Quantumind Review

James Dixon takes a deep dive in to this new nootropic in his Quantumind review. Find out how it compares to the competition below…

Quantumind is one of the newer additions to the increasingly bountiful nootropic market – a crowded, competitive market in which you really need to be something special if you want to survive.

It seems to be the only supplement made by its parent company and is well-reviewed by a seemingly loyal fanbase. It also looks to complete the dual task of boosting cognitive function and athletic prowess.

However, its formula has left me a little wary. I wanted to investigate a little more closely and so I’ll be bringing you my full verdict in this Quantumind review.

About Quantumind

The idea behind Quantumind is sound. It’s far from the first nootropic to lean on stimulants for energy and clarity. In fact, caffeine itself is arguably one of the best nootropic ingredients out there.

They also want to give you a good pre-workout supplement with Quantumind. Caffeine is a good pre-workout ingredient, giving you the energy that you need to perform at your best. They have simply taken this theory and dialed it up to eleven, giving you a very large dose of caffeine and adding in some extra hordenine for good measure.

In doing so, they have ruined their formula, making it potentially dangerous.

The side effects and risks associated with such a heavy stimulant drop are simply too much. 300 mg of caffeine is about the same as five or six shots of espresso, all at once, straight into your system. It’s above the recommended safe daily intake.

Hordenine is a stimulant in a similar vein, coming with its own host of side effects. See below for more details.

There are several additional flaws in Quantumind’s formula aside from the risks. Several of the ingredients included simply don’t work. There is no scientific justification for them being there.

For example, Shilajit is a mineral salt. The claim is that it can boost athletic performance, but there is no clinical evidence for this. Meanwhile, Phenylethylamine has a half-life of 30-120 seconds. It will be out of your system in anything but trace amounts before you even hit the gym floor.

They have tried to create something special here, a supplement that will improve your cognitive and athletic performance all at once. They have actually made something that will likely do neither particularly well, that is also potentially dangerous.

How Quantumind Works

Quantumind is at heart a nootropic. This means that is a so-called ‘smart drug’, a supplement aimed at improving multiple facets of your cognitive health and wellbeing.

They market it as an advanced stack – able to do this whilst also boosting your athletic prowess. With it, you should enjoy improved focus, memory recall, moods, and overall cognitive function, alongside getting an energy spike and a boost to your body’s muscular power. In theory.

In reality, you’ll experience the improved energy.

Perhaps you’ll experience greater focus, though this is unlikely with that much stimulant running through your system.

You won’t have better moods. You will have a great mood followed by a massive crash, made worse as you fall into the cycle of stimulant dependency and need a big dose just to approach your baseline.

You do get some good ingredients in there, though. You will see some of them in most nootropic’s formulas – green tea extract, l-theanine, panax ginseng, Ashwagandha extract, and bioperine for improved bioavailability.

These should all combine to improve multiple facets of your cognitive health and healthy functioning, as you would expect of any mid- to top- tier nootropic.

But this is kind of the point. They do what any nootropic should, using what any nootropic would. They just happen to do so whilst posing a fantastic risk to your physical and mental wellbeing. Other supplements do it far better with far fewer side effects.

As mentioned above, I like NooCube.

If you want the buzz offered by Quantumind, take your NooCube with a cup of coffee in the morning. This is what I do and it works perfectly, whilst also having the very definite advantage of not wrecking my health or giving me midday, monstrous energy crashes.

I don’t see much in there aside from the stimulants that would give you an athletic edge. You will likely experience improved vascularity, which will give you an edge, but this will come with any good nootropic.

You will get better results from a good quality, purpose made pre-workout supplement. Or, as above, NooCube and a cup of coffee will see you right. Take it half an hour before training and you’ll be onto a winner.

Ingredients

This is where it all falls apart, even though there are some real gems. The ingredients list is well-thought-out up to a point – that point being way past the point of safety.

The formula kicks off with 500 mg of N-Acetyl-L-Carnitine. Carnitine is an amino acid, a building block of protein, that is generally taken by athletes for improved energy levels. It is thought to increase mitochondrial capacity and thus lead to greater energy output (your mitochondria are your cells engines, in effect, tasked with synthesising usable energy from fuel). It is a good one for athleticism, though it has no real nootropic benefits.

Tyrosine is a different story. It’s another amino acid, though this time we can see great nootropic potential. Clinical data show that supplementing with tyrosine can significantly boost cognitive performance, especially to those under stress.

It allows them to perform better in mental tasks when stressed – suffering sleep deprivation, being exposed to extreme cold, and so on. You get 450 mg of it with each Quantumind dose, which is a good amount. 

Then there is 350 mg of phenylethylamine. It is a trace amine that is found in minuscule quantities in the brain. It stimulates the central nervous system whilst also aiding serotonin and dopamine synthesis.

This sounds good until you realize that, as mentioned above, it has a half-life of about 30 seconds. It is broken up into inactive molecules pretty much as soon as it crosses the blood brain barrier, making it useless.

Shilajit is just as useless. It’s dosed at 150 mg, but really there should be none anywhere near this kind of supplement.

There is no clinical evidence suggesting that it’s a good nootropic or that it can improve your athletic performance. It contains trace amounts of various minerals, nowhere near enough to make a difference. They would have been better off adding a good dose of magnesium and potassium – I honestly don’t know why they didn’t.

However, now we come onto a handful of far better thought out ingredients.

Firstly, you get 275 mg of alpha lipoic acid, or ALA. ALA is an antioxidant. It’s not the best, but it’s there. It also plays a role in mitochondrial activity, much like carnitine. Again, though, there are better ingredients for this. It is a bit of a Jack of all, master of none.

Alpha-GPC is different. It is amongst the best of the best in the nootropic world. It’s a cholinergic, which means that it brings choline to the brain. In turn, this choline increases acetylcholine synthesis.

This is incredibly important.

Acetylcholine is your brain’s foremost executive neurotransmitter, responsible in large for everything from memory and learning to enabling healthy muscular contractions. You get 250 mg in each Quantumind dose, which should allow for some fantastic cognitive and athletic benefits.

Phosphatidylserine also earns its place, with a very usable dose of 175 mg a go.

Phosphatidylserine, a key phospholipid, is one of the main structural components of your brain cell membranes. This means that the actual architecture of your brain relies on it. In addition, it plays a key role in cell signaling, particularly in prompting new cell growth.

Phospholipid levels drop as we age, making up a large underlying factor behind the aging process itself. Keeping adequate quantities in your diet is key to maintaining a young, healthy brain that performs as you want it to.

Then there is green tea leaf extract at 150 mg. Green tea is full of theanine and potent antioxidants, which should help to keep your brain young and your blood flowing.

Panax ginseng comes next, at 100 mg. It has been used in various forms of East Asian traditional medicine for centuries for its ability to promote subjective wellbeing and improved, balanced mood. It has been shown to be effective for diminishing stress and anxiety levels whilst actively encouraging feelings of contentment.

It isn’t the most powerful ingredient for this – rhodiola rosea is often better. However, combined with the next few ingredients, we get a really good calming effect in place

Ashwagandha is potent. In fact, it’s one of my all-time favorite supplements, one that I take daily. And at 200 mg per serving, you get just enough to feel its benefits. Ashwagandha is an anxiolytic. In short, this means that it helps to mitigate symptoms of stress and anxiety by reducing cortisol concentration within your blood.

It is incredibly well-backed up by clinical data across a wide range of studies. It should help to keep your calm and balance your mood, one of the main aims of a good nootropic.

This pairs well with tyrosine. It also works perfectly in conjunction with l-theanine, of which you get a generous 150 mg per serving. It is a slight relaxant, which should go a long way to furthering that calm mood we are looking for with a nootropic.

However, what Quantumind gives with one hand, it takes with the other. That stimulant content undermines the tyrosine, l-theanine, panax ginseng and ashwagandha. If you want to reduce stress and anxiety, you shouldn’t be taking this much caffeine. You shouldn’t be taking any hordenine at all, ever.

Caffeine is obviously a potent stimulant. It also comes with jitters, energy crashes, mood swings, and insomnia, to name just a few issues.

Hordenine is a beast apart. I can’t quite believe that Quantumind uses it. It’s a natural phenethylamine compound found in plants, much like caffeine, but it’s a lot more powerful.

It reduces perceptions of fatigue whilst greatly enhancing energy levels. Overdosing is easy and common. More on this below.

Does Quantumind Work?

Quantumind works very well if you’re looking for the mother of all energy crashes. You just have to be prepared for the consequences. And if you’re looking into nootropics as a way to promote calm, relaxed wellbeing, free from anxiety, stay away. It’s rubbish for this. They may as well have poured the ashwagandha, theanine, ginseng, and tyrosine down the drain for all the good it does here.

Quantumind could also be described as being actively dangerous. This really isn’t me exaggerating. I’m not given to hyperbole. I like balanced reviews. But honestly, Quantumind has the potential to really cause some damage.

Firstly, 300 mg of caffeine is too much. I don’t mean it’s not for the faint hearted. I mean it’s not for anybody.

Nobody should be taking that much in a single day, let alone a single sitting.

It may (and probably will) cause side effects including nausea, stomach cramps, digestive discomfort, headaches, jitters, anxiety, dizziness, hypertension, elevated heart rate, difficulty breathing, difficulty focussing, and insomnia. As above, it will also lead to dependency as your body needs increasing amounts just to maintain a baseline.

In effect, it will give you mild panic attacks (or sometimes not so mild) every day whilst making you become borderline addicted to it.

If you do take Quantumind – and you I’d recommend you shouldn’t – then at least ensure that you don’t pair it with any other supplement including caffeine or stimulants of any kind, and don’t drink tea or coffee when taking it.

The dangers associated with hordenine are similar to the side effects we see with caffeine. It will in part simply compound them. However, there are some added cardiovascular worries to be concerned about.

It may undermine your cardiovascular health, causing severe shortness of breath, heightened heart rate, heart palpitations, and an increased risk of heart attack. I honestly cannot see why anybody would want to take it.

I really would caution against using Quantumind.

Evidence to support it

There is plenty of evidence supporting the use of pretty much all the ingredients in Quantumind’s formula. This isn’t my issue with it. There is a whole body of research looking into caffeine’s use as a nootropic and athletic stimulant. There is also plenty of evidence underpinning the use of compounds like ashwagandha, ginseng, theanine, and so on.

It is effective. Again, this isn’t my problem.

My problem is that it is dangerous. There is no shortage of clinical work pointing to the adverse effects of over consuming stimulants like caffeine and hordenine.

If you are interested in taking Quantumind, talk to your doctor first. They will be able to more fully assess the risks in the context of your own health and wellbeing.

Alternatives to Quantumind

There is no point taking Quantumind. It is potentially dangerous and there are far superior products out there that work much better. I would always push people to go for NooCube. It is about the best of the best on the current nootropic market (though there are a few top contenders, they just lose out by a whisker).

NooCube is the nootropic I take most often. It’s a market leader whose formula rests on a solid scientific foundation, with some of the best ingredients going, with none of the harsh side effects that you can expect from Quantumind.

You get 250 mg of bacopa monnieri, or water hyssop, which should go a long way towards combating stress and anxiety whilst also improving your memory. Between them, the amino acids l-tyrosine and l-theanine improve melatonin and hormone production, improve your memory and brain function under stress, and further reduce stress and anxiety whilst boosting serotonin production.

A range of botanicals also come into play in quite a significant way. These include cat’s claw, which can inhibit the aging process within your brain, oat straw concentrate, which improves the flow of blood, and thus oxygen and nutrients, to the brain, and antioxidant rich ingredients like marigold extract and resveratrol. It contains vitamin B7 for improved energy levels and sleep quality, as well as stress reduction.

The star of the show comes in the form of Alpha GPC, however. If anybody were to genuinely consider Quantumind, I would hope it would be for its Alpha GPC content. Choline is phenomenal for the brain, as we have seen. However, you get more than enough of top quality choline from NooCube’s formula. 

You get naturally improved energy and a form of anxiety and stress reduction that actually works. Your brain will be healthier, better structured, better nourished, with improved neurotransmitter activity. All this without potentially giving you a heart attack or hypertension. It’s hands down far, far superior to Quantumind.

Verdict

You shouldn’t take Quantumind. It isn’t worth the risks involved. It will likely lead to jitters, mood swings, and energy dips, undermining its role as a nootropic and athletic enhancer. These are the least of its possible side effects, however.

As we have seen, the stimulant levels involved are potentially dangerous, beyond the upper limit of what healthy adults can safely consume in any given day, let alone in any one sitting.

My disdain for Quantumind becomes especially pronounced when I place it in the context of its competitors on the nootropic market. Why, when there are good, safe products like NooCube that if anything work better than Quantumind, would you risk your health with a substandard, dangerous product?

I would urge anybody to look into something like NooCube. Steer clear of Quantumind. If you like your caffeine, have a cup of coffee, stay within safe limits (3-400 mg of caffeine daily), and avoid energy crashes, mood swings, and dependency. Avoid the chronic health concerns that long term Quantumind use will likely elicit.