If there is one supplement we recommend above all others, it's Alpha-Lipoic Acid. It’s the top ingredient in Roll Kit for a reason.
We set out to make supplement kits in the first place because it is well known that MDMA produces neurochemical and histological evidence of long-term deficits in serotonergic function in the brain of rodents and primates. And there is a substantial body of evidence indicating that MDMA-induced neurotoxicity is caused by increased free radical formation:
Why does it help?
ALA is a powerful antioxidant that has been shown, in a seminal MDMA neurotoxicity study, to afford “complete protection against MDMA-induced damage” to rodents. In that study, rats were given 20mg of MDMA per kg of body weight – that is over 10x the amount that rollsafe recommends people take. The authors note that ALA “has been shown to protect against excitotoxicity, ischemia-reperfusion injury, mitochondrial dysfunction and other acute or chronic damage to neural tissue involving free radical formation.” And while ALA did not help the rodents keep a lower body temperature (they still experienced hyperthermia from the large doses), “it fully prevented the serotonergic deficits and the changes in the glial response induced by MDMA”.
Timing Matters
The study also administered ALA before and after MDMA was administered, which makes sense, and is why we have ALA in our Before and During pouches in each roll kit.
The evidence for antioxidants helping with MDMA-induced neurotoxicity is strong. ALA is a particularly strong antioxidant which has been specifically tested with MDMA. Thankfully, the results were what we the researchers probably hoped for: it completely negated the neurotoxicity they were measuring. Take it before and during your roll!