{"id":11026,"date":"2021-12-15T07:08:43","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T07:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/2021\/12\/15\/nad-boosters-promising-in-mice-for-anti-aging-and-alzheimers-but-not-yet-ready-for-prime-time-biospace\/"},"modified":"2021-12-15T07:08:43","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T07:08:43","slug":"nad-boosters-promising-in-mice-for-anti-aging-and-alzheimers-but-not-yet-ready-for-prime-time-biospace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/nad-boosters-promising-in-mice-for-anti-aging-and-alzheimers-but-not-yet-ready-for-prime-time-biospace\/","title":{"rendered":"NAD Boosters: Promising in Mice for Anti-Aging and Alzheimer's, but Not Yet Ready for Prime-time – BioSpace"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\t\t \t\t\t\tPublished: Feb 11, 2019<\/span> \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tBy Mark Terry<\/span> \t\t\t \t\t
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Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). <\/em>
There has been recent optimism\u2014and possibly hype\u2014over so-called NAD boosters. Kaiser Health News (KHN) <\/em>recently reported on Harvard University<\/a> <\/strong>researcher David Sinclair, who is taking his own research product, a supplement that boosts nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), a cofactor found in all living cells.
NAD is involved with several enzymes that let cells release energy by way of the mitochondria, the energy producers in cells. It is also involved in DNA repair and other biochemical functions. And there\u2019s little doubt that as we age, NAD levels decrease, as does mitochondrial function.
So compounds that boost NAD are under investigation for a range of ailments, including aging and Alzheimer\u2019s disease.
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Sinclair has significant financial incentives to push these supplements. He is an inventor on a patent licensed to Elysium Health<\/a><\/strong>, a company that sells a NAD booster in pills for $60 per bottle. He\u2019s an investor in InsideTracker, a company that supposedly measured his age, claiming he was 20 years younger than his 49 years. In 2004, he co-founded Sirtris<\/a><\/strong> to test resveratrol\u2019s benefits and at that time told the journal Science <\/em>it was \u201cas close to a miraculous molecule as you can find.\u201d Resveratrol is an ingredient in red wine that might have anti-aging properties.
GlaxoSmithKline bought Sirtris in 2008 for $720 million. But it halted the research in 2010 because of unconvincing efficacy and potential side effects.
Sinclair takes resveratrol, the diabetes medicine metformin, which shows some indications of slowing aging, and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), which has shown in mouse studies to increase energy and decrease aging.
Sinclair is also listed as either a founder, an investor, an equity holder, a consultant or a board member of 28 companies. And at least 18 of those are involved in anti-aging at some level. One of his companies, MetroBiotech, filed a patent related to nicotinamide mononucleotide. It\u2019s not that his enthusiasm or faith in NAD boosters is misplaced or wrong, but there are certainly financial incentives for him to say they\u2019re doing great things for him.
There\u2019s little doubt that researching the role of NAD boosters is worthwhile. BioSpace <\/strong>recently interviewed<\/a><\/strong> Rudy Tanzi, Chair of the Cure Alzheimer\u2019s Fund Research Leadership Group <\/strong>and the Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University and at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as Rob Fried, chief executive officer of ChromaDex<\/a><\/strong>. Tanzi is both a shareholder and a member of ChromaDex\u2019s Scientific Advisory Board.
ChromaDex manufactures Niagen (nicotinamide riboside or NR), a member of the vitamin B3 family. Cells in the body use NR to create NAD+.
There are currently four published clinical trials involving Niagen with 28 listed on clinicaltrials.gov. Most of the trials are in the neurological field, with some in cardiovascular, and others addressing obesity.
The brain is very energy-dependent. When the mitochondria age and stop using fuel like ATP, they are believed to become vulnerable. Microglial cells are specialized immune cells found in the central nervous system (CNS). They remove damaged cells and debris, like amyloid, to maintain the health of the CNS. But they also fight infections and react to neuronal cell death by triggering neuroinflammation. This leads to massive neuronal cell death, essentially via \u201cfriendly fire.\u201d Tanzi told BioSpace, \u201cA microglial cell is more likely to be neuroinflammatory if it is lacking in energy and, thus, less resilient.\u201d
He went on to cite a study published in the journal Cell <\/em>describing increasing ATP levels in a microglial cell that carried a mutant version of one of the Alzheimer\u2019s genes known as TREM2. If you increased ATP levels, the microglial cell does a better job of clearing beta-amyloid, with the result of being less likely to become neuroinflammatory. \u201cSo when we talk about resilience of cells, it\u2019s often about how much energy the cell has. As we get older, we have less cellular energy which has a lot to do with ATP and mitochondria. NAD levels drop as we get older, so if you supplement it, levels go back up, which starts to restore cellular energy, which has implications for Alzheimer\u2019s disease and neurocellular resilience.\u201d
But well-designed clinical trials in humans following preclinical animal studies are two different things\u2014and very different from trying it on yourself, as Sinclair appears to be doing. As KHN <\/em>writes, \u201cHuman metabolism is different from that of rodents. And our existence is unlike a mouse\u2019s life in a cage. What is theoretically possible in the future remains unproven in humans and not ready for sale, experts say.\u201d
Felipe Sierra, director of the division of aging biology at the National Institute on Aging<\/a><\/strong> at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)<\/a><\/strong>, told KHN<\/em>, \u201cNone of this is ready for prime time. The bottom line is I don\u2019t try any of these things. Why don\u2019t I? Because I\u2019m not a mouse.\u201d
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Skip to main content Published: Feb 11, 2019 By Mark Terry Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). There has been recent optimism\u2014and possibly hype\u2014over so-called NAD boosters. Kaiser Health News (KHN) recently reported on Harvard University researcher David Sinclair, who is taking his own research product, a supplement that boosts nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), a cofactor found … Continue reading NAD Boosters: Promising in Mice for Anti-Aging and Alzheimer's, but Not Yet Ready for Prime-time – BioSpace<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[460],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmondnaturalusa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}