Ben Greenfield and a guest examine whether NAD supplements actually work. The guest argues that raising NAD levels through dosing doesn't change the NAD:NADH redox ratio that matters functionally, making most supplements ineffective. CoQ supplementation can also increase free radicals under certain conditions.
Chromadex
What the claim is is that with the use of a single dose in NAD or a single dose of nad, you can get what they describe as a statistically significant increase in NAD levels. That's what these companies that are now producing. I believe Chromadex is the name of a company that's trying to come out with a new NAD drug. Now, I would imagine that they're not saying a single dose is 15 kilos. So what is it that they're missing here? What component of it, of the use of NAD supplementation, is it that they're wrong about?
Well, I have no doubt that if you gave a large dose of nad, you would increase the tissue levels of NAD in the tissue you're looking at. You're not interested in the nad, you're interested in the ratio, you're interested in the redox state, you're interested in NAD to NADH ratio. Now, that is not changed by feeding nad. So all the operational things we're talking about is changing the redox state of the NAD couple, like we're changing the redox state of the Q couple. And by redox state, I mean the potential to donate hydrogen. And so just increasing the NAD won't do anything. It lets a lot of people advocate feeding people Q. You've read this uncertainty and if you increase Q, Britain chant showed years ago that the biggest source of free radicals is Q semiquinone, a half oxidized form of Q. And so if you're feeding people Q, you're actually making more free radicals.
And the use of an NAD supplement would be the equivalent of feeding someone.
Q. Oh, not the equivalent, but essentially worthless.
It would be very similar to it. And just for our listeners to clarify, what is Q again?
Q is the second site after in the mitochondria. You start with NADH and you go the next site where you Next, your next ATP site 2 is Q semiquinone or, sorry, Q coenzyme Q. Right, so it's the next transport form in the mitochondria.
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