The REAL Reasons to Use Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD+)

So because of social media, most of us see lots of posts about a supplement or something in the body called NAD+. And I wanted to break down a bunch of questions that I got about it because it is a very potent and useful type of a therapy. It's also very important in your body. And I want to break down where we get it, what it does, and how we can support it. So first off, I want to talk about what it is and then where it works in the body, because those are 2 really common questions. And sometimes on the videos I've seen, they'll get into how to raise it, which is a really great thing, but not as much into what it does. So the first thing is it's a complex molecule that kind of looks like a C-shape or a U-shape, and it has niacinamide, also known as nicotinamide, which is a form of vitamin B3. And then it has adenine and ribose and some other things there. So it's a complex molecule that's considered the active form of vitamin B3. Vitamin B3 has 2 proforms that then on to become the active form NAD+. One is known as niacin or nicotinic acid, and then the other is niacinamide, or also called sometimes nicotinamide. Those are the same things, unfortunately, 2 names for each one. Now, you might say, well, if that's what's in my B complex, for example, like niacinamide is in a lot of B complexes and some people take niacin, is that going to automatically turn over into NAD? And the answer is no, but that's the pathway that it's going into. So the first thing to remember is that the NAD molecule must have niacin or niacinamide in your diet, or both, in order to be made. Otherwise, it can't be made without those things. The next thing though is that NAD is the more active form where most of the Activities of NAD are going to be using that bigger molecule and not so much the originating molecules where we get the niacin, niacinamide in our diet and then our body converts it to NAD. So in the body, what does NAD do? Well, most of the videos I see focus on one of its most important properties, which happens to be helping with the initiation of mitochondrial energy generation. So if you look at the inside of the mitochondria, In the respiratory chain and oxidative phosphorylation and all those things that make ATP or energy for us. If we don't have NAD, we can't kick off the NADH splitting where we borrow an electron from NADH and we run it down through the mitochondrial membrane and make the ATP. So without NAD, we can't do any of that. So in the body, one of its biggest things, because we have trillions and trillions of mitochondria and they're responsible for running all of the energy in our cell, one of the biggest things that it does is to help us to create literally the base of energy for our body. So that's one big thing. The other thing though is that vitamin B3 in its active form as NAD is involved in a ton of biochemical reactions where it is an enzymatic cofactor. These can be things such as the formation of neurotransmitters in your brain, which is very important obviously, a lot of detoxification Pathways use NAD as an enzymatic cofactor intermediate, and then there's other places in the body where we use NAD to help us as an enzymatic cofactor. And there's lots of them, but one is one of the last steps in getting rid of histamine uses vitamin B1 and B3 or NAD in order to help get rid of histamine. Also, we see a lot of NAD activities in not just brain chemistry like making neurotransmitters, but also in the balancing of the inflammatory activity that goes on in the body and in the brain. So NAD, the reason it's such a big popular topic is a couple of things. One is we have supplement ways to support it. The other is everybody is interested in more energy. And if you're recovering from an illness, you're especially interested in getting your energy back. So all of those things are very, very important. So then the next question that comes up most commonly is, what kind of supplements can I use to raise my levels of NAD? Now you might imagine from the previous discussion that we just had, you could use niacin or niacinamide, the base forms of vitamin B3, and you would be correct if you assume that. Now, are they going to be as fast and as immediately felt as some of the other forms we're going to talk about next? No, because your body has to go through a number of steps to turn niacin or niacinamide into NAD+. But the way your body is set up naturally is to take niacinamide And niacinamide from food and eventually through a number of steps turn it into NAD+. So long-term support for people, what I will do is I usually do a 2-step support. One is I'll use some of the more active forms of supplement in the beginning of treatment, like you're really fatigued or you're recovering from, you know, the flu or surgery or something. And then for maintenance, I'll switch you over to niacinamide usually to help build up your NAD+ levels. Why would we do that? Well, you're going to get more an immediate hit from the more active preforms that you can take orally. And then you're going to have more of a maintenance stability with niacinamide, say, as a supplement. Now, people often ask, well, between niacin and niacinamide, do they both raise NAD levels? The answer basically is yes. Niacinamide, however, is one step chemically closer to NAD. So I generally prefer— because niacinamide does not cause flushing, it's non-flushing, and because it's one step closer to NAD. NAD to use niacinamide as my long-term support product for people as a supplement. The other thing is it's a lot less expensive for long-term support. But what would happen if you came in and you had, you know, long COVID or chronic fatigue or any of these other things and you said, well, I need the most energy I can get the quickest that we can get it for me? Well, after we do an assessment, if we think that you need NAD support, I would not give you niacinamide or niacin. I would go right to one of the more active forms. So who are Well, the first one, there's 2 major supplement forms that are active or preactive NAD forms. And the first one would be what we call often NMN or nicotinamide mononucleotide. And that is a pre-step to getting to NAD. It absorbs orally and it has to go through a couple of interconversions to get over to NAD. But NMN is a supplement that will raise your NAD levels and give you more NAD support in your brain and in your body's enzymatic pathways and in your mitochondrial energy pathways. Now, why would one pick NMN instead of the more close to being active oral supplement, which is the most potent one, and that is NR or nicotinamide riboside? Well, the reason you might pick nicotinamide riboside would be you want the energy produced as fast as possible. So what's the difference between NMN and nicotinamide riboside? It's a few steps less arduous for your body to convert nicotinamide riboside or NR over to NAD than it is to take NMN and go through a couple of more steps and convert it eventually to NAD. They both work. I've used both with people. Occasionally you'll have somebody who is sensitive to NR because the energy comes on so quickly, which is great, but also we don't want people being sensitized and we'll talk about side effects. And so in a person like that, where I still think we don't want to be sensitized, but they still need support for their energy, what I will do is probably not give them NR and give them NMN. But in most people who need the energy now, I will give them nicotinamide riboside or NR. Now, we've got a bunch of other content on NAD and NAD as an intravenous product. I will just say here, because we just went through niacinamide as a precursor, NMN and NR, the intravenous ways to NAD support would be niacinamide comes in an intravenous form. We use that all the time. Same basic thing. It's not going to jack up your NAD right now, but it's a good long-term support. You also can get NAD as an IV product, and that's very common. And now you can also get nicotinamide riboside as an IV product as well. And that one shows a lot of promise clinically. Actually, any of those really are very useful, but nicotinamide riboside intravenous or NAD intravenous are going to give you the fastest improvement in NAD function in your body. Now, I mentioned side effects and how I might not give somebody one of the more active forms. If you think about turning on the trillions of mitochondria in your body and then having those mitochondria suddenly going from working very slowly to working much more quickly, what's going to happen is your metabolic rate is going to improve. Now, for most people, that's great because they feel better, but an overdose or a premature dose of NAD primers like NR, let's say, can make you feel a little overcaffeinated. You might get jittery, you might have heart palpitations, you may not sleep well, et cetera. So we always start people with lower doses and then work the doses up. So if you're, for example, you know, taking this for whatever, you know, low energy problem you're having, always start with the lowest dose. Take it in the morning so it doesn't disrupt your sleep and, and see how you do. Make sure you're not getting Heart palpitations, make sure you're not, you know, getting sweaty all the time or any of that. That being said though, if those things don't happen, it's incredibly safe. You just don't want to take too much. And then the final thing is a reiteration of clinically why sometimes would we start with a more active, more potent NAD primer and then work our way over to a more maintenance type of NAD primer? Well, that would be matching up the supplement or the drug or the product to the level of the pathology that you have in your body. So for example, if someone's tolerant of NAD support and they are extremely fatigued, like we see in, you know, long COVID or chronic fatigue syndrome and stuff, and I really need to dig them out of the hole, I might do a combination of the 2 most potent things, which would be intravenous support with either NAD intravenous or nicotinamide riboside intravenous, and then oral nicotinamide riboside side to back it up because usually you can't get IVs every day. Then over time, as that person starts to heal and their energy returns, what I'm going to do is come in— because those things are quite expensive to keep up— I'm going to transition them over to the much less expensive precursor niacinamide, and that'll be part of their long-term maintenance. But that's after they have an acute response and they're feeling better. All right, it's been a lot of fun to answer these questions. Please do subscribe, like, share, all the stuff. Really appreciate all Love you guys, and I will see you on the next video.