Last week, Australia-trained Angus Hays MD joined the Curious Doc podcast to discuss Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Anecdotes) and NMN (FAQs and Anecdotes). The host and guest (two medical doctors) do an excellent job of explaining a complicated subject in plain, accessible, and non-scientific English. The following are key quotes (full 15-minute video interview embedded below):

Key Quotes from Angus Hays MD:

“…there’s a lot of ways that we can influence and impact our own personal longevity.

But one of the quickest and easiest ways to do that is with supplementation.

…so moving on to the precursors.

There are a few precursors that we’ll talk about.

You may have heard names such as NMN or NR — and again, those are precursors that sit further up in the chain.

What I like to take is NR.

So NR stands for Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) — again, a big fancy name probably not that important to know.

All we need to understand is that NR is a precursor to NAD+ which drives sirtuins which slows down aging.

So when i was looking for supplements that I could take — obviously you and I are in Australia right now and it was a bit harder for me to find some of the NMN or NR supplements here.

There’s some great ones over in the US specifically.

I think there’s one called Elysium which for any of our international viewers is readily available and they can ship around the world.

However, I was having trouble finding a supplier in Australia until I found this little supplement here Tru Niagen.

And just to be very clear — I’m not paid by Tru Niagen.

This is just the product that I found most available to me as a consumer and one that I think is probably best from a medical point of view as well.

Does it work?

I haven’t noticed a single difference.

And I don’t think that even if it were working — which we can’t know — I don’t think that you would notice a difference because we’re not trying to increase energy levels, we’re not trying to increase cognitive functioning.

We’re trying to slow down aging.

And that’s such a long process that I think on the day-to-day, the month to month, even the year to year you’re unlikely to notice a difference.

Potentially decade to decade you may notice a difference.

But these products are very new to the market and there hasn’t been time for people to be taking these long term and for the effects to be realized.

So as of yet it’s all a bit unknown.

However, the foundational science is leaning towards this being a potentially fantastic supplement for increasing your lifespan.

…I would make the disclaimer that again this hasn’t been tested for a long period of time. So, there may well be downsides that we’re not aware of when we talk about this.

At the moment of filming there appears to be very little personal medical downsides at this point.

In my opinion, one of the biggest downsides is the price.

For a bottle of Tru Niagen — 300 milligrams and 30 capsules, it’s just over a dollar per pill.

So it is a little bit of an inhibitory price to get into the supplement world if that’s what you’re wanting to do.

But again, if we consider the benefits of what this may well be giving us in terms of added years to our life — that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

What’s the difference between NR and NMN?

…So we talked about NMN and NR.

The difference between them basically is that NMN has an extra phosphate group than NR.

Doesn’t sound like much.

However, what that means is that NMN is a larger molecule — meaning it’s harder to get the NMN into the cell.

And remember, we talked about how for NAD+ — which is what NMN will turn into to have its effect — needs to be inside the cell.

We need the NMN or the NR to get inside the cell to turn into NAD to help the sirtuins work.

So if we have a smaller molecule like NR then it’s more likely to be able to get into the cell than NMN.

All of this is a bit speculative at the moment.

The science is still pending.

…It’s very difficult to say anything with certainty in the longevity space because we need 10 20 30 40 years of studies to understand the effects of what we’re talking about.

And it’s hence why you probably haven’t heard of a lot of the things that we’re talking about today because people don’t want to say yes or no.

However, if you look at the underlying science, there is quite a strong potential there that these things could be very good for your longevity.

Can we get these precursors from eating food?

…It would be much easier to try and eat all these foods rather than taking a potentially expensive supplement every day.

These precursors can be found in a couple of foods.

So meat, fish, nuts — all contain these precursors that we’re talking about.

Unfortunately, they’re only found in trace amounts.

So if you want to eat 10 kilos of steak be my guest.

But I think you’d probably run into some other issues before you reach the levels of precursor concentration that we’re aiming for”

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