Why do you start this thread and ask this question if you are so afraid ?

If you have so much fear, then the best is to play safe and not
take anything at all.

Apart from the racetams, and the choline-based nootropics
aggravating gastric ulcers, you can go ahead and try them.
They are just supplements.

Many life extensionists take "smart" DRUGS as nootropics,
including me. If you go to the Immortality Institute's supplements
and nootropics subforums (and I urge you to join in if you want
to learn more about nootropics), you will come across many of them
taking modafinil, aniracetam, pramiracetam, oxiracetam, piracetam,
CDP choline, alpha GPC, DMAE, Huperzine A, vinpocetine,
selegiline (Parkinson's drug) and even donepezil (Alzheimer's drug).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil
Indeed, they take them as "stacks", i.e. combined together as a regimen.
You will also find these "stackers" in nootropic forums all over the world.

Those guys in the Brainmeta forum are particularly hard-core stackers.
http://www.longecity.org/forum/forum/412-nootropic-stacks/

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22550

http://www.mindnutrition.com/nootropic-guide-stacks.html

http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comment...god_mode_stack/

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.p...42207791&page=1
I am far more conservative (and also have a far smaller wallet), but
have taken at one time or another these drugs and supplements -

Piracetam
Hydergine
Selegiline
ALCAR
ALA
Jarrow's CarnitALL (bought for my father, but now on my office table
because I cannot get it past my elder brother, who has never heard
of life extension, to my father in the nursing home ) -
comprising  ALCAR, ALCA, l-carnitine fumarate, ALCAR taurinate, GPLC.

http://www.jarrow.com/product.php?prodid=190
CDP choline is classified as a drug in Europe for strokes.
It is now found all over health food stores in the States.
It is the first one I would bring in for my post-stroke demented
91-year old father in the nursing home, if I had a free hand.

http://www.jarrow.com/product.php?prodid=288
My father has managed to make it to this age because at one time or
another years ago, before he was institutionalized and when he lived
with me, I was pumping him on the following :

Basic multivitamin/mineral
ALCAR
ALA
Hydergine
Piracetam
Hijuven (vitamin E nicotinate)
APG lysine (growth hormone releaser)
Cod liver oil
Hawthorn extract
Coenzyme Q10
Ribose
Magnesium malate
Grape seed extract