remember the letters and improve your IQ. (Photo by Lainey's Repertoire)

It is widely believed that a person's intelligence is genetically fixed from birth and unchangeable by environment. If you're intelligent, good for you; if you're not the sharpest pencil in the box, tough luck.

This idea has now been put in question by Jaeggi et al. who studied the effects of playing a memory game on IQ scores. It's known that people can increase their IQ scores by taking lots of IQ tests, but all that means is that people get better at taking IQ tests – their intelligence in general does not improve. That is, the learning that happens when taking tests repeateadly is not transferable to other tasks.

Intelligence and working memory

The ability to reason and solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge is known as fluid intelligence, which is what IQ tests attempt to measure. And they do measure it quite well, as long as they remain novel to the person taking them. With enough practice, however, the test fails to accurately measure a person's fluid intelligence anymore.

The authors of the study propose that by improving working memory, a person can also increase fluid intelligence. The reason is that working memory and intelligence share a common capacity constraint. Basically, the more things you're able to hold in your working memory, the more interrelationships among elements you can keep in mind in a reasoning task. And the ability to solve reasoning tasks is, of course, what IQ tests measure and what intelligence is thought to be.

The dual n-back game

To prove their point, the authors developed a game that improves working memory and then divided the subjects into two groups. Both groups took two IQ tests; one the first day, and a second one some days later. During these between days, the first group practiced their working memory by playing the game.

Sure enough, the IQ scores of the group that played the game increased significantly more than the control group's. Even the control group scored better the second time around, which proves the point about learning how to take the test better by practicing.

The game itself, called dual n-back, is of that "simple to learn, hard to master" type. You can download it for free here. The letter n in the name refers to the number of items you have to keep in your working memory. The number increases as you perform better.

In the game, you hear a letter every 3 seconds, and you have to match it with previous letters you've heard. For example, if n=2, and you hear the letters "A", "B", "F", "B", you press the letter match button to indicate that the last B matches with the previous B, which you heard 2 letters back (hence, n-back). If n=3, you should not press the button, since "B" does not match with "A". You get a point for every match you catch and lose a point for every incorrect match and missed match.

If this sounds difficult, it gets worse. The dual part of the name comes from the fact that in addition to having to remember the letters, you also have to remember a visual signal that is presented with the letters. Every three seconds, a blue box appears in one of 8 positions on the screen, and again, you have the match them. The letters and boxes don't correlate in any way, meaning that you have to keep both things in mind all the time.

The study

The first few times you try the game, it seems impossible. But as you keep playing, you start getting better at it. Here is a graph depicting how the test subjects did in the game:

The subjects in the game group were further divided into four groups, each with a different number of training days before the second IQ test. As you can see, the number of items they could keep in the working memory increased with each training session in all groups. The 19 day group got all the way up to n>5.

Note that the mean n-back level of all groups is a respectable 3 even after the first day. And these subjects were normal people, not geniuses. Since the amount of games per training session was 20, this means that if you're averagely intelligent, you should be able to play the game with the "dual 3-back" setting after 20 tries.

The inhuman experiment

Who doesn't want to be smarter? At least to me, improving general intelligence just seems too good to pass on, so in the spirit of this blog, I'm going to make an experiment of this.

To match the study as closely as possible, I tested myself on two free IQ tests available on the web before playing the game. I've now played it for a couple of days, and even though it seemed extremely difficult at first, I've gradually gotten better at it. Still, scoring properly even with the 3-back setting still seems quite hard.

After 20 days, I'm going to take the same IQ tests again and see if there's an improvement. If you download the game, drop a comment and let me know how you're doing!

For more information on brains and intelligence, see these posts:

Increasing Intelligence by Playing a Memory Game – Experiment Update
Caloric Restriction Improves Memory in the Elderly
Moderate and Severe Calorie Restriction Alter Behavior Differently in Rats
How the Accumulation of Minerals Might Cause Aging

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