Neuro-Peak Review

Zhou Nutrition Neuro-Peak has been one of the top-selling nootropics in the world since the day of its launch. That is something that few brain supplements can say!

Since launching their first products a few years ago, Zhou have gone on to become a giant in the supplement industry. They now make a wide range of products covering sports performance, general health, and overall human optimization.

Neuro-Peak is their comprehensive, all-in-one nootropic. According to the Zhou Nutrition website, Neuro-Peak delivers the following key benefits:

• Enhanced memory function
• Increased mental clarity
• Promotes calm, stress-free focus

So clearly, this is a full-spectrum, all-in-one nootropic.

Zhou Nutrition Neuro-Peak is designed to enhance the three key areas of cognitive performance.

But does it actually work? Can Neuro-Peak compete with the best nootropics on sale right now? Is it safe? Is Zhou Neuro-Peak worth the money?

Find out by reading my full Neuro-Peak review below. If you have any questions or comments, please post them at the bottom and I’ll get right back to you!

Neuro-Peak ingredients

It’s all well and good talking about the promises made by Zhou Nutrition. But if the formula can’t back it up, then none of it  means anything!

Zhou Neuro-Peak contains just 6 ingredients – 5 nootropics and 1 vitamin:

Here’s a quick overview of the ingredients in Neuro-Peak; what they do and how they work. I’ll then give you my full thoughts on the formula below.

Bacopa monnieri

Bacopa monnieri is a staple herb of Ayurverdic medicine. It has long been used as a general cure-all. Scientific research has, however, found that it does have one definite property – it supports memory function in humans. Supplementing with Bacopa monnieri has been shown to improve scores on memory tests, especially in people who initially scored poorly on the same tests.

Phosphatidylserine

Phosphatidylserine is a phospholipid found in very large quantities in the brain. It is a key constituent of brain cell membranes – without phosphatidylserine, you can’t maintain or make new neurons, synapses, myelin sheaths, and so on.

We tend to get sufficient phosphatidylserine from food (it is found in sunflower oil, soy, and other foods). But if you want to maximize cognitive function, supplementation is probably a good idea. That’s what the long-term clinical trials suggest, for sure!

Ginkgo biloba

Ginkgo is now widely used in the West to improve memory function. It contains two compounds – glycosides and terpenes – which increase blood flow to the brain. Terpenes increase viscosity, while glycosides trigger vasodilation (where your blood vessels expand). More blood flow means greater oxygen delivery, which means more efficient, healthier brain cells.

Note: Neuro-Peak’s ginkgo biloba is only standardized for glycoside content, not terpenes.

Rhodiola rosea

Rhodiola rosea is the most effective, reliable anxiolytic in my opinion. It works incredibly well for pretty much everybody who tries it. It reduces feelings of stress and anxiety without having a sedative effect, or any noticeable physical effects for that matter. Rhodiola rosea is particularly good for promoting focus during times of acute stress – it is a contractor’s best friend!

DMAE

For me, this is the big let-down of the Neuro-Peak formula. It is a poor cholinergic. Some people get nothing out of DMAE. For a smaller number of users, DMAE has proven to be counter-productive – confusion, lack of motivation, headaches, and jaw clenching are just some of the side effects regularly reported on the major nootropics forums.

My thoughts on the Neuro-Peak formula

Neuro-Peak is not a bad nootropic. Not at all. Zhou Nutrition have clearly made a serious attempt at creating a full-spectrum brain supplement.

It does provide support for long-term brain health, increased focus in the short-term, and better memory function.

However, I do think that Neuro-Peak could be significantly more powerful.

The ingredient quality could be improved considerably. I’m not a big fan of whole plant extracts for obvious reasons, and I’m not convinced by DMAE. There are also some very important ingredients missing from the Neuro-Peak formula.

For me personally, it lacks the ‘punch’ that I want from a premium brain supplement. There are certainly better options on the market right now, regardless of what your specific goals are.

Let’s go through the main positives and negatives in more detail.

Main Positives

There are some definite strong points to Neuro-Peak.

The big selling point of Neuro-Peak for me is the healthy dose of Ginkgo biloba.

Most brain supplements which use Ginkgo biloba use about 75mg. That is the dose typically used in the clinical trials which have found Ginkgo biloba to be effective for improving cognitive function. I know from experience that 75mg of Ginkgo biloba works great for improving attention and mental clarity (particularly brain fog in the mornings).

Zhou Neuro-Peak contains 100mg. Even better, you get a standardized extract rather than a whole plant powder.

I think the vast majority of users are going to experience a genuine improvement in mental energy and clarity using 100mg of Gingko biloba. A big plus for this nootropic!

Another big positive with Neuro-Peak is the good Phosphatidylserine dose.

Phosphatidylserine is – for me – a must-have if you’re putting together a complete, daily nootropic for long-term cognitive enhancement. It is just too important for healthy brain function for you to rely on dietary intake alone.

Most brain supplements don’t bother with phosphatidylserine. The cheaper stacks certainly don’t tend to use it; it doesn’t have an immediate effect, and you can’t feel it like you can caffeine or Alpha-GPC, so they aren’t interested.

But in order to truly optimize brain function over the long-term, you really need to pay attention to things like phosphatidylserine. I believe that the best results come from focusing on the long-term; that’s how you make lasting, deep changes to the way your brain functions.

And that’s what we want, right?

Neuro-Peak contains 100mg of 20% phosphatidylserine. This is a very good extract quality and a perfect dose for repeated, regular use. Another big plus for this popular brain supplement.

Main Negatives

Overall, I think the negatives overpower the positives here. This is unfortunate; at one point, Zhou Nutrition had an amazing nootropic on their hands. But today, it’s definitely substandard.

The biggest problem with Neuro-Peak for me is the lack of any real ‘punch’.

The main example is with the cholinergic – DMAE.

Zhou have used DMAE instead of a more powerful, efficient cholinergic like Alpha-GPC or CDP-Choline. The end result is an altogether weaker stack.

DMAE is unreliable across populations. Unlike Citicoline, it doesn’t appear to have the same effect for all users, or across different user groups (older people, young athletes, etc).

DMAE also seems to often backfire; it regularly causes side effects which include confusion, a drop in motivation, low mood, lack of focus, brain fog, and anxiety (among others discussed in the side effects section).

By contrast, things like Alpha-GPC and Citicoline work the same across different groups. They work in very much the same way for almost everybody. Most importantly, they seem to produce far more pronounced and immediate effects than DMAE.

It’s no wonder that most cognitive enhancers today use either Alpha-GPC or Citicoline. A small number use choline bitartrate, and an even smaller number use a combination of Uridine and Huperzine A.

Few use DMAE alone. Generally speaking, it’s the cheap, generic nootropics that use DMAE, because declining popularity has made it very cheap. Well, Neuro-Peak uses DMAE. That’s a strong mark against it in my book!

I also don’t like the fact that Neuro-Peak uses a whole plant extract of Bacopa monnieri.

It is totally standard for nootropics today to use a concentrated Bacopa monnieri extract. I haven’t seen a new premium brain supplement use a whole plant powder in years.

The best, most reputable manufacturers go to great lengths to provide a high concentration of bacosides – the active compounds in Bacopa monnieri. Some use an extract that is 50% bacosides by weight! Others use extracts that contain only those bacosides that are active on human memory.

The very minimum I expect to see is a 20% bacoside Bacopa monnieri extract. This is the basic extract used in supplements – you can source this from most reputable wholesalers.

A whole plant extract is totally unacceptable for me. I have no way of knowing the bacoside content of the extract – it could be extremely low for all I know. It’s certainly below the standard 20% you’ll get from all nootropics today.

So Neuro-Peak contains an awful lot of useless plant matter. If the Bacopa monnieri is – for arguments sake – 10% bacosides, then we have 270mg of worthless plant matter in each serving. Not ideal at all!

Will Neuro-Peak cause side effects?

There really isn’t a great deal to worry about here as far as I’m concerned. Most natural nootropics are designed to be healthier, safer alternatives to synthetic brain drugs. Neuro-Peak is no different.

Zhou Nutrition have used well-known, well-understood ingredients in making Neuro-Peak.

Bacopa monnieri, DMAE, phosphatidylserine, Ginkgo biloba and Rhodiola rosea have all been thoroughly tested in laboratory and clinical conditions. They have all been found to be safe for regular human consumption.

In my opinion the only side effect risk is the DMAE.

As I mentioned previously, this cholinergic has regularly caused adverse effects. The most common side effects of using DMAE include:

• Jaw clenching
• Headaches
• Confusion
• Low mood
• Loss of focus
• Brain fog
• Muscle cramps

What’s interesting is that these side effects occur at doses of 50-100mg per day. So it is certainly possible that Neuro-Peak will make you feel pretty awful if you are a negative responder to DMAE.

For me, it’s much safer to just use a different cholinergic – one that is better tolerated and less prone to causing side effects.

Price – How much is Neuro-Peak?

If you want to buy Neuro-Peak, then you’ll probably want to know how much it costs!

Neuro-Peak costs $21.04 per bottle. That is a very reasonable price as far as I’m concerned.

For that $21, you get a very good serving of Ginkgo biloba, Phosphatidylserine, and Rhodiola rosea.

I think for most people this is a much more economically viable way to get these nootropics than buying them individually.

So for me, Neuro-Peak is good value for money. This is in spite of the serious flaws in the formula laid out above.

I will say that if your goal is to maximize brain function without incurring any side effects, it might be worth spending a little more on a less side-effect prone nootropic stack.

Final verdict – Should you use Zhou Neuro-Peak?

If you’ve read my full review, then you’ll know that I am by no means warning anybody off this nootropic.

Neuro-Peak combines some excellent ingredients capable of enhancing different aspects of mental performance.

It targets the main things we want a nootropic to target – focus, clarity, memory function, stress, and long-term brain health.

The doses are great in places too; you get plenty of Ginkgo biloba and Phosphatidylserine.

But would I recommend Neuro-Peak to anyone looking for extra brain power?

No.

Neuro-Peak might have been one of the best natural nootropics in existence when it first came out, but it has since been totally eclipsed by newer brain supplements.

There are products on sale right now offering significantly more firepower, much better value for money, and which cover a lot more bases than Neuro-Peak.

Zhou still have a fairly decent product on their hands here. But it is far from the best! Take a look at my recommended nootropics list and you’ll see the difference.