Joe Rogan has said he learned about NAD IV drips (FAQs) from podcaster Ben Greenfield. And Ben Greenfield has said he was sold on NAD IV drips after talking to someone in the NAD IV business (see below). Where does the science stand on NAD IVs? Well, in 2018, Ben Greenfield hosted NAD expert Dr Charles Brenner to hear his perspective (Note: Brenner’s opinions clearly haven’t changed):

From the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast:

“Hey, folks.  It’s Ben Greenfield.

And you’ve probably heard me talk on other podcasts about how I’ve done injections with this so-called anti-aging molecule called Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, or NAD.

As a matter of fact, a few years ago, I interviewed this guy who runs the NAD injection clinic in San Diego, and since then have been doing IV’s and injections and found it to be an incredible molecule, one that you’ll actually learn more about on today’s show.

But these IV’s and these injections, they’re fringe, they’re spendy, they’re uncomfortable. You feel like your whole body is on fire and you’re going to have a heart attack.

And some people will say that it’s not necessary and that you can just get all the NAD that you need from supplementation, in particular, supplementation with this other thing called Nicotinamide Riboside NR (FAQs) (Reviews).

I know that’s a big word, but NR is what that’s abbreviated as.

So, I wanted to take a deeper dive into NR and whether it actually can increase NAD levels, and why you’d want to use it, and what it mixes and doesn’t mix well with, and what the actual research is on this stuff.

So, I actually am lucky enough to have the guy who discovered Nicotinamide Riboside (NR). He discovered it as a vitamin.

He’s also one of the world’s leading experts on NAD.

So, that’s a handy one-two combo for the questions that I have today. 

Anyways, his name is Dr. Charles Brenner.

He worked in biotech for a while at the biochemistry department at Stanford University where he did his PhD research. And he also moved down to Dartmouth College after that and that’s where he made the discovery of what’s called the “NR kinase pathway”.

And he now sits on the scientific advisory board of ChromaDex, which is, from what I understand, a form of NR, and he’s their chief scientific advisor and he researches, basically NR and its effects on metabolism, and diseases, and metabolic stress.

Ben Greenfield:

“…I mentioned I was using injections, NAD injections, and I’ve even done NAD push IVs.

I’ve taken intranasal NAD via intranasal spray.

And of course, I interviewed a guy for like an hour and a half about NAD injections and the profound improvements people are reporting on things like addiction.

…What is your opinion on injecting NAD, either in between supplementation of NR or just injecting it in general?

Dr. Charles Brenner:

“Well, I have seen the data.

They’re not really clinical data.

They’re more like observations of people that either were drug addicts, or alcohol abusers, or in other cases, kind of performance nuts like yourself that wanted to try injectable NAD.

And the personal accounts are very impressive.

The thing is NAD is a class of — it’s an intracellular acting coenzyme.

It has two phosphates on it.

And compounds with phosphates don’t get into cells.

NAD is not a drug.

And NAD has profound effects inside of cells.

But it cannot get inside of cells because it has the two phosphates.

And pretty much any biochemist or pharmacologist knows this.

…And so, when people are taking injections of NAD, it’s almost certainly being degraded to Nicotinamide Riboside, and to “NR”, which are then going into cells.

We have a paper, and I presented it in San Diego at the so-called NAD 2018 Summit that was organized by a group that kind of runs a clinic, an NAD injection clinic.

And I showed data that we did a direct trial of NAD versus NR on a brain lesion in a mouse.

So we induced a cytotoxic brain injury.

I’m sorry to the mice — but this is a scientific process to figure out whether things work.

And so, we induced a cytotoxic brain injury to these mice and directly compared infusion of NR versus infusion of NAD.

And NAD protected — but it took 15 times as much NAD to protect against the lesion compared to the efficacy of the NR.

Why?

Because NR goes right into those neurons and NAD has to be degraded back to NR before it can be used by the intracellular Nicotinamide Riboside NR kinases.

So injecting NAD doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me.

It may work — but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Ben Greenfield:

Have ever injected or done an NAD IV?

Dr. Brenner:

No.

But what I have done is I have suggested to this group a clinical trial design, a crossover trial where they think that NAD is so efficacious for drug addiction that they think it’s not ethical to do a placebo arm.

And I said, “Well, okay. But you need that caliber of data”

If you want to change health care, if you want to change clinical practice and get people to be able to benefit from the profound effects of NAD that you say your patients are observing, you have to do an accepted type of clinical trial in which you have to compare it to something.

And so, I suggested that they have an NAD injection arm, and those people switch over to oral NR, and then they have oral NR, and those people switch over to injected NAD.

If high dose oral NR does what injected NAD does, then you’re going to get that result.

And if you really need the injected NAD, you’re going to get that result.

And everybody will get the injected NAD either first or second — but they won’t know which.

Ben Greenfield:

Well, I’ll tell you this, ’cause I know we’re I know running up on time here pretty soon.

I’m going to take what you said about these two phosphates causing NAD to not be able to get absorbed by the cell and I’m going to ask a couple of these folks — one guy who actually sends me my NAD IV’s, obviously biased, and then the other guy who runs the NAD injection clinic.

I’m going to see what they say about this.

Dr Brenner:

Yeah. I mean, it’s not a matter of opinion, right?

Ben Greenfield:

Right.  It’s a matter of research.  I get it.

Dr. Brenner:

It’s five or six peer-reviewed papers that show that the ability of both NAD and NMN — NMN has one phosphate, NAD has two phosphates — the ability of NAD or NMN to elevate cellular NAD depends upon loss of the phosphates outside of the cell and putting the phosphates and an adenine nucleoside on inside of the cell.

Everybody can have their opinion, but that doesn’t mean that’s the way it works.

Ben Greenfield:

Yeah.  I get it.

Dr. Brenner:

It’s possible that we’ll, in the future, be able to formulate forms of NR that have different stability, better stability maybe, and get to different tissues even better than oral NR.

But we know from our animal work that oral NR is active in peripheral nerves.

We know that oral NR is active in the failing heart.

And it’s difficult to quantify circulating NR in the blood for technical reasons — but we know that oral NR is available to many, many tissues.

That’s why…

Ben Greenfield:

I get it, man.

I respect your reply too.

I love how you keep everything based on research.

And by the way, I shouldn’t necessarily discount or minimize the thing that you mentioned about neuronal cell death because some of this new published research showing NR to be an effective NAD precursor and slowing or stopping neuronal cell death is really interesting too — especially when you consider the neuronal cell death was associated with NAD depletion.

So, there’s the whole cognitive aspect of it too.

…like I mentioned, I’m taking four of these Tru Niagen capsules a day right now, which is the niagen form, the NR.

And based on what Dr. Brenner just told me, I’m probably going to split that into two morning and two evening.

Ultimately though, I’m impressed with it, I like it as a supplement.

I know a lot of people think, “Hah, just another supplement,” or yet another supplement to take — but this is one you can’t get from food, unless you’re just a total milk and beer junkie.

And it is something that I am very impressed with, intrigued by, and I want to thank you, Dr. Brenner, for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us”

Related:

  • Should you consider an NAD+ IV drip? (Link)
  • What’s the Case for Niagen+ IVs (NR IVs) Over NAD+ IVs? (Link)
  • NAD+ IV drips (FAQs)
  • Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Reviews)

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