What Is NAD+?
What Is NAD+? Everything You Should Know About NAD-Boosting Supplements
In partnership with Tru Niagen®, I’m honored to share the potential health benefits of this daily supplement as well as the rigorous science behind it. All opinions below are mine.
Sometimes, I feel like 2020 has put a pause in my daily routine and it’s easy to forget that life must still go on. To reduce the effects that metabolic stresses have on my energy levels, I’ve been doing everything I can to take better care of myself, such as exercising and eating well. But I know that my overall health depends on many things I cannot see such as the health of my cells.
Our cells work hard everyday to generate the energy our bodies need to perform at their best. When our cells are healthy, our bodies function optimally.
Recently, I’ve been asked a lot about NAD-boosting supplements and their potential health benefits. But what exactly is NAD+, and how might boosting our NAD+ levels improve our overall cellular health and energy?
What is NAD+?
NAD+ stands for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a coenzyme found in every living cell in your body. NAD+ is essential for many cellular functions such as energy production, cellular repair, and cellular defense. In fact, none of the vital organs in your body would work at all without this key coenzyme.
NAD+ plays a pivotal role in:
- DNA repair
- Neurological health
- Energy production and utilization
- Inflammatory response
- Mitochondrial function
As we age, our NAD+ levels naturally decline by as much as 50% between the ages of 40 and 60. Other factors that contribute to a decline in your NAD+ levels include metabolic stressors such as overeating, alcohol consumption, lack of sleep, and a sedentary lifestyle.
When the NAD+ levels in your body are low, cells have a harder time generating the energy they need to perform at their best. Because of this, it’s important that we pay attention and replenish declining NAD+ include levels to support our cellular health.
Four types of NAD-boosting supplements:
NAD-boosting supplements can help support your NAD+ production by giving your cells NAD+ precursors such as nicotinamide riboside (NR) to make more NAD+. Here is my take on the top four NAD-boosting supplements.
- Niacin (NA) as an NAD-boosting supplement
Nicotinic acid, also known as niacin or NA, is a form of vitamin B3 that can raise your NAD+ levels through a three-step process known as the Preiss-Handler pathway. As an NAD+ precursor, NA goes through a series of chemical conversions in the cell before converting into NAD+.
The downside of supplementing your body with NA is that high doses of this vitamin can lead to flushed skin, which is both irritating and unsightly.
- Nicotinamide (NAM) as an NAD-boosting supplement
Nicotinamide (NAM) is also a form of vitamin B3 and an NAD+ precursor. The good news is that NAM doesn’t cause flushed skin at high doses like NA. However, this form of vitamin B3 does inhibit the production of sirtuins, an important class of enzymes that play an active role in cellular repair and cellular maintenance.
- Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) as an NAD-boosting supplement
Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) is an NAD+ precursor nucleotide derived from ribose and nicotinamide. Although there is preclinical research supporting NMN, there is no human evidence it boosts NAD+ levels and it has not gone through rigorous safety and efficacy testing (1).
So, we currently aren’t sure if daily supplementation with NMN actually supports NAD+ production in humans.
- Nicotinamide riboside (NR) as an NAD-boosting supplement
The last and most recommended NAD-boosting supplement is nicotinamide riboside (NR), a form of vitamin B3 and also an NAD+ precursor.
NR is superior to other NAD-boosting supplements because it doesn’t cause flushed skin at high doses like NA or inhibit sirtuins like NAM. NR is also more efficient than NMN at boosting NAD+ levels. While NMN must first be converted into NR before it can enter cells, NR travels along the shortest and most direct pathway inside our cells, which saves cells both time and energy.
Which NAD-boosting supplement is the best?
A product that I personally recommend is Tru Niagen®. This product’s key ingredient Niagen®, or NR, is the most well-studied form of nicotinamide riboside, proprietarily developed by ChromaDex. NR is proven to safely increase the production of NAD+ by 40 to 50% with daily supplementation, supporting energy production and repair at the cellular level.
Also, ChromaDex has demonstrated the safety and/or efficacy of Niagen® in 11 published human studies with over 40 ongoing studies. It has achieved regulatory acceptance by the four most rigorous regulatory bodies in the world: the US FDA, Health Canada, the European Commission, and Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia.
The relationship between Niagen® (NR) and NAD+ is continuously being studied and expanded upon in a variety of health related fields. While much of the research shows early signs of promise through preclinical research, further research and clinical studies are underway to determine the full range of benefits Tru Niagen® may have as we experience age-related health declines.
As we’re approaching the end of 2020, let’s remind ourselves that there is still time to achieve our yearly goals and feel our best. I highly recommend taking Tru Niagen® so that your body can have the energy support to function optimally and make the most out of the rest of 2020.
Learn more about your cellular health with Tru Niagen® here.
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