It’s official – with beauty websites calling it a “wonder supplement,” NAD, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, as it’s formally known, has truly arrived. While this little cellular energy generator has long been recognized in the scientific community for its pivotal role in every single cell in our bodies, the buzz about the many benefits of boosting NAD levels is hitting the streets. And that means a little clarification is in order, particularly about the best way to supplement effectively. Here’s what to know about NAD and NAD precursors like NMN and NR, along with the most effective supplements for boosting NAD. Spoiler: If the idea is shoring up the body’s NAD levels, supplementing directly with NAD is not the way to go about things.
Getting to know NAD: benefits and dosage
Word has clearly gotten out because, in an interesting shift, people are increasingly asking how best to supplement NAD, instead of what it is or what it does. That’s a great sign! It means people have already learned that higher levels of NAD translate to more cellular energy, ensuring cells are primed and able to do their various important jobs. People who are actively searching how best to supplement NAD may also be aware that NAD levels naturally decline as we age, leaving us with roughly half the NAD we had at age 20 by the time we hit 50. As production slows and as aging or damaged cells burn through our precious NAD supply, so comes the onset of conditions traditionally associated with aging – a fuzzier memory, less energy, more wrinkles, slowed recovery times, brain fog, and the list goes on. Boosting NAD can help offset that decline and dramatically improve biological age and healthspan, making NAD supplements very valuable indeed. Or are they?
On the surface, it makes sense that supplementing with the perfect dose of NAD would mean more NAD in the body. When we have a vitamin D deficiency, after all, we make a point of spending more time in the sun, or more commonly, we pop a vitamin D supplement. But NAD is different. None of its many, many benefits come in the form of a magic NAD pill. Instead, you need what essentially amounts to a go-between—and that’s your NAD precursor.
What is an NAD precursor?
If you’re researching NAD supplements or even taking one already, surprise – you’re probably not actually taking NAD directly. And that’s a good thing. First, NAD is wildly heat sensitive, so you’d need to be diligent about managing temperature properly. And second, getting NAD itself into your bloodstream, whether you down a capsule or fork over for a pricey IV infusion, doesn’t mean it’s making its way into your cells. In fact, oral supplementation with NAD doesn’t really seem to do much, and that’s almost certainly related to how efficiently it’s metabolized in the gut. As for IV therapy, which is generally touted as an ideal route of administration in terms of bioavailability for many nutrients, we just don’t know about its efficacy for NAD. Results from studies assessing NAD IV efficacy are mixed, and those that show positive effects are limited by issues like small sample sizes (not to mention, conducted by NAD IV drip clinics). As researchers in a 2020 review of the clinical evidence for targeting NAD therapeutically put it, “the metabolism of intravenously infused NAD/NADH is currently unclear.” Clearly, large and well-designed clinical studies are warranted before NAD IV therapy can be enthusiastically recommended.
Enter the NAD precursor – kind of a big deal. Our own Dr. Andrew Salzman, a leading biomedical expert, calls NAD precursors one of the biggest breakthroughs in longevity science. “The real breakthrough that’s occurred is how to get NAD levels back to normal. We now understand that it can’t be done by giving NAD itself, but it can be done by supplying the starting material.”
That starting material is an NAD precursor like NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) or NR (nicotinamide riboside). Unlike the entire NAD molecule, which is fairly sizable, NAD precursors are more easily absorbed in the body and impressively resilient in the digestive system. In the cell, they’re quickly and easily converted to NAD. For the record, NMN is actually the immediate precursor to NAD and therefore quite efficient. With NR supplements, NR is first converted to NMN and then to NAD in the cells.
Either way, the idea is to restore NAD to more youthful levels by delivering the building blocks directly to the cell. And while this can certainly be done intravenously, there are benefits to going the oral supplementation route.
NMN and NAD: can and should they be taken together?
Well, in most cases, no. In the interest of efficacy, supplementing with both NMN and NAD together is excessive. As a hardworking precursor to NAD, an NMN supplement—taken at a proven clinical dose—is sufficient all on its own. It sidesteps the pesky problems of trying to take NAD directly, which, as we’ve covered, is both temperature sensitive and far too efficiently metabolized, rendering the benefits moot.
NAD IV drips vs supplements.
So, does that mean it’s a waste of time and money to fork over for an NAD IV drip if you’re also taking an NMN supplement? Probably. IV drips, if that’s your thing, lend themselves to the preparation involved for a big event – or the recovery in the days after. But you’ll spend a lot of time (up to four hours per session!) and money getting infusions to boost and then maintain youthful NAD levels and more to the point, getting a big NAD dump at once isn’t how it’s naturally produced in the body. Supplementing with an NMN capsule like Wonderfeel Youngr™, on the other hand, more closely mimics what the body does naturally. Instead of a huge wallop every now and then, you consistently benefit from the most efficient dose for a sustained approach to healthy aging.
There’s another advantage to a supplement like Youngr, and we’ll let Dr. Salzman explain. “By itself, NMN is very helpful. But the ability of NMN and NAD to be effective in the cell is dependent on having low oxidant stress.” And that’s exactly why the Youngr™ formula pairs NMN with key antioxidants. Their role is to shield the cell from oxidant stress so that it can more efficiently use the NMN that’s simultaneously being delivered.
And these aren’t any old antioxidants. “The selection of antioxidants in the Wonderfeel capsule is based on the understanding that there are different types of oxidant stress within the cell,” says Dr. Salzman. “By choosing the right components of olive oil and mushrooms and grapes, we’re able to create a capsule that contains all the most powerful antioxidants without the need to take voluminous amounts of the botanical material.”
Boosting NAD Levels Naturally: Tips and Recommendations
While there’s little sense in taking both NAD and NMN supplements together, there are ways to increase NAD levels in the body naturally—but before you get too excited, be very clear that any gains here are minimal. They’ll likely be familiar, too. As it happens, leading a healthy, active lifestyle is a simple way to modestly increase NAD production. Of course, the pillars of a healthy lifestyle have been constant for years—regular exercise and a mindful diet, of course—but there are a few bonus activities that might be worth exploring.
Regular exercise isn’t just important for strong bones and muscles (not to mention mindset). Humans very quickly adapt to their normal state. When we lead a largely sedentary lifestyle, the thought of movement can seem overwhelming. When we’re making regular time for physical activity, on the other hand, the more energy we have, the more we crave movement—and the more NAD we produce to power us through. It’s a lovely little cycle!
Then there’s what you eat. NAD is actually found in fermented foods like sauerkraut, kombucha and kimchi. It’s also in smaller quantities in yogurt and kefir. Other NAD-boosting food recommendations include things like avocados, fish, cow’s milk, dark leafy greens, eggs, whole grains and peanuts. Pair a B-vitamin rich diet with an NMN supplement with our own Youngr™ to actively support NAD production. As a bonus, you might also consider exploring intermittent fasting—according to multiple studies, it may have a significant effect on aging and lifespan—or the keto diet, which preaches a high fat/low carb/moderate protein model. It’s intended to put the body into a healthier metabolic state, and increased NAD production is a side effect.
Finally, there’s the fact that things that raise your body temperature, including infrared saunas and hot tubs, can also mean an uptick in NAD. It’s similar to the effect of exercise—it stimulates the body’s metabolic rate and increases energy demands, which is a signal to up NAD production. Whether you’re exercising hard or just sweating passively in an infrared sauna, your body has to work a little harder to maintain homeostasis, and it needs a little more NAD for the job.
To be clear, while movement and nutrition—and perhaps even infrared sauna sessions—are important for a healthy body and mind, their impact on NAD production is pint-sized bordering on minuscule. In other words, don’t hit the gym because you think it’s going to move the needle on NAD. For measurable increases in that department, supplementation is the way to go.
The bottom line.
The idea of NAD supplementation is catching on, and that’s a good thing. But supplementing with NAD precursors – not NAD directly – is the most effective way of raising NAD levels for the biggest effect. And you can get started right this way.
