CDP Choline Benefits: How Citicoline Supplements Can Improve Brain Health

Citicoline also known as CDP Choline is a ​very ​popular ​supplement often used in ​​nootropic ​stacks and ​blends.

Here, we cover information ​about benefits of this nootropic, the best ways to use it and available purchase options.

A Citicoline supplement is one such product that can be extremely helpful in this regard.

Let’s carry out a detailed review of this substance and understand if it could be a really useful nootropic, independently as well as a part of some nootropic stack.

Also popularly referred to as cytidine diphosphate choline or CDP choline, Citicoline is a highly potent nootropic that is widely recognized for its memory enhancing and brain protecting abilities (against potential memory loss).

However, an improvement in your brain’s faculty is only a partial benefit delivered by Citicoline supplement; it has also been found to enhance mental energy, increase clarity of thought and improve focus.

Recently carried out studies have revealed that regular use of a Citicoline supplement may also be helpful in the treatment of a wide range of medical problems including stroke, head injuries, glaucoma, neurodegenerative diseases, cocaine dependency, attention deficit order and more.

People who particularly use it for its nootropic effects, normally use it as a part of some nootropic stack.

This is because Citicoline has this ability to enhance and amplify the potential effects of various other nootropic chemicals.

To give you an example, it can be integrated into a stack consisting of racetam class nootropics and work synergistically to potentiate memory boosting effects of nootropics like pramiracetam and piracetam while ensuring that the user doesn’t experience any annoying headaches which are commonly known side effect of racetam supplementation.

Furthermore, Citicoline can deliver highly potent nootropic effects when used alongside centrophenoxine and Alpha GPC as well.

As also highlighted above, Citicoline is known to be a powerful nootropic supplement capable of potentiating the other nootropic chemicals and having the ability to work on its own for enhancement of brain health and several cognition aspects.

Let’s go over some of the commonly known Citicoline benefits:

Maintenance of peak mental energy levels is critical for everyone ranging from corporate executives to students facing exam stress.

It is twice as important for older people who often have to bear the brunt of natural aging effects, in the form of mental slowdown.

Various clinical tests have revealed that regular consumption of a good quality Citicoline supplement can deliver a significant mental energy boost, by increasing the frontal lobe bioenergetics and lessening the effects as well as the occurrence of aging-related cognitive disorders.

A large number of people who regularly use nootropics find Citicoline to be a must-have ingredient in all of their nootropic stacks.

Being an outstanding source of choline, Citicoline can work particularly well when combined with racetam class nootropics.

It strengthens the effects of such nootropics and prevents the minor headaches associated with racetams.

Also, it has been scientifically proven that regular use of a Citicoline supplement along with piracetam can delay cognitive deterioration caused as a result of Alzheimer’s disease.

Another one of the important Citicoline benefits is that it can improve your concentration ability and allow you to stay focused for longer periods of time, without getting easily distracted.

This trait is essential for mastering new skills, studying for success in exams and for completing mentally demanding and complex tasks.

Studies show that its concentration and focus-enhancement ability stays true even in case of people suffering from serious conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, brain injury and stroke.

By far the best-known benefit of Citicoline is its ability to boost memory and prevent memory loss.

That’s the reason it is frequently combined with various anti-aging products.

It has also been studied and used as a potential treatment option for conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

Considered a psychostimulant nootropic, CDP choline or Citicoline functions in several different ways, for instance, it delivers its effects by:

The action mechanisms of Citicoline have been extensively studied by the scientific community world over, and its processes and actions are very well understood, unlike a large majority of nootropics available out there.

Once consumed, Citicoline splits into cytidine and choline in the human body and disperses in the quickest manner possible.

It doesn’t take much time crossing the blood-brain barrier and therefore enters the central nervous system fairly quickly. 

Once inside the system, cytidine gets converted into uridine, an important nucleotide base which is extremely crucial for the neuronal membrane synthesis.

It is also responsible for cognition enhancement. Choline on the other hand, after its release in the body, functions as a cholinergic, thus increasing the choline level inside the brain.

Citicoline’s action as a cholinergic in the body (after its absorption) makes it just the right complement for the racetam nootropic stacks, which require proper amount of choline for delivering their brain enhancing effects.

As you may be already aware, choline is a precursor chemical of acetylcholine and is very crucial for various aspects of cognitive functioning, especially concerning memory and learning.

Racetam class nootropics such as piracetam are known to be acetylcholine boosters, as they increase the production as well as the release of acetylcholine through stimulation of the concerned neurotransmitter receptor sites inside the brain.

Once there is sufficient choline in your brain, it leads to increased production and subsequent release of acetylcholine, thereby causing noticeable cognitive enhancement, which could range from better memory retention, improved focus, faster recall, clearer thought process to sometimes even improved sensory perceptions.

Although each individual component of such stacks is an excellent brain enhancer in itself, when combined they all work synergistically and deliver far more potent effects.

Various scientific studies and clinical trials have proven that there are no documented harmful side effects of Citicoline use, even when you indulge in high Citicoline dosages. 

Although many people who consume Citicoline supplement on a regular basis report mild side effects like diarrhea, insomnia, headache, and indigestion, none that are serious in nature have been reported so far. 

Please note, no such studies were carried out on pregnant or breastfeeding women. Hence they’re advised to avoid consumption of any Citicoline supplement.

As Citicoline is very well tolerated by the human body, people reportedly indulge in all kinds of citicoline dosages, without any apparent and documented harmful side effects. 

In general, users are recommended to intake a daily cumulative Citicoline dosage ranging from 250 mg to 1000 mg, either broken into two different doses, with a time gap of 8 to 12 hours, or in just one single go.

Consuming Citicoline in these amounts and in this way is considered effective as well as safe.

Hence, it became pretty clear that there’s not much value in indulging in very high Citicoline doses.

You can consume Citicoline in both powdered as well as capsule form. Since it is water soluble, 95% of orally consumed Citicoline gets instantly absorbed by the human body.

Although Citicoline is well known for being the most bioavailable choline variant, many also use Alpha GPC for their choline requirements. 

If we talk about weight, Alpha GPC can be considered the best precursor to acetylcholine out there.

Just like Citicoline, Alpha GPC is also often used to lessen the effects of age-related degenerative disorders.

If you were to carry out a head-to-head comparison between Alpha GPC and Citicoline, it would be very difficult to differentiate between the two. 

Both of them are unique in their own way and one cannot be referred to as either worse or better than the other.

While Citicoline’s uniqueness comes from the fact that it provides uridine, a neuroprotective agent, Alpha GPC has high bioavailability, and solidly prevents any cognitive decline, supports memory formation and also has a stimulating impact on the human brain (which can improve its power output). 

In fact, certain nootropic stacks are created using a strategic blend of both Alpha GPC and Citicoline, thus providing the best of both the worlds in one single product!

For people who use nootropics on a regular basis, the most important way Citicoline comes into their use is in the form of a potentiator for the other nootropic chemicals. 

This property of Citicoline is found to be especially true in case of racetams, that deliver really outstanding results when paired with Citicoline. 

Please note, the actual dosages and supplement ratios may vary from one stack to the other, depending on the exact type of racetam nootropic you’re using.

Let’s go over some ways in which you can effectively stack Citicoline with different racetams.

This stack is created by combining 750 mg of oxiracetam with 250 mg Citicoline. The ideal recommended dosage is once or twice per day. 

Oxiracetam is widely recognized as a popular and potent racetam, often called the ‘speedy racetam’ as it effectively delivers the cognitive enhancement effect of piracetam along with significant increase in wakefulness, alertness, and energy.

 It has a noticeable stimulating effect on the body and may cause sleep problems if consumed during the evening hours.

You can create this stack by combining 4800 mg of Piracetam and 250 mg of choline together. The ideal recommended dosage is once or twice per day.

This stack is especially useful for overall cognitive improvement and has neither calming or stimulating effect on the body.

Aniracetam is a well-known racetam owing to its cognition-boosting ability. It also delivers a sedative-like relaxing effect to the body. You can create this stack by combining 100 mg of aniracetam with 250 mg of Citicoline.

This stack is quite similar to the piracetam stack discussed above, however, as pramiracetam is considerably stronger than piracetam (10 times or more), even the lower doses of this racetam deliver the most optimum effects.

When combined with Citicoline, the cognitive-enhancement ability of pramiracetam goes a notch higher, causing a major boost in sensory perceptions, focus, thought clarity and memory. 

As in case of piracetam and Citicoline stack, this one also has a neutral effect on the body, and neither calms or stimulates the user. 

You can create this stack by combining 250 mg of pramiracetam with 250 mg Citicoline.

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