NAD supplements are all the rage in health circles right now. If you’re interested in slowing the signs of aging and turning back your epigenetic clock, you have to be interested in knowing what is NAD, and what can it do for us?
In this article:
- 5 NAD Supplement Benefits for Overall Health
- What Is NAD?
- NAD and NR
- Boosting NR for the Sake of NAD
What Is NAD Supplement, Benefits, and Everything You Need to Know
5 NAD Supplement Benefits for Overall Health
There are some amazing benefits we get from this little molecule, and those benefits are worth considering before we get into the nitty-gritty of what exactly NAD is.
1. Better Metabolism of Food
NAD is essential to properly metabolizing all our macronutrients and turning them into the energy we need to live. Beyond that, it’s even essential in keeping our blood sugar stable overnight and making the ketones we need to use our own fat as fuel.
This means NAD helps us get energy out of our food, sleep well without feeling the need for midnight snacks, and make it possible to lose weight. While NAD isn’t a weight loss supplement, without enough NAD, you’ll find it impossible to meet your weight loss goals.
2. Protection from Stress at the Cellular Level
Every one of us is aware that stress affects our bodies. Our cells can get stressed, too, and NAD gives them the resilience to endure it.
Measuring NAD levels in the body is how researchers can predict how well cells survive. NAD helps sirtuins protect cells from oxidative stress, while tests in the lab show that cells deprived of oxygen for a time are much more likely to survive with some extra NAD around.
3. Longer Telomeres
Telomeres Definition: The caps that sit at the end of DNA and keep the strands from unraveling and becoming damaged
The longer these caps are, the better protected our DNA is. The older we get, the shorter our telomeres tend to become.
Scientists can tell a person’s age to within less than four years just by measuring your telomere caps.
NAD is essential to telomere production because it’s what makes sirtuins care for your telomeres properly. When NAD levels drop, telomere lengths drop with it.
4. More Efficient DNA Repair
Every day, cells die and are naturally replaced. For that to happen, the new cell must rely on a copy of the old one’s DNA.
As our DNA unravels to facilitate this copying, it can get damaged, especially if it stays unraveled for too long. Our body will always try to repair this damage, but this takes lots of NAD.
As our NAD levels drop with age, the repair is less efficient and copy errors mount, leading to malfunctions and the growth of tumors. Studies have shown that when more NAD is introduced in animal models, DNA repair gets much more efficient.
5. Proper Circadian Rhythm
Your cycle of sleeping and waking regulates when you wake up, when you start to feel tired, and when you’re naturally hungry. If your circadian rhythm is off, you don’t sleep well, can’t wake up, and feel hungry at odd times.
It is tightly connected to your NAD and sirtuin levels, and when levels go down, the rhythm is interrupted. Getting enough NAD helps your body work naturally the way it’s supposed to.
What Is NAD?
NAD, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is a molecule every cell needs. It is crucial to everything your cells do, and since your cells do everything, that makes NAD just as essential.
Its job is to facilitate the work of all the enzymes that activate chemical reactions and cause your cells to work. NAD makes the cells start their work and then helps along with the proteins that cells use to accomplish their work.
NAD and NR
For NAD to work, you have to get it into your cells, and it’s too big a molecule to do that. This means NAD needs a little help, and it gets that from nicotinamide riboside or NR.
Your cells can build their own NAD, and you can get even more when you exercise, stay in ketosis, and eat plenty of meat, eggs, seafood, berries, and dark vegetables—but only if you give the cells enough NR.
What’s often billed as NAD supplements are sometimes NR supplements. By adding NR to your body, you enable it to produce and use the NAD it needs. NAD supplements can help but only with enough NR around.
NR is the essential precursor of NAD.
Precursor Definition: Something needed to achieve a chemical reaction
If you’ve ever poured baking soda and vinegar down your sink in an attempt to clear a clog, you’ve seen this kind of thing happen.
When they’re combined, the base compound sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) reacts with the acetic acid solution (vinegar) to create two whole new chemicals: carbonic acid and sodium acetate. The carbonic acid quickly decomposes and sends carbon dioxide rising to the top, and this is what you see (and hear) in the violent bubbling that ensues.
In this example, vinegar and baking soda are both essential precursors to the chemical reaction that creates carbonic acid and sodium acetate.
In our bodies, NR is the essential precursor you need for the chemical reaction that creates NAD.
Boosting NR for the Sake of NAD
NR is a form of vitamin B3, better known as niacin, but NR is not exactly niacin.
There are at least three forms of vitamin B3 that we know of, and while all boost NAD levels in the body, NR is the best of the three. Niacin in high doses causes the “niacin flush” that is so unpleasant, for example.
NR not only does the same work as niacin without the flush, but it also sticks around for a while to help NAD in assisting sirtuin proteins. This is in contrast to the third form of B3, nicotinamide, which reacts negatively with sirtuins.
There’s a lot to learn about NAD, NR, and the way these work with sirtuins to help all our cellular processes run correctly. Keep up with Tru Diagnostics to learn more about the latest research into how we can turn back the epigenetic clock.
Do you know of credible NAD supplement reviews? Or have you tried them yourself? Let’s talk in the comments!
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