> Go look at the studies showing resistance training to be pretty effective in seniors before getting excited about NAD+ boosters. The resistance training is probably cheaper and better. One still has studies such as the one showing that dietary nicotinamide doesn't do a great deal in mice [3] - like sirtuin manipulations, it helps fat mice a little, but is distinctly unimpressive otherwise.
> Remember that calorie restriction extends life by 40% in mice, but probably five years or less in humans - the effects of all these stress response related mechanisms of metabolic manipulation work through a few overlapping core processes, and scale down with species longevity. That's why I see them as a dead end in comparison to other strategies.
The paper itself is a small sample size (24) trial that looks at tolerance. There are no statistically significant physiological effects of dosing with NR in the paper. You see a small increase in the levels of various metabolites that you would expect to see increase after dosing. They only look at cardiovascular effects, and the results are inconclusive at best.
University press offices are doing nobody any favors with this kind of thing. It has to stop.
Also, I'm happy for the disclosure but be wary of potential bias...
> The study was partially funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Federation for Aging Research. ChromaDex, the maker of NIAGEN provided supplements and some financial support.
If you are willing to do that, one would hope that you are also willing to (a) actually assess the results with the more robust quantified self metrics, rather than just hoping and feeling, as so many people do, and (b) take full responsibility for any harms or legal issues you cause yourself in the course of experimenting, as so few people do.
The detailed guides section here contains a couple of posts that walk through this process for a couple of other items, but the same general outline applies in exactly the same way:
reference: https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-b3/
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-nicotin...
"Among "salvageable precursors" (i.e., Na, Nam, NR), a lot of focus is on NR these days because apparently it activates the "anti-aging" sirtuin genes at high concentrations too compared to Na and Nam which only activate those "longevity" genes only at small concentrations and deactivate them at higher concentrations."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18429699
"Because current data suggest that nicotinamide riboside may be the only vitamin precursor that supports neuronal NAD+ synthesis"
Also there seems to be some synergy between Niagen and resveratrol and pterostilbene that I can clearly notice. Foods that work well with Niagen are raisin(-bread) and olive oil. Of course, ymmv.
Continuing to eat junk and assuming that pills and supplements will compensate for that is probably not a good idea.
> From a public health perspective [restricting calories] would be impractical for many and dangerous for some.
Regardless of what's the most optimal solution it's very helpful to have the option when this isn't an easy/practical option. And having tried to cut out sugars and processed foods in my own life, it was certainly not easy and required a significant monetary and time investment to cook my own meals, and buy fast-expiring produce.
It doesn't have to be either/or to reach health goals, as you can mix the two depending on your particular resources.
I don't get the time and monetary cost either. You can precook your meals for a whole week on Sunday night, as long as you don't mind a little repetition.
I've been doing it for two years, and there are solutions to those problems. It's cheaper and faster to eat healthily and restrict calories than to cook a typical US diet -- it just requires a different perspective.
I wish I weren't busy at the moment, so I could build a website about how to manage it.
Is this quote taken out of context? Because I thought the first step of any sort of human trial of a drug is to determine its safety. Intuitively I can't see how NR would be any different safety-wise than niacin (vitamin b3), but more clarification would be nice. Anyone who has read the paper willing to chime in?
If I eat it, I'm guaranteed to get an ocular (ophthalmic) migraine.
But I do disagree with the article that caloric restriction is impractical or dangerous - at least for "rich" western societies that already consume 50%+ more than their healthier eastern counterparts.
That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_food_ener...
Further, the type and quality of the food is likely much lower for the US group consider just the relative carbonated, sugared beverage.
Growing the food industry
Fattens my buttocks and belly
Also, the company ChromaDex seems to have an exclusive right to sell the compound. Anyone think there's an upside to the stock?
Highly doubt there's an exclusive right to sell a compound like this. I know there are multiple suppliers so doesn't seem to be any patents involved.
To answer the question, human data showing meaningful benefits that could not be achieved via exercise or calorie restriction would be very interesting. Human data showing some reliable level of reproduction of the benefits of exercise or calorie restriction without side-effects would be good news for the present majority who don't put in the effort to stay in shape. Good news for supplement sellers as well - there is no shortage of people who would pay rather than exercise or eat less, even if the results were mixed or marginal.
In either case, the cost-benefit analysis runs along the lines of (a) as an individual, how much it is worth spending on a supplement that can capture a fraction of the benefits of exercise or calorie restriction, but also (b) is it worth making this a major focus of the research community, versus the rejuvenation biotechnology that can achieve far greater gains? I think (b) is always going to be answered in the negative, for me at least. No calorie restriction mimetic or exercise mimetic can possibly be as good as functional SENS repair biotechnologies. They cannot achieve the results produced by senolytics, or any of the other ways to remove the root causes of aging. If one looks at NAD+ research as the final stage of sirtuin-related calorie restriction research as a whole, it has taken as much funding to get here as it would to completely implement the SENS rejuvenation therapy package in mice. Yet we know that exercise and calorie restriction cannot add decades to healthy life, as is possible in principle for repair therapies.
The data here on human nicotinamide riboside supplementation seems promising in comparison to the results of past sirtuin research, but I'd like to see a larger study group. If that larger group shows similar results, then maybe this is worth it for individuals. Either way, it is appreciated that the authors avoided running a study in overweight individuals - in this part of the field, that just muddies the waters, given the very different effects of sirtuin manipulation on thin versus fat animals. Nonetheless, it still appears to be the case that this is essentially a way to gain some of the beneficial long-term effects of fitness without putting in the physical effort. I expect future NAD+ studies and exercise studies in older individuals to converge in some ways, showing overlapping effects on cellular biochemistry. It is arguable as to whether taking up exercise, eating less, or artificially increasing NAD+ levels should be termed rejuvenation. There is a certainly a sizable grey area at the intersection of repair, compensation, and overriding regulatory signals that respond to aging.
Edit: and I'll add another sour note... I noticed this now, but how often did i read a piece of journalism outside my area of expertise with equally lazy mistakes, without noticing them?
This is often referred to as the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect":
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
A reporter not understanding what a physicist explained does not mean they lack the ability to understand what a policeman or politician told them.
A reporter not being able to explain a theory does not mean they cannot correctly report on the plain facts of a murder or a policy proposal.
In such cases the risks are inferences drawn from the (lack of) facts, the reliability of the source (material), etc. Every kind of article requires scepticism of different aspects. Just ensuring you don't suffer from Gell-Mann Amnesia is woefully insufficient.