Personal Growth Through Medical Knowledge and Self-Experimentation

Mark's lifelong pursuit of self-improvement drives his extensive knowledge in various fields, particularly around health and medication.

### Journey to Understanding Hormones and Brain Function: Personal Insights and Experiences
* 🧠 Throughout my life, I've sought to **improve myself**, leading me to explore various fields, particularly **hormones and brain function**, driven by personal challenges like **athletics and academic performance**.
* 📚 My journey began around 2002 when I started reading about steroids to **overcome my limitations in athletics**, which was compounded by my struggles with **attention deficit disorder (ADD)** during school.
* 💊 After being diagnosed with ADHD in college, I was prescribed **15 milligrams of Adderall**, which dramatically transformed my academic performance from failing to achieving a **4.0 GPA**.
* 📉 However, I later learned that taking Adderall daily could lead to **downregulation in the dopamine system**, prompting a **need for higher doses over time**, which is a common issue among users.
* ⚖ Interestingly, while some individuals without ADHD may find performance benefits from low doses of amphetamines, others may experience **adverse effects**, highlighting the complexity of ADHD as a **poorly understood condition**.
* 💡 I also explore preventative medications like metformin and cholesterol-lowering drugs, which may **extend life and reduce risks of chronic diseases**, including dementia, emphasizing the **importance of proactive health management**.
* 🧬 Long-term use of SSRIs may protect brain cells from death by **upregulating growth factors and reducing inflammation**, which are crucial for **combating various forms of dementia**.
* 🌐 As I continue to learn and adapt my approach to health and performance, I encourage others to **engage with this knowledge**, sharing insights and fostering discussions within the community.

how did you come to um your expertise in these many different fields because you know a ton about the hormones in the body and you know a ton about how the brain works and you know some really sophisticated stuff how did you come to learn some of these

things well Mark the main reason I think is that throughout my life I've been trying to be a better version of myself and I've been limited by various things like when I was younger I was trying to be in athletics and I'm naturally weak and not gifted in that sense so that's

how I first started reading about steroids in 2002 or so and later on in life I faced other issues like I wanted to be a high performing individual at work and originally at school and I had an attention deficit issue so I worked around that and then later on of course

I experienced uh anxiety disorder alcoholism other issues and I work through those issues also so whenever I face an issue in my life I try to learn as much as I can about it and I think that's the source of all of it and for

you like what um when you were in school and you had this attention deficit disorder what was it that you were studying was it something within science was it something different what was it that you were trying to go for or that you were going actually my

undergrad was in a business school at The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon but all my I was trying to study uh quantitative optimization so it's a field called operations research and I was really limited in my first year or two by my ability to pay attention to a

book I mean I would try my hardest but I physically was unable and throughout high school was the same thing but um my parents had always um sort of uh my father had always guided me against using medication um in college I decided to take the risk and I went to a

psychiatrist got diagnosed with ADHD and it tremendously changed my academic trajectory so I went from failing actually like the second calculus course to the next semester getting a 4.0 and then having mostly 4.0 then onward so I noticed that's one of the first times I

noticed the incredible effects that pharmacologists could have on on someone and what did you utilize at that time I was prescribed by a doctor at UPMC 15 milligrams of Adderall later I discovered that and he also told me to take it every day so these are

what some of the lessons I learned later taking it every day causes a downregulation in the dopamine system to where you get tempted to use higher doses over time I think that's the reason a lot of people use high doses if you start initially at a low dose and

don't do it every day like to take two three days off a week you can maintain the same dose for much longer periods but that's what I was prescribed originally and uh I I suffered with side effects from that because it was a daily prescription I'm just curious when it

comes to Adderall is I know people who have just taken it even though they've never been diagnosed with ADHD but is it not something that you need to take to be able to like focus like can you take it on a certain day and then the next

day you're still able to have some effects from it or is it something that you need to continue taking cuz the people that I know take it like they're like oh I have a lot of work to do so they'll be just they'll just be

especially in college people will just be popping it all the time Interestingly by the way that's been going on for a hundred years that's first started in Germany 1920s people were already uh popping what's called pervitin which is

methamphetamine to study in the medical school and there in fact there's some interesting evidence of that but um this is a great question you ask so if you take it four days a week those other 3 days you have less stimulation than probably you did originally in the

status quo cuz you're now a bit adapted to Ritalin but what I've noticed over time is that although you have a little bit of a truth in in in drive and workability for those 3 days the average over time is superior to what you would have

naturally but you commented also on another subject which is some people are not diagnosed with ADHD and take these medications and see performance advantages that's a very interesting question so some people like for example my wife if she tried even a low

dose 2 milligrams of amphetamine she feel like she's in a club like she's partying she can't focus so this is somebody that really does not benefit from this drug this drug is not a medicine for her right but surprisingly

a lot of people can use low doses of this drug and find benefits and the reason I believe is because ADHD is a poorly described phenomenon that has multiple ideologies, meaning ways in which the disease develops physically in the brain and it's really just a

phenotype describing people who have difficulty with attention. A lot of people have that, you know, you personally um utilize a lot of different medications for um all kinds of different things even without necessarily having symptoms. Is that right? Like maybe to uh perhaps prevent

you from getting dementia and the, you know, when you're older and things like that. Yeah, so this is something I do on my own, obviously it could, you know, the medical professional would consider it risky and I'm not a medical doctor, but there are some medications like for

example, metformin's been talked about a lot that now there's a clinical trial in the US led by Near Bairel that is the first trial in history funded by the US government to test if a medication can extend life simply without disease. So there are medications like that that

doctors are suspicious may extend life in old people uh but they have never been tried. So for example, like aetam is a cholesterol medication with low side effects, it also lowers systemic inflammation, that's one of the drugs I take. Metformin is another one. EMP paglin

a new class of drugs called SGLT2 inhibitors slow down the progression of chronic kidney disease, one of the only medications that do that well. Men in general, kidney disease is sort of a disease of masculinity because androgen signaling increases kidney deterioration.

over time so all of us at some point in our 60s or 70s will have some form of chronic kidney disease so this is something I think of ahead of time and I know this medication has very little side effects and and has is very well

tested so I'll include some of those medications you were talking about dementia you know one of the dementia has there are many kinds of dementia of course for many diseases like Parkinson's Alzheimer's ALS and so on and vascular dementia but they have some

things in common which is the death of cells in the brain and cells die less in the brain when you have more more growth factors growth factors don't just split cells but they protect cells from death so I imagine something like an SSRI long-term use SSRIs work by upregulating

growth factors in the brain may protect some of the cells from death they also lower inflammation in the brain which is a common cause for dementias in general hey guys if you like this clip go ahead and comment down below and let us know what you liked about it all right share

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From Weakness to Wisdom: Leo and Longevity's Story

Mark Bell's Power Project

Expertise in various fields and personal journey of self-improvement

Early interest in athletics led to research on steroids.

Struggles with attention deficit and other issues prompted further learning.

Learning about issues as a method of self-improvement.

Undergraduate studies in business, hampered by ADHD.

Diagnosis and treatment with Adderall significantly improved academic performance.

Discussion of Adderall dosage, daily use, and side effects.

Effects of Adderall on those without ADHD diagnosis.

Long-term effects and benefits of ADHD medication

Effects of taking medication on non-consecutive days.

Individual responses to medication vary greatly.

ADHD as a poorly understood phenomenon with multiple causes.

Proactive medication use for potential health benefits

Personal use of medications like Metformin and Aetam to potentially extend lifespan and mitigate age-related diseases.

Discussion of other medications used, including their purposes and potential benefits.

Addressing the issue of chronic kidney disease and potential preventative measures.

Potential use of SSRIs for dementia prevention.