The Flawed Case for NMN

Last week, Dr. Andrew Salzman joined “The Doctor’s Farmacy with Mark Hyman M.D.” to discuss NAD+, NR (FAQs), and NMN (FAQs). Dr. Salzman made the case that if you want to raise your NAD+ levels, NMN is your best option. There are 2 problems here. First, neither Dr. Salzman nor Dr. Hyman disclosed Salzman’s ties to a company that sells NMN. Second, according to Dr. Charles Brenner (FAQs), Dr. Salzman’s case for NMN’s superiority is flawed. Brenner knows this from his own work. But, first, here’s Dr. Salzman on Dr. Hyman’s podcast:

Dr. Andrew Salzman (at the 25:51 mark):

“First of all, when you swallow a pill with NMN, it crosses into the body a lot better than NAD and NR.

And that’s because the body has created a special shuttle in the cell that recognizes NMN when it’s outside, and provides a lovely tunnel, if you will, for it to go right through the membrane and end up on the inside of the cell.

So, the body has cleared a way for NMN to get in there, and of course once it’s in the cell that’s great because then it can be sliced up and form NAD, and all is good.

And that’s been shown.

So, we now believe that the most efficient way to deliver NAD is actually not NAD itself, but it’s in the form of NMN, and that’s why our focus has been to use NMN to make these necessary changes to boost NAD.”

Is Dr. Salzman mistaken?

Here’s NAD+ expert Dr. Charles Brenner’s response to our question:

Last week on @DrMarkHyman's pod, Dr. Andrew Salzman said (25:50 mark): "when you swallow a pill with NMN, it crosses into the body a lot better than NAD and NR, and that's because the body has created a special shuttle…" https://t.co/sg8VttY12k @CharlesMBrenner Is he mistaken?

— RaisingNAD.com (@RaisingNad) July 5, 2023

deeply mistaken

Salzman sets a new high water mark for misstatements

let's count the red flags 🚩 and misstatements 💩

🚩"free guide to reverse aging"–you can't reverse aging & the guy is mos def selling stuff https://t.co/3DEjwx0RBx

— Charles Brenner, PhD (@CharlesMBrenner) July 5, 2023

🚩website refers to yeast used in NMN manufacturing process as something that FDA considers ok for food, obfuscating the fact that FDA has ruled that NMN can't be sold as a supplement bc of the prior IND filed by Metro Biotech–so in fact, their company ignores safety enforcemnt

— Charles Brenner, PhD (@CharlesMBrenner) July 5, 2023

if you are tracking human studies establishing safety & clinical activities of NR vs NMN, NR wins by a mile

— Charles Brenner, PhD (@CharlesMBrenner) July 5, 2023

Related:

• The website Brenner refers to is Dr. Salzman’s NMN company HERE.
• A longer explanation from Dr. Brenner providing evidence from his own study showing that an NMN transporter doesn’t exist (Link)
• Clinical trials NR (Link)
• Clinical trials NMN (Link)
• Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Anecdotes)
• Nicotinamide Mononucleotide “NMN” (FAQs and Anecdotes)

FOLLOW us on Twitter @RaisingNAD