NAD supplements are a bit like the wild west of supplements at the moment there are products everywhere online claiming to be able to boost NAD levels and it's really hard to be able to tell which ones are legit and which ones are just scams and currently longevity and anti-aging supplements are all the rage right now no one wants to get old and it's looking like they will put anything in their body if it can prevent aging so you need to understand what to look for if you want to navigate these supplements properly so that don't waste money or Worse end up putting something into your body that can make things worse so with that being said today I will be going through both NAD and nmn supplements because they are very related to each other but if you hadn't heard of either of these terms before don't worry because it will all be explained soon hello everyone it's carony from long game Health welcome back to another week on the channel if you're new here I put out a new video every Friday that can help educate you on Health in some way so subscribe and check out my other videos while you're at it the story of NAD actually begins with vitamin B3 and if you haven't watched my video on vitamin B3 click here to see it because it will help you get a lot more out of today's video but to sum things up there are actually three main forms of vitamin B3 and they are niin nicotinamide and nicotinamide riboside but the important thing to know is that regardless of what form vitamin B3 is in they will all go through a process that turns them into something called NAD or nadp and it's these two that give the effects in your body that vitamin B3 is responsible for you should recognize the term NAD because that's our Focus today but there is one more piece to this puzzle and that is nicotinamide mononucleotide or more simply nmn now the reason this is important is because it also turns into NAD some people say that nmn is a form of vitamin B3 but technically that isn't quite true vitamin B3 turns into nmn and from there nmn turns into NAD so the process looks like this that is a very simplified version now nmn is essentially the final stepping stone before your body makes NAD so that is why it seems to be popping up as something you can supplement because it's another way that you can boost NAD levels and it's a quicker way to getting to NAD compared to starting with vitamin B3 alone so first things first why do we need NAD why is everyone after this magical molecule why are celebrities going to clinics and having it injected into them regularly well I did go into this a little bit in the video I did on vitamin B3 but the main thing we we need NAD for is energy production it drives the electron transport chain which is a process that is going on in every single one of your cells to make energy to keep you alive and fit and active and just about doing everything so without NAD you will have much less energy production in your body and you may feel quite tired which is why if you are lacking envirment B3 you may feel fatigue as a symptom but it's not just energy that NAD helps with there are three things that NAD is involved with that may be leading to the belief that it can slow aging down and the first is DNA repair our DNA is constantly getting damaged from things like UV radiation from the Sun toxins in the environment and also from natural processes going on inside our bodies it's kind of like wearing tear but your body naturally has the tools to help repair this damage there are special enzymes called PP enzymes in the body that are involved in repairing DNA damage and NAD is actually the fuel source that drives them to do their job so the idea is that if you have more NAD your DNA repair processes are improved and you have less DNA damage damage to cells and DNA is something that happens as you age and NAD levels naturally go down as you age by the time you reach middle age which is about 40 to 50 years old your NAD levels may have hared so supplementing is is thought to help prevent this DNA damage that comes with aging and all those other things now the second thing NAD can help with is boosting your immune system once again it is acting as a fuel source and giving your immune cells the energy to function to the best of their ability this energy helps them move towards the areas in the body that infections may be happening and helps them attack and Destroy invading bacteria cells or anything foreign in the body that shouldn't there NAD also is important for the inflammatory response which goes hand in hand with the immune response and finally the third thing is that NAD is thought to help promote the activity of a certain family of enzymes in your body called cins now NAD essentially turns these enzymes on and when they are activated they help with DNA repair stress resistance metabolism and also inflammation now it seems to me that this involvement with the cerin is where the benefits to longevity tend to come from because all four of these things have potential to help with slowing down aging we already discussed DNA repair but by promoting DNA repair you help cells to resist the damage that comes with aging if cells are resistant to stress then again damage to them is prevented and metabolism is the process in which energy essentially gets made and this tends to slow with age so so naturally keeping this going can help an older age and inflammation is linked to many age related and chronic diseases so any anti-inflammatory effects can technically help with the effects of Aging now all of this is emerging in new research so far only animal Studies have shown some promising results with increasing NAD levels and activating the certu inss to extend lifespans but Aging in humans is different to animals like mice it's much harder to prove this in humans and we just aren't there yet research is ongoing so I'm not going to be sitting here and telling you that NAD can increase your lifespan I mentioned before that NAD levels decline with age so then we do need to address the question do we need to then supplement it and I try to guide myself using evidence to make these decisions and I really struggled to find proper research that used actual NAD as the supplement so NAD stands for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and so when you look at a supplement this would be the ingredient that needs to be listed if they are claiming to be NAD supplements and look it's not hard to find these supplements a quick Google search and there they all are claiming to have NAD but when you look at the research it's all unclear we haven't really proved much efficacy from these supplements so there isn't much proof that they actually work so I am skeptical about the NAD specific supplements what there is slightly more evidence for is supplementing with NAD precursors so what that means is something that will turn into NAD and this is where nmn or nicotinamide mononucleotide comes in this randomized control trial gave participants different doses of nmn for 60 days and found that taking 600 mg or 900 mg of NM men significantly increased blood NAD levels and improved physical performance they used a 6-minute walking test to assess physical performance so an increase in physical capacity is expected of someone who has increased NAD so this was good to see the study was also about seeing what was safe for people to take and they found that doses up to 900 mg a day was safe and did not result in side effects now only 80 people were in this study so we really want to see more studies with more people and for longer periods of time because at this rate it will be a long time before we can see any impacts on lifespan for people taking these supplements of course though nmn is not the only precursor to NAD vitamin B3 so things like niin and nicotinamide both also turn into NAD so if your goal is to increase your NAD levels at this stage trying to take a direct NAD supplement may not be the best way there just is isn't enough evidence to prove that the products currently out there are safe or effective and I'm skeptical of all of these supplements that you can just buy online there's no regulation here it's a bit scary now it seems to be that taking a vitamin B3 supplement or nmn supplement is a more effective way at this stage to increase NAD levels and get some improvements to energy levels I just need to say again it's a new space there's research ongoing and I'm sure we will see developments in this space in the future that result in some safe and effective supplements because the thing is we know the benefits of NAD it's trying to find a product or a supplement or a way to get that into humans that's the challenge so it's a matter of time before it happens but until then proceed with caution especially if you are someone with existing health conditions there is more risk with trying out supplements if you have conditions already impacting on your health so hopefully that's cleared the air a little bit because browsing s ments and just seeing bottles with a bunch of letters on them like n a d n MN that seems like it would be quite intimidating if you didn't know what they stood for or what those things can do I've said it before but the supplement industry is huge it's only growing more and unfortunately they don't always have your best interests at heart so it is up to you to learn what's going on and navigate it all safely that's all I have to say for now if you have any questions please don't hesitate to leave a comment give a like and subscribed if you enjoyed the video and I will see you next week as usual keep playing the long game [Music]