NAD+, NMN & Longevity: What the Science Really Says | Dr. Rupy Aujla | Be Well Moments

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:10NAD is a supplement that so many people are now trying to take intravenously within their taking it as an IV drip. One, I wanted to ask your thoughts on that as a medical doctor, or people are taking it in supplement Forbes, which is less absorbable, but we can kind of like get into that in the beginning first of all like can you explain what NAD is for people that are listening that don't know what it is and what are your thoughts on kind of the hype around it at the moment yeah so I looked into NAD when I had someone on the podcast a few years talking about it and it was still quite new to me then and honestly it's still quite new to me now but from what I've seen I'm not convinced that it's a good uh spend of your time or your money because these drips do take a while as well to like um to to take so what is nad so nad is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide that's okay or or abbreviated as nad plus yes um and it's really interesting as a molecule because it is a cofactor in the energy generation within the cell the mitochondria so it 100 has a role and the interest in the longevity space is the amounts of this molecule appear to decline over time as we age which is why a lot of people are taking versions of nad or the precursor called nmn which is the mono or not not the dilucleotide but the mononucleotide of that in an attempt to reasonably increase nad in the cell the issue is whilst we might have seen some of these effects in rodent models and animal models, there's real lacking human trial evidence.

1:57And for anyone that knows anything about pharmaceutical drug trials, just because you've seen it in an animal model does not mean that it's going to be the same in the human. In fact, the vast majority of drugs have been completely pulled or not even made it to pass the first phase of human trials because they just didn't work. So that's the first thing I think people need to wrap their head around. When you see an animal study or you see someone promoting it based on an animal study, red flag straight away, it should just be, that's interesting. It's cool. I love some of these animal-based studies, but it does not translate into an evidence-based action to take in the human world.

2:40So when you look at the issues around NAD boosters or NMN, A, like you alluded to, there's the form factor. So supplements, oral intake tends to be completely digested and there's nothing that goes into your bloodstream. So people had the smart idea of, okay, well, let's do an IV drip. IV drip sort of bypasses that metabolism and that metabolic pathway. But again, there's no evidence that it actually gets into the place where you want it in the cell. And in fact, we don't actually know a lot about that conduit between the mitochondria, so these organelles in your cell, and the cytoplasm, which is the space around the cell.

3:28we actually don't know a lot about that relationship as in of itself so the fact that people can say oh okay well we're going to take this and it's going to somehow get from your bloodstream into your mitochondria and it's going to have this magnificent benefit on longevity i think is a real real fast stretch today i'm happy to have my mind changed when some human evidence comes but i have not seen anything remotely close to the hype that has been generated around this to qualify for me taking time out of my day to sit and have an iv drip for an hour or two hours where actually if you want the best bang for your buck if you're interested in mitochondrial health which people should be go and do exercise do a hit train do a zone two training, do anything that increases my tachondrial biogenesis that we can actually measure from biopsies and stuff.

4:27That's where I put my money. Do maybe some cold exposure if you want as well. Maybe there's some benefits of that. I'm much more convinced of that evidence than I am for the NMN supplementation evidence. The other things I would say, which again, doesn't get talked about enough, I would invest in therapy. If I had the choice between spending 100 pounds or 200 pounds on an IV supplement a couple of times we don't know what the dosing is either like that's the thing like yeah like the like I've got no idea how much we should be taking whether it should be a daily thing whether it's a weekly thing I've got no idea um so I would I would rather spend my money having two sessions of therapy every single month like I think it's going to have a much better impact on longevity or health span than any of these supplements so I'm really really bearish on NAD boosters in total as you can probably tell but happy to be convinced otherwise.

5:27One billion people worldwide are deficient in this nutrient that so many of you guys might not be aware of and women if you're listening you are more at risk of being deficient in this nutrient. So I'm going to first of all explain what the physical symptoms are. If you have cold hands and feet, pale skin, extreme lack of energy or fatigue, then you might be suffering with iron deficiency or anemia. Now, first off, please go to your GP to get your iron levels checked. Secondly, please explore a good iron supplement. Many people that come to me are worried about taking iron supplementation because it can cause constipation or GI distress.

6:06that's why I'm so incredibly proud to be partnering for this episode with Spartone the number one iron rich water supplement now I've personally been using these for years the reason why is because they are naturally sourced highly absorbable iron that means it's much more gentle on your stomach there's no harsh tablets it's just one naturally sourced ingredient that works very well you can pick it up in boots or buy online at Amazon but please do not ignore this it is really critical to make sure your iron levels are in check yeah it's interesting because I was just bringing up what I had written about and I said exactly the same thing and that's why I started writing about this because I was on that panel but also I'd had an NAD drip because I always find it interesting I want to go and trial things and I actually had it taken out of me because it made my heart because obviously it's energy, right?

7:01So you do feel quite flustered. That's one of the side effects. But my heart, it was interesting, you were talking about 200 beats a minute. I don't know what mine was. Probably wasn't anywhere near that. But I was getting really flustered, hot, overwhelmed. My heart was going really, really fast. I thought I was going to pass out. And I was like, this needs to come out of me. This does not feel like this is doing what's good for me. And I wanted to read a bit more into it. And, you know, I wanted to look at the clinical trials after that because I was thinking, what have I just done to my body?

7:32And they were short. They are. They're not long term trials. I think that's also what we've got to think about. Right. These are short trials that have been done. Then they don't have meaningful clinical outcomes yet. And I think a lot of these places are from quite luxurious places that are giving these treatments out with people that can spend that money. And when we're thinking about it, like I was actually going, well, what's the risk best and the benefits? And the theoretical concern is that, yes, NAD supports cell growth, DNA repair, like those things we do know. But some researchers are exploring whether excessive NAD, hence why dosage is really important, IV drips, you're getting an excessive amount in an IV drip, right, could even fuel cancer cell perforation.

8:15Like, and I think about this in synergy with nutrients. I'm not saying that this is what all IV drips do that give nutrients. And there's sometimes when people are very deficient in certain things, they do need it medically. But I'm talking about like not medically, right? I'm talking about going into clinics and just asking for certain drips to get these huge infusions. For me, when I was taught in biochemistry and nutritional science, it was all about nutrients and vitamins and minerals that all work together in something called synergy. You know, they all kind of are cofactors of one another.

8:48and when you swamp your body with one huge thing and none of the others you're automatically going to be putting them out of balance yeah and I don't think we think about it with these things and so when I'm looking at you know if someone is deficient then of course we need to be topping them up because they're deficient they don't have enough in their body but right now this is so early they're like I'll be testing for how much is in their body we're testing it versus what the dosages are and so you know when i kind of see that it could be you know linked to cancer cell proliferation my ears tweak up a bit yeah and so i do think it's an important topic to like bring up and also when i was looking at it was like oh you know where does it come in food and it is like if we look at the ways that we can support it through diet and i put it through here we can look at it through like green vegetables fish mushrooms edamame all of these can help as the precursors to NAD.

9:44So again, focusing again on the things that we know aren't going to be detrimental, I think are really, really key. I think it's a really important point you made about dose, because we know from the large trials looking at multivitamins or high-dose vitamins, and even vitamins that you just buy off the shelf from your local health food store, when taken at an excessive dose consistently for the wrong person who might have precancerous lesions, completely unbeknownst to that individual. I mean, not to scare everyone, but we have cancer cells around our body circulating every second of every day.

10:22And our immune system is just like a targeted SWAT team going around our body and removing any malfunctioning dysfunctional cells. If we start giving molecules that could be amping up the defenses it's almost like arming a bunch of terrorists in our body and it's a bit of a stark analogy there but like it's not what you want to be doing and as a one-off like probably not gonna do any harm no i don't think you're gonna worry about it but if this is something that you do like all the time yeah once a month or a couple of times a week i mean the honest answer is i have no idea i mean why do i think anyone does i don't think anyone could sit there and give a full explanation that they know exactly what's gonna happen to do it every single week because the research isn't there yeah exactly yeah and i think these packages that are being sold i hope they've got a lot of insurance because if a year down the line someone suddenly has a a cancer lesion that's found on a on a screening and you do a history you're like what have you been doing for the last like couple of years like oh well i exercise i look after my diet and i've doing these NAD plus IV drips, I would be very fearful to be the individual that is selling those because, I mean, they're unlicensed.

11:37And I think someone's trying to make it a pharmaceutical product in the US. Whether or not that is coming from a commercial perspective or whether it's because they generally think it should be a pharmaceutical product, I'm not too sure. but the research today I would say it's probably a not a good spend of your money and be yeah completely unknown thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode there's a link in the description