Dr. Charles Brenner (FAQs), University of Iowa professor, chief scientific advisor at Chromadex, and discoverer of Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Reviews) as an NAD precursor vitamin joined the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast to discuss NAD+, NR, and lots more. Key quotes and podcast embedded:

On Dr. Brenner’s Lifestyle & Routine

“I’m not that radical in terms of my lifestyle.  I’m a fitness nut. I get regular sleep. I eat healthy. My energy intake is balanced with my energy expenditure, which is pretty intense. I do high intensity interval training.  Try to limit alcohol. Don’t do any drugs. I don’t inject anything.”

On What is NAD?

“NAD is the central regulator of metabolism.

“And metabolism includes but is not limited to, the ability of your body to convert food into energy.”

“We eat food in order to be able to move our bodies, and have ideas, and have all of our background functions like circulating blood and peripheral nerve functions, so you can feel things, and see, and hear things.  

“But in addition, metabolism includes repairing damage. So there is DNA metabolism that involves sensing DNA damage and repairing it…

“And essentially, any type of metabolic process that you can think of, including building up your muscles and restoring your muscle function after a workout involves metabolism. NAD is the central regulator. 

On NAD Under Stress Causing Us Problems (Alcohol -> Fatty Liver)

“Now the thing about NAD is you think, “Okay, this is the ultimate family jewel,” right?  This is the thing that allows every single cell in my body, every single tissue to function, the brain to be a brain, the liver to be liver, the pancreas, the heart, you name it.

“You would think that this (NAD) would be protected against damage by the homeostatic forces that we have operating in us….that means the ability of the body to maintain things in a regular state, like keeping our body temperature at 98.6.  When we go up too high, we have ways to cool down.  When we’re too low, we have ways to heat up.

“So you’d think that your NAD would be protected.

“BUT it turns out that our NAD and our NADPH (similar to NAD) is under stress in a number of conditions, like alcohol. So, when we drink (too much) alcohol, our NAD+ is converted to NADH (similar to NAD).  And then the food that we eat when we want it to be converted energy, can be converted to an alcoholic fatty liver.

“….most people think, “Oh, I drink alcohol in order to destress.”

“But if you talk to a biochemist, a biochemist will tell you, “Oh, alcohol is itself a metabolic stress.”  And it’s a metabolic stress precisely because of what it does to our NAD system.”

On 6 Ways NAD Can Come Under Stress

“….the 6 major conditions that attack NAD.

So #1 is ALCOHOL, and I always bring that one up first.  I bring alcohol up first because we know the most about it…

#2 is what I call “OVER NUTRITION”……“eating too much damn food”.

“…what I like to say is that “over nutrition” is the up and coming and soon-to-be leading type of malnutrition, that people are getting too many macronutrients, too much protein, fat, and carbohydrate, certainly too much carbohydrate, but too much food in general and that that’s driving reactive oxygen species because the NAD system is under attack.

“#3….noise-induced HEARING LOSS….

“The noise-induced hearing loss came out of a study….and they subjected mice to a degree of noise that induced deafness.  And when they measured NAD in the cochlea of these poor mice, the NAD was drastically reduced.  And when they provided these mice with NR (TRU Niagen), they were able to protect mice against noise-induced hearing loss.  So that’s a really interesting type of stress.

“#4 is SUN and OXYGEN DAMAGE….these kinds of persistent stresses will ultimately attack our NAD system.

“#5 is TIME ZONE DISRUPTION….Probably the evidence-based way to approach time zone disruption would be you set your watch to where you’re going to be and you try to sleep on their time, even if it means skipping all of the food and drink on the plane.  And so, it may involve some melatonin in order to try to skip ahead or hold back. You get to your destination, and then you want to get sunlight at 6 or 7 AM to try to reset, and then you potentially would take a higher dose of nicotinamide riboside (NR) in the morning where you’re trying to reinforce your morning in a new time zone.

On Other Conditions Where NAD is Under Attack

“So, we covered the 5 that we encounter without disease, alcohol, “over nutrition”, noise, sun and oxygen damage, and changing time zones. 

“And then the 2 or 3 others that we basically discovered by, we and others by doing research with animals, neurodegeneration.

“So in neurodegeneration, NAD is under attack both in peripheral nerves and in central brain injury.

“In heart disease, NAD is under attack.

“And in aging, there’s a decline in tissue NAD in the liver and in some other tissues.

On How You Can Respond to Attacks on Your NAD –> Consider NR

“So we think that potentially people can age better by maintaining their metabolism and their ability to repair DNA, and repair muscle….

“…we know that NAD is under attack in a lot of inevitable conditions of stress, some disease, and aging.  And that by boosting our NAD with nicotinamide riboside (NR, TRU Niagen), you kind of generated a, kind of like an anti-virus software for your operating system.  So, while you may experience fewer disruptions in your life, your work colleagues and friends and family may be suffering from more colds in the winter and have a harder time functioning when they’re just off of a jet plane or something like that.

“So when NAD (or NADPH) is under attack, by boosting your NAD precursors with nicotinamide riboside (NR), you can basically replete, you can fill up your tank and you can get back to the homeostatic condition.

On Where NR (TRU Niagen) Comes From

“…the natural source of NR that we’ve seen is basically milk.”

“People ask me how much milk do I drink. None. I’m lactose intolerant.”

“You’d have to drink liters to get appreciable amounts (of NR).”

“And so, NR is the largest piece of NAD that can go into a cell and replenish your NAD.”

On Dr Brenner’s Daily Dose of NR (TRU Niagen)

“I do take daily, or twice daily in fact, nicotinamide riboside (NR) as the TRU NIAGEN supplement…

On What Time Each Day Dr Brenner Takes NR (TRU Niagen)

“So there is essentially a daytime peak and a nighttime peak.  So you’re boosting your day time NAD by taking NR in the morning AND you’re boosting your evening NAD by taking it in the evening.

So, the peak blood NAD is achieved at around 8 hours after your dose and our research shows that it is still up 24 hours after you take nicotinamide riboside (NR).

It’s dose-dependent, of course. But when people go from a kind of typical recommended dose which is 250 milligrams of NR chloride (TRU NIAGEN) per day to a higher dose, they tend to split it into a morning and evening.

So for me, it’s around 6 AM and then whenever I get home from work (~12 hours later).

On NR Impacting Hair & Finger Nails

“….a lot of people notice when they go on nicotinamide riboside (NR) is actually one of the things that people notice is that finger nails and hair grow faster.”

On NR Raising NAD and Helping Failing Hearts

“…It means that the failing heart is losing NAD and it’s spiking up the NR pathway.  So the failing heart wants NR in order to get its NAD back up to normal.  And if we give those mice oral NR, we can make their heart disease much less severe, even though they’re bred to be genetically predisposed to this particular type of heart failure.  I’ve seen the same thing in neurodegeneration.  Central brain injury, NAD goes down…and then you can protect the brain with NR.

Full podcast transcript HERE.

RELATED:

  • FAQs on taking NAD boosting vitamin supplement Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) can be found HERE.

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