Chemicals

This page is all about chemicals. I realize this is an incredibly vague description and in this context I choose to define it as:

"Any chemical substance a person can put into their body to achieve some kind of effect." 

Now I realize this is still incredibly vague but I want to have a term that encompasses all of the chemicals I want to write about. So let's analyze this description piece by piece:

 

"chemical substance": This includes any atom or molecule but more specifically I'll divide them into: 

• Pharmaceuticals e.g. Acetaminophen, Clonidine, Dextroamphetamine...
• Herbals e.g. Green Tea, Turkesterone,  Ashwagandha...
• Peptides e.g. Sermorelin, Epithalon, BPC-157...
• Anabolic Steroids e.g. Trenbolone, Dianabol, Winstrol...
• Sarms e.g. Ostarine, Ligandrol, Andarine...
• Nootropics e.g. Modafinil, Phenibut, Semax...
• Recreational Drugs e.g. MDMA, LSD, Cocaine...

I chose these categories because it gives me at least some semblance of structure and it's a classification system I believe most people will be able to navigate. But, it's inherently flawed as a lot of chemicals might fall in more than one of these categories. For example:

Dextroamphetamine is a commonly prescribed pharmaceutical used for the treatment of ADHD among other things but it's also one of the active molecules (one of the enantiomers of amphetamine) in speed so it's also a recreational drug.

Turkesterone is sold as a plant extract but it's also an ecdysteroid (it has a steroid structure) which is used as an anabolic supplement so it could also be classified as an anabolic steroid.

THC is one of the active molecules in cannabis so most people will know it as a recreational drug. But recently it's been prescribed for some health conditions so it could be a pharmaceutical. Because it's produced in plants it could be classified as a herbal as well. Heck some people even use it in low doses to deal with anxiety so then it could be classified as a nootropic.

The list of examples and possible combinations goes on and on. The reality is chemicals can have a lot of effects, side effects, chemical structures, origins, applications... So neatly subdividing them into categories is pretty impossible. I could subdivide them into chemical structure groups but that would make it hard to navigate for a lot of people. Just using their application as categories is also quite difficult because there would still be a lot of overlap then.

So these are the categories I went with. They're not set in stone and I'll probably update them as I go along but at this moment they will have to do. I'll make sure describe all of the categories each chemical could fall into onto their individual pages.

 

"put into their body": I chose to put it this way because there are a lot of possible ways to get a chemical into your system. You could ingest, smoke, inject... it. Some chemicals will only be absorbed some way. Others are way more effective that way. Sometimes it comes down to convenience. There's a lot of possible things to explore here and I'll make sure to describe all the ways a chemical can be used in detail.

 

"to achieve some kind of effect": I already kind off went over this in the "chemical substance" explanation but to reiterate: A lot of different kinds of effects can be achieved with a chemical. This can also differ a lot from person to person. This depends on a lot of factors like: Genetics, Epi-Genetics, Mental state, Disease, Manner of ingestion... Once again the list goes on.

 

To summarize this is an incredibly broad and incredibly complex topic with a lot of nuance and huge amount of variables that could have some influence. Describing every detail and factor is impossible but I'll do my best to make a comprehensive and practical writeup of the chemical in question.

 

If you can't find a certain chemical in the category you'd expect it to be in here's an alphabetical list of all the chemicals I've done with a link to their page: