Harvard Doctor: The Hidden Reason Behind Low Energy, Aging, and Cognitive Decline (How to Fix It)

What's happening at a cellular level?

NAD+, it controls our energy production. It controls our ability to fight cancer. It controls our blood pressure. It controls our sexual function. It controls our mental acuity. This is the fuel driving the car. If you're out there and you've lost half the gas tank or the motor is only working at half speed, you can't expect to be like when you were 20. When we think about the NAD+ levels in the cell, Perhaps the best way to envision them is like the water level in a bathtub. The height of the water in the bathtub is dependent on 2 things: the water going in and the water going out. Same with NAD+. So we have production processes that create NAD+ within ourselves, but we also have processes of depletion, of removal, like the drain in the bathtub where the NAD+ is being broken apart and destroyed. And so the NAD+ levels fall. And that's where we have to pay attention. Most importantly for the brain, if you want to live long and live well, you can do something about it, but you have to make the effort to do that. If you don't have sufficient energy, you will start to have what I would call brain fog or slowing down your thinking process, your memory, your ability to retain information. So people who have lost the energy in the brain are not as sharp. They're not as wise. They're making mistakes. They're forgetful. We all recognize this when people are 80 and 90. We think it's kind But there are also 90-year-old people who are sharp as a tack, so it's not something inevitable.

And I'm just curious, when it comes to our habits, is there anything that you would recommend we either stop or, or do less of? And on the other side of it, what can we do more of or start doing that would enhance, you know, our cellular energy?

There is something we can do.

So what if the reason that you feel slower, foggier, or more tired than you're used to isn't your age, but your energy at the cellular level? Today we're talking about the hidden engine behind memory, focus, energy, and longevity, and how to protect it in a world that's aging us faster than ever. Welcome back to the show. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. If you're listening to this, It's because you care, like me, about optimizing your brain, your energy, your life. Today's guest is Dr. Andrew Salzman, a physician deeply involved in longevity medicine and cellular health, trained at Harvard Medical School, Yale University, Columbia University. He's the chief medical officer at Wonderfeel, which we'll also talk about. And his, his work has shaped everything from cancer treatments to immune research and our understanding of how our cells repair themselves under stress. We're going to explore what's really happening inside your cells as you age, why so many high performers feel burnt out earlier than expected, and what science is revealing about staying mentally sharp and biologically younger longer. So, I suggest you grab a pen. This is one of those conversations you'll want to remember. Welcome to the show, Dr. Salzman.

Thank you.

When people talk about, about the word aging, right, what's happening at a cellular level and why, why should our listeners care about that when it comes to their, their brain and, and their brain performance?

Well, you know, aging occurs actually in all organisms, plants, animals, and every species has a certain defined pattern or pace at which they age. And it's something that's part of life, but it's controlled. It's not something that just happens randomly. We know in the case of humans that people generally live 80, 90, 100 years, not 150. Not 50. So there is sort of a definable time limit, if you will, for each species. Some species live 400, 600 years, 1,000 years even. Some live only a few weeks. So in each animal or in each plant even, there's a predetermined pathway which we move forward. And at the younger age, we're of course bright and full of energy and vigorous, sexually reproductive, all of the things that you need in order to sustain your species. But as you get older, it starts to wind down. And we'll talk about today why that happens. It's not an accident. It's controlled. There are mechanisms. We'll discuss those and maybe how we can intervene to have a longer and healthier and happier life.

And we have many high achievers that listen to or watch our show. And they're feeling— I'm in my 50s, but people report to me that they feel mentally slower. You know, as they're aging, you know, their 40s, 50s, beyond, despite most of our community, they eat well, they're exercising. Why is that? I know it's not just one thing.

Yeah, there are really 2 ways you can think about the aging process. I mean, some of it is under our control, having a good diet, eating properly, good exercise, being mentally healthy and happy, and all of those things contribute to living longer and better. But beside that, there's the part that we can't really control, at least not directly. And that is what I would call the genetic programming that leads us to age and the mechanisms there, despite all efforts, exercise, good diet, everything that's gonna ultimately get you older. And we all go through that. And so the question is, what can we do in understanding that? What's the research going on there? Why do people really age fundamentally at the genetic level? And what can we do? To slow it down. We'll talk about that.

I'm a fan of Wonderfeel. When we're talking about NAD+, NMN, longevity science, you know, why is it such a big deal in longevity, anti-aging?

The aging process. NAD+ is a very special molecule. It's really the centerpiece, if you will, of biology, of our life. Almost every single thing that we do internally is somehow connected almost directly to NAD+. It controls our energy production. It controls our ability to fight cancer. It controls our blood pressure. It controls our sexual function. It controls our mental acuity. It controls our response to infection and other insults. It controls our ability to respond to stress. So NAD+ as a molecule is involved in more than 500 reactions in our body. It is a key maestro, if you will, of this entire process. As long as your NAD levels are sufficient, like when you're young, everything runs at 100 miles an hour. You're doing great. It's like a, you know, a racing car. But as we age, unfortunately, those NAD levels start to slip away. So by the time we're 50, as you mentioned, you're 50 now, you only have about half of the NAD that you had when you were 20. That's a big difference. This is the fuel driving the car. So if you're out there and you've lost half the gas tank or the motor is only working at half speed, you can't expect to be like when you were 20.

That obviously impacts everything from our mental clarity or mental energy. So what role does NMN play in supporting NAD kind of in simple terms for our listeners?

NAD is, as a molecule, is located, it's produced and located inside cells. So all of the activities I mentioned, from the mental processes to digestion, to power and sports, everything is based on NAD being inside the cell. How does it get there? It gets there through production of earlier molecules that are converted and ultimately become NAD. NMN is an example of one of those early molecules. We call them precursors. So it's on the road to becoming NAD. NMN exists outside the cell as well. In fact, you can even swallow NMN, have it absorbed through your digestive tract, have it go into your blood and circulate everywhere, and then enter cells and become NAD. So NMN is both a natural molecule That's there as a precursor, but it is also a supplement that can be obtained and swallowed, given intravenously, swallowed, and so forth. But there are many ways. It's one of the classic ways to boost the levels of NAD+ in our cells.

How does stress, poor sleep, inflammation— does that affect NAD+ levels?

When we think about the NAD+ levels in the cell, perhaps the best way to envision them is like water, the water level in a bathtub. So you have a spigot where the water comes out, Okay. Fills up the bathtub and the water goes up. But at the same time, you have a drain at the bottom of the bathtub where the water is leaving. So the steady-state level of the water, the height of the water in the bathtub, is dependent on 2 things: the water going in and the water going out. Same with NAD+. So we have production processes that create NAD+ within ourselves. That's the spigot being turned on with the water coming in. But we also have processes of depletion, of removal, Like the drain in the bathtub where the NAD is being broken apart and destroyed. And so it's the natural balance between these 2 processes that ultimately determines what is the level of NAD in our cells. As we age, we produce a little bit less NAD, but not much of a difference, but we start to deplete it. The drain is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so the NAD levels fall. And that's where we have to pay attention, not just boosting it up, but making sure that it doesn't fall by the side.

There's a quote in my book Limitless that says life is letter C between B and D, where B is birth and D is death and life C is choices, right? We have all the choices and there are only 4 choices to get healthier. You either stop something, you start something, you do less of something, or you do more of something. And I'm just curious when it comes to our habits, Is there anything that you would recommend we either stop or do less of? And on the other side of it, what can we do more of or start doing that would enhance, you know, our cellular energy?

Right. There is something we can do. Certainly staying healthy and free of inflammation is the number one way to avoid depletion of NAD+. For example, if we're eating well, if we do a lot of exercise, If we maintain ourselves in good physical shape, we're much less likely to succumb to an infection, to acquire an infection. People who are, you know, couch potatoes who don't do much, they're not moving their muscles much, they're much more likely to develop pulmonary infections, other types of problems. And this type of inflammation causes the depletion of NAD+ because it leads to the production of an enzyme called CD38. It's an inflammatory response, the CD38, and this cleaves, it cuts, it snips in half our NAD+. So the most important thing that you can do, other than taking a boost, is to avoid inflammation. Stay healthy, stay vigorous, stay active, avoid infection, avoid inflammation, and your NAD+ levels will be more sustained.

Hmm.

Is there, is there a myth out there about aging that you wish that we could permanently erase from, from society with, with your decades of being in the field and pioneering?

Yes, I, I think people, I think people see aging— obviously it's inexorable, everyone will age, okay, we can't deny that, that's, that's a fact. But I think people respond to aging quite passively. They accept it, it's fate, you know, it happens, what can you do? I mean, there's not much you can do to interrupt it, but that's wrong. As we look now to the future, there are a lot of interventions we can make both at a personal level, like you were mentioning before, but also through dietary supplements to augment the levels of NAD+. And that will forestall, it will delay the aging process and keep us healthier. So I don't think people should look at aging as a inexorable fact that they can't do anything about. They need to get out there and to stay young and, and to be young through active interventions, not to take it passively. If you want to live long and live well, you can do something about it, but you have to make the effort to do that.

I do want to go into supplementation, um, because like when we're talking about, you know, uh, like NMN, uh, people might go online to somewhere or go to their local health food store. You are the chief medical officer at Wonderfeel. What is it and why did you want to be involved?

Well, I've been a practicing physician now for 40 years, even longer, 45 years. And I've been doing research on NAD really since 1988 when I first had the opportunity as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard to become involved in research. And I was fascinated at that time about NAD's role in protecting the barrier in the intestine to the ability to hold in the bacterial load and not allow it to escape into the host. And so I started working on trying to understand how cells with aging and other insults lost the ability to maintain the integrity of our gastrointestinal surface. And that work led to a whole career at the bedside taking care of critically ill children, ultimately transitioning to developing a pharmaceutical, a business, uh, developing new drugs for cancer. And all of these were related to NAD at some point, some way. So it's been a fascination of mine for my entire life, and I've always recognized this as the key molecule to understand. What Wonderfield did as a company Really excited me more than my work in the pharmaceutical space because Wonderfeel has, as a nutraceutical company, has the ability to transition or transport what we're doing at the bench in basic science and get it to the public in a very short time. In the pharmaceutical space, the drugs I developed took 10, 15, 20 years. That's too long. And at my age right now, it's much too long. So I really want to get out there and do something and contribute right now as fast as I can. And in the dietary supplement space, you can have an invention, a concept, an idea, and actually work with that and get it out to the public within a year or two. And that's tremendously exciting to me because the advances are happening fast. I want to be part of that and I want to contribute. So that's what excited me about Wonderfeel. Also, their commitment to science. It's not a typical company that is just selling a product, like selling NMN. You can find many distributors. It's not a distribution company. It's an R&D company, a research and development company, where we have fundamental advances in science that we then can move forward into products for real people. So, a very exciting company.

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That's what I want to ask you about because I've been taking a product called Younger, and I feel the difference. You know, I could be on three continents and. In one week. You know, we have, we have two, we have a baby and a toddler. You know, I'm on stages all the time, but it was a needle mover for me in terms of my, my energy, which is, I feel like it's one of the most precious resources we have. So how is, how is Younger NMN different from, from other supplements that people could, people find? I mean, I could appreciate The, the, what you're talking about from the company in terms of the source and this high standards that you have, you know, in the area of research design.

So when I joined Wonderfeel, there were several companies out there in the space who were selling NMN, NMN being a precursor for NAD+. So it was an oral way through a pill or a tablet, a capsule, whatever, to absorb this precursor that would become NAD+. But we wanted to do more than that. We recognize, as I said before, that the level of water in the bathtub, it's not just the water going in. It's not just taking a dietary supplement to boost, but it's also the ability to prevent the removal of the water, the depletion. So I set out to create a cocktail, if you will, mixture of materials, substances that would both provide for the sourcing of NAD, but at the same time would block the principal mechanisms that remove Or deplete, that destroy the NAD. As I mentioned, the major way that we lose, the principal way that we lose NAD in our bodies today is by the activity of an enzyme called CD38, an enzyme that is necessary at low levels, which we have as kids, as teenagers. But by the time we reach 40 and 50, we have higher and higher levels of this enzyme. By the time we're in our 70s, Very high levels. It's present throughout the body on many different types of cells, and everywhere it's there, it's cutting apart NAD. It's destroying it. So the ovary, for example, is a tissue which has lots of NAD, and it is critically dependent on NAD to keep all those eggs in healthy shape until the time when they're ovulated. But over time, as the CD38 levels build up. In the ovary from inflammation, general inflammation, the NAD levels start to fall and fall until they plummet around 45, 50 years of age. At that point, the ovary can no longer function. It can't release an egg. It can't function in that way. And we enter, women enter menopause. So the fall in NAD because of the rise in CD38 that's consuming NAD and depleting it. This is a primary cause of menopause. So that's just one example of a tissue that's very important, incredibly functioning. And then over time, as we age, the CD38 levels rise and they consume and remove the NAD. We have depletion. So when we created Younger at WonderFul, what we said to ourselves is fine to include NMN. We need that. We have to boost that. Fair enough. But we also have to include ingredients that will directly inhibit the activity of CD38. And in so doing, we made that drain in the bathtub a little smaller, so less water's going out. We turned on the spigot, we gave NMN, that will boost up the NAD+, but we made sure that some of the other ingredients that we included in this mixture would interfere with the removal. of NAD+. And consequently, we believe that this— it's the mixture which differentiates us, the ability to put these components together into one serving, if you will, that is so critical in maintaining the NAD+ levels in the body. Now, NAD+ levels are important for many organs. We've talked about the ovary briefly, but very important for power in our muscles, for sexual function, for the blood pressure, But most importantly for the brain. And I want to spend a second on that because I know how important that is to your listeners. The brain is actually not a big organ in our body, but surprisingly, it receives 25% of all of the blood flow from the heart. So this is a tremendously energy-intensive organ. When you are thinking, when you're pondering something, when you analyze something, when you're talking, when you're listening, When you're dreaming, all of these activities use a tremendous amount of energy. You may not be aware of that because most people think about energy, about running down the street and using your muscle, but your brain is actually the most energy-consuming tissue organ in your body. So if you don't have sufficient energy, you will start to have what I would call sort of brain fog or slowing down your thinking process. Your memory, your ability to retain information and to encode it in a way that it'll be there for years. This is highly energy dependent, highly energy intensive. So people who have lost the energy in the brain have— are not as sharp. They're not as wise. They're making mistakes. They're forgetful. And we all recognize this when people are 80 and 90. We think it's kind of normal. But there are also 90-year-old people who are sharp as a tack. So it's not something inevitable. If you can maintain, in my judgment, if you can maintain your NAD levels within your brain at a high level, you will forestall or slow down the degradation of your thinking process, of your mental process. This could not be more important in my judgment, how you maintain that NAD level as you age. Very important.

Yeah, we work with a lot of chess players. A lot of our students, a lot of people in that community are students of ours in our online programs and listen to our podcast. And, it's very cognitively intensive. Grandmasters in chess could burn thousands of calories just because— and they're not moving.

Oh, it's exhausting.

Very much so. And, I think people could relate to that cognitive fatigue. They're suffering from brain fog or decision fatigue as they lose At least they say they lose that energy. And, it could be a challenge, right? Everything feels it. I mean—

Well, we started when the product got out there, we always listen to our customers and we made a special effort to take a registry and to see what people respond, how they respond, what they think about the product. And, what we heard back was that a lot of people in their let's say mid-70s, which had either early dementia or very troubling signs of vascular dementia. These people seem to benefit from taking the product. We had one person in Sydney, a woman in Australia who was really a crossword puzzle maven. Okay. So she was one of these people who could sit down and do 4 or 5 crossword puzzles a day, but she was starting to slip away. And her husband contacted us. He heard about the product. He obtained it. He gave it to his wife. And within about 4 to 6 weeks, he came back to me and he said, wow, you know, she, she hasn't done a crossword puzzle in 3 or 4 years. And now she's back to doing about 2 a day. That was a clear example to me of the improvement that was dynamic. It wasn't as if she had aged and could no longer come back. That the problem she had, the brain fog and the lack of thinking prowess was something that was dynamic and metabolic. And could be overcome by restoring her, her NAD levels. And that's what we intended to do.

I recommend people, uh, for people to find out more information, they could, uh, look into the product. They could go to jimkwik.com/wonder. And this is the product that myself, my family, a lot of our clients are taking. A lot of our team is taking also as well. So it's jimkwik.com/wonder. Uh, so you could see more details there. Are there other products you recommend?

We actually have a very rich R&D program. We have a new product. I can't spill the beans and talk about it quite yet, but it's coming out very soon. And it's also going to be energy-driven, especially for the brain. So it's a way to augment the mental capacity in a different way that's complementary to NMN and NAD, what we're talking about. It's not the same, down the same pathway. It's a complementary pathway. We think that both together will really help. And so that's a product coming out soon. And then we have another 2 to 3 products which will come out in 2026 by the end of the year. So we're an R&D company. We're not a distribution company selling something that we bought and giving it back. We are a company that's creating value through novel approaches, combinations, chemicals. We recommend that people put it next to the toothbrush. You know, they have it in the morning when they wake up. That's the morning period is usually when people are most active. when they need to be on their best, you know, sharpest, they're coming to work or whatever. But we think that's a good time to have peak effects. It's given just once a day, so that's sufficient to take the dose. We recommend 900 milligrams. There are people who have taken up to 1,200, 1,500. There are even reports of people taking NMN up to 2,500 milligrams. There was a study like that. We don't feel that's necessary. We noticed happily that those who did take a large dose like that did not appear to have any side effects. So there seems to be a good safety margin. You can take more than we recommend, and we didn't see any adverse effects in that other study. So we're recommending 900 milligrams, and that's quite sufficient. We've seen the— all the responses we've seen to date have been at that dose, and we've been very pleased. So we don't see any justification. for, for giving more than that. Fantastic.

And then when do people start seeing noticeable results? I know everyone's bioindividual, you know, everyone has different stress levels, their certain diet, lifestyle, different ages.

We have a careful registry where people respond. So we do have a good feeling about that. It's somewhere between 4 to 6 weeks. Okay. It takes that long to kick in, to reverse the process, to get you back to, after all, it takes years of steady degradation to get the NAD levels down by 50%. So, it's going to take a while to climb back up that hill. So, it takes about 4 to 6 weeks. You know, aging is something that's always there. So, it's not like you could take the product for a month or 2 and then be happy and stop.

Yeah.

Inevitably, the same CD38 degradation will start up again. The levels of NAD will plummet. And you'll be back where you were. So it is a product that you need to keep going on.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and our audience is very interested in the foundational, the most important thing, right? You keep the most important things the most important things to focus on. And I could appreciate this when I were talking before filming, that it's not necessarily that people are chasing youth, but more protecting that energy so we can keep learning, contributing, showing up. showing up fully. And so, you know, for people doing something consistently, little by little, a little becomes a lot, right? You're increasing— going back to analogy, increasing the amount of water flow, and then also you're, you're not leaking as much.

That's right.

That's right. So it's—

but everybody will, everybody will slow down to some extent. If you take an 80-year-old man, he's not going to be running a 100-yard dash like when he was 18. We're never going to get— I believe we will never get to that point where we can eliminate it. But if we can slow it down, and moreover, if we can maintain a healthier body during that time, not just getting older, I'm not just living longer, but, but living better, this is worth doing. And, and I think that the science right now is just at the precipice. We're about to see a jump. We have assumed until now that people will die Before, you know, in the Bible, it's 120. Okay. But people, 95, 100 is sort of the upper limit for what we think of. I think in 20 years, this will— and even 10 years, this is going to be different. I think we're going to see people living to 120 to 140 because of these advances in the scientific field. There's a lot going on. And we want to be part of that. And we want to help people get to really transform people to a Much longer lifestyle, lifespan.

Yeah, that's one of the things I wanna ask you, like, and you answered it perfectly in terms of what excites you about, you know, where the science is headed and when it comes down to slowing the damage and supporting long-term health. If you could leave our listeners with just one simple truth, you know, about this topic and whether it's protecting, you know, around protecting their health or their energy long-term, what would, what would that, what would that be?

I think it requires a commitment To be active in order to be healthy, you cannot assume that God's gift to you is just going to be nurtured and you don't have to do anything. You have to work at it. You have to make the commitment. You have to get out there if you want to live long and live well. And that means a commitment to exercise, a commitment to proper diet, a commitment to good mental health because being happy. has a huge impact on your ability to maintain these processes. If you can do that and maintain your enthusiasm and at the same time boost up some of these deficiencies like the one we have in our product, for example, I think you can will it upon yourself to, to live longer and better. It's not automatic. You can't sit on a couch and expect this to happen. You have to get out there and make the effort, but it's worth it.

Yeah. And we choose our hard, right? You know, being, being sick and exhausted is hard and working out, eating right, you know, prioritizing your sleep, supplement is hard, but we choose our hard, you know, just like they have this quote, I don't know who to attribute it to, but a healthy person has 1,000 dreams, but a sick person has one. They only have one dream, right? Which is to be healthy and health, health really is wealth.

Yeah.

You know, so I really appreciate this. For our listeners who want to explore this responsibility Absolutely. We'll link again to Wonder Feel Younger. It's in the show notes at jimkwik.com/notes. You can go there direct. Everyone here has a great memory, of course, a limitless mind. Go to jimkwik.com/wonder and you could get on the program, which I highly recommend. We'll put NMN in the show notes, some of the links that were mentioned here. And if if this conversation resonated with you, here's my challenge: Don't just think about how how long you want to live. Think about how how clear you want to be, how how you want your energy to be. You know, very and purposefully, you know, you want to live because I really do believe that our especially when it comes to your brain, your brain is your greatest asset. And so we talk about training it, but you also have to. You know, based, you know, especially into the theme and the spirit of this conversation, you want to protect it and you want to fuel it. So thank you, Dr. Salzman.

Thank you for the privilege of talking to you. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing your insights with our community and to everyone listening. Remember, aging is inevitable, but mental decline, you know, doesn't necessarily have to be. So just remember just to stay curious, stay energized, and always Stay limitless. We put the extended version as always on our YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe, join our almost 1.9 million subscribers there for the extended version. I really do believe, you know, insight is great, ideas are great, inspiration is great, but ideally the only thing that changes our life is that implementation. And I know our community does that, and this could be the difference that makes a difference for you. And I hope it'll be a great resource. Uh, it's something that, that definitely works for us. So thank you everyone for listening. We'll see you next episode. And until then, stay and be limitless.