Hey guys, I feel like I try to keep myself educated and this was surprised that for the first time today I heard about a supplement called NMN from Greg Doucette on the Fresh and Fit podcast. He claims that along with Creatine it is the [NODE=“1”]Home[/NODE] supplement he’d recommend. He claimed that, right now, it’s banned in the US because the pharmaceutical companies want to classify it as a drug so that they can have a monopoly on selling it over supplement companies, and that elsewhere in the world it not only is allowed, but also allowed in many competitive sports organizations to include the Olympics. Could you shed some light on the data from research that has been conducted? Thanks.
The people recommending NMN are, by that recommendation, not experts in the topic of human metabolism or “longevity”. I am not claiming to be an expert in “longevity” either, but I do know about NAD metabolism. In the brief review below, I’ll show why Mr. Doucette is making silly claims and would be unable to provide evidence to support them.
In general, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) coenzymes consumed in the diet (or from a supplement) are broken down into vitamins, which go on to be involved in a number of metabolic reactions. A number of disease processes, such as heart failure, neurodegeneration, COVID infection, and pretty much any inflammatory disease disrupt NAD coenzymes, which then creates a deficit in metabolic pathways NAD coenzymes are important for due to lack of energy required to repair DNA, handle reactive oxygen species, etc. The end result is tissue damage. The more inflammation, the more damage.
Having enough NAD coenzyme on hand would be good so that the appropriate metabolic pathways can do their thing, e.g. dealing with pro-inflammatory molecules, providing energy to cells to repair DNA, and so on. Unfortunately, you can’t just give people NAD orally, as this doesn’t do much to increase cellular levels of NAD. Rather, the precursors to NAD, which are nicotinic acid (NA), nicotinamide (NAM), nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), and nicotinamide riboside (NR) are needed.
NR is the largest piece of NAD that can enter cells, is the closest thing to NAD, and can further breakdown into NAM and NA depending on the enzymes present in the cell. NR has data in mice and rats showing an increase in NAD, as well as ongoing clinical trials in humans. NMN does not. NMN does not have a specific transporter to enter the cell, thus, it cannot do so, and is not available in the US, and has no data showing superiority to NR (in rodent models or otherwise).
To be clear, the data that orally supplementing any of these compounds does anything significant in humans is lacking. It may turn out that NR is useful in certain conditions, but it would be unlikely to benefit athletes or other healthy individuals.
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Certainly had a bro-science feel to it. Thanks for the response!
I fully agree that there is currently no evidence if NMN or NR is better for boosting NAD+ levels. On NMN - Latest Research, Benefits, Dosage, Safety and more is a list of current results from clinical trials regarding NMN. I have read that a clinical trial is planned or underway comparing NMN and NR, it will be exciting to read the results…