During a February 2026 podcast, Dr. Rhonda Patrick (Found My Fitness) asked NAD+ expert Dr. Charles Brenner whether taking NAD+ boosting vitamin supplement Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Reviews) increases cancer risk. Here’s their conversation (Dr. Sinclair on NMN and cancer HERE):

Dr. Rhonda Patrick (video below):

“…So obviously NAD is important for all of our cells.

Our cells need to make energy.

There’s a variety of other processes that you described that are very important – biosynthesis of molecules.

These are also things that cells that are mutated and potentially are cancerous also like.

They need energy.

They need to build more cancer cells.

Right?

Tumor wants to grow.

And so I’d love to know your thoughts on the role of taking an NAD precursor with respect to cancer risk.

Obviously, someone who already has cancer currently or had previously had cancer in those contexts as well.

Dr. Charles Brenner:

“So, there’s a hierarchy of evidence in which large, randomized, placebo controlled trials are the top of the hierarchy.

And, so we know from the Australian Nicotinamide trials that supplementing with the classic NAD booster Nicotinamide lowers cancer risk at the population level.

If there was a signal that said that higher NAD status would cause more small tumors to appear, you would have seen that in the clinical data.

We can be grounded with that as kind of foundational information.

Dr. Patrick:

“It’s clearly not causing cancer.

Dr. Brenner:

Yeah.

Not causing cancer.

Now, there are things that you can do with cell lines and in mice where it looks like some tumors could potentially be limited by NAD supply.

NAD is not really a fuel.

Like I said, it’s more the wiring between the fuel and ATP production.

So, I think at the population level, it’s not really a risk.

That said, we do say, ask your doctor, and if you have a disease or condition, if there’s some type of cancer chemotherapy a person is undergoing, it could be contraindicated potentially.

And so I don’t have the knowledge to reassure every possible situation.

But, overall, the clinical data say that NAD boosting is preventative for cancer, and that Niagen (NR) is safe.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick:

“Did you see the animal study that gave mice that had I believe it was pancreatic cancer?

They already had pancreatic cancer and they gave them NMN, and it accelerated tumor growth.

Is that ringing a bell?

Dr. Brenner:

“Um, no.

But, there are a lot of trials that you can do, things that you can do in mice that are very prone to cancer where you’re injecting them with literally 10 to the 6th MCF7 cells or something like that where they’re all going to get tumors.

And I just don’t know how important those are for the human condition.

That’s not the way human cancers develop.

We don’t get injected with a million MCF7 cells.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick:

“Good.

So, I think that that evidence with the Nicotinamide that was given to people in Australia – and it actually not only didn’t increase cancer risk, it lowered the risk of melanoma.

Dr. Brenner:

“I think it might have been non-melanoma skin cancer, the most common.

Dr. Patrick:

“Okay.

Got it.

That’s very reassuring particularly for me because I had seen this Japanese – it might have been out of Japan – but it was definitely NMN given orally, no actually it was given by, it might have been injected to mice with pancreatic cancer and it accelerated cancer growth which isn’t too surprising.

I mean, if you already have a bunch of tumors and then you’re given a bunch of whether it’s folate or NAD or something, you might expect rapid cancer growth.

But who knows?

So, I think that’s kind of what shut me down for a little bit on taking the NAD precursors.

I’m back to taking them.

But I guess it’s always a concern if you actually have cancer, you’re probably not going to want to take a bunch of supplements in general.

So, I do want to ask you, is that something that you kind of agree on?

Is that what you’re kind of getting at?

Dr. Brenner:

“Yeah, I think that for the general public, we think NR is safe.

There’s a registry at the FDA.

So, as you know, the F in FDA stands for “food”.

And nutritional supplements are under the “F” in FDA.

And so because Niagen (NR) went through the process of being a compound that is generally regarded as safe and as a new dietary ingredient, if there are any complaints or observations or clinical trial observations that are linked to NR, there’s a file on them that we’re aware of.

And so far the safety data look really good”

More HERE.

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