This Protocol Reverses Biological Age In Just 28 Days

We all want to age backwards or slow down the rate at which we age. A lot of people think that aging is just something that has to happen.

Aging was not fixed, and it was not this programmed thing, because if it was, that would mean your biological age and your chronological age should always be identical, but they're not. So that showed us that there's something that's going on inside of our cells, which is either speeding up the aging process or it's slowing down the aging process. How well you will age is more in your hands than you think, because 80 is entirely based on lifestyle and it's only 20%. That is genetics and other factors. So most people try to blame the genes, they try to blame the parents or everything else, but really, it is your life. By doing so, you can actually reverse biological age. Within just 28 days of supplementation, we saw a reversal of biological age by 1.26 years. Our bodies literally have everything in them that they need to be healthy.

Doctor Nicola Conlon, welcome to Rooted in Wellness.

Thank you so much for having me, Mona. I'm really excited to be here with you.

I am as well. Especially after our little back and forth before we started recording, before we dive into everything, I want you to know that this podcast is all about ancient wisdom in our modern day world and how you can become more rooted. And that feeling of rooted means rooted in yourself, rooted in your health and your happiness. And what I believe is this inner wisdom that we all have to heal. So I have a feeling I know what one of these answers is for you, but what are two or three things that help you feel more rooted in who you are?

Oh, for me, the number one thing is nature. And you know, what you were saying about being grounded and being rooted for me, like just being outside in the outdoors, in nature, trees, greenery. That for me is the number one thing that really does make a difference, you know, not only to the way I feel, but I truly believe that it makes an impact on the cellular level as well, you know, deep within my body.

You got it? Yeah. I can't wait for the day where it's actually prescribed. You know, ancient wisdom prescribed it as a form of healing, a necessity for healing. And I love that you're an actual scientist who, who in this as well. On the flip side, with the work that you do, I can imagine what your schedule is like with the demands and like, evolution of what's happening in the world of science. What are things that cause you to feel uprooted? And do you notice when you feel uprooted.

Yeah, for me it's being that feeling, you know, when you, when again when you're in a city and you feel like everyone is head down, super, you know, super disconnected from each other, almost from the world. Disconnected from the world and just like go, go, go with kind of being quite unconscious to everything that's going on around. And that really does make me feel not great. So I do like being in a city but then literally I am always relieved to get back home. I don't live in a city and I always get straight out into nature, into the printing side and then I definitely feel more grounded and connected again.

Yeah, it's so true. I often feel even through the lens of wellness, when we are in that mode of like head down, so focused on everything that we're doing, wellness and healing becomes so overwhelming and self centered and complicated. It's all that we can think of instead of like just like looking up and connecting with others and kind of pulling back the layer of the complication of what we think it needs to be healthy today. So it's so important that you brought that up.

Yeah, I was just gonna say I think, you know, it's such a good thing to touch on because our bodies are amazingly clever. You know, our bodies literally have everything in them that they need to be healthy. It's just often these modern lives that we're living, they're just not actually activating and switching on all of these, you know, amazing repair pathways and recycling pathways and things that are already in there. And sometimes the simplest things, things like daylight, things like looking at nature, we know that these actually switch some of these pathways on. So it's really true what you say, that sometimes we do over complicate this and it is the simple things that really do make a difference.

Absolutely. I was so excited to have you on. I wish there was a day that I could just live in your brain. I think we live in a society where we want to understand the science, like we really want to understand the mechanism around how the bodies heal and stuff like that. So let's dive into some rapid fire questions. So whatever comes to mind. See what you have to say. As I said, I really want to get into your brain. What is one body signal that you never ignore anymore?

When I feel tired. Yeah, tiredness, sleep is so important. So if I feel tired, I know that I've got to slow down.

What is one thing that most people misunderstand about NAD supplementation?

That you can just take pure NAD and swallow it and it will replenish your cells.

I can't wait to dive into that one. Okay, what's a popular anti aging trend that actually keeps people stuck?

Oh, it keeps people stuck. That's an interesting one. I'd say doing too much. People take it to the extreme and sometimes too much biohacking can actually make you age faster.

This is what I say to my clients. Yeah, that overcomplication again, right?

Yeah.

All right. If you could teach everyone one daily habit to keep their cells youthful longer, what would it be?

How to cook real food.

Ah, good one. What's one science backed practice that you personally swear by to support your cellular repair?

Red light. Red light therapy.

All right. What lifestyle choice do you see most often draining people's nad or energy levels without them even realizing it?

Drink and alcohol.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

What's one thing that you wish you'd Learned about longevity 20 years earlier?

That it's never too young to start trying to, to age backwards? Basically. Yeah.

Okay. I love that we're starting there actually, because science around aging is really showing us that it's not just about luck or genetics. And we do have a lot more control than what we think in how our cells are going to respond and age. So let's dive in with this first. A lot of people think that aging is just something that has to happen and it happens pretty quickly. But from your research, how is aging actually a biological response and how much control do we actually have over it?

Yeah, I mean, even when I first got into this world of longevity, so this was over 10 years ago now. It was still a very fringe area of science. Even the scientists working within the field didn't really believe that it was actually possible to either slow the aging process, let alone reverse the aging process. There was still a lot of skepticism because it was believed that aging was kind of this programmed thing that was like set in our bodies that almost like once you were born, you know, the clock had started ticking and there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop it. But now we're seeing that there absolutely is something that you can do. And this has sort of led to scientists investigating this concept of biological age, which is the age that you are on the inside. And for, for many scientists, that was really one of the moments where we realized that actually aging was not this one way street because people, they may or may not realize they actually have two ages. You've got your chronological age, which is the age according to your birth certificate, but then you've also got your biological age, which is this age of your cells on the inside. And the really interesting thing was that quite often a person's biological age and their chronological age didn't quite add up. So somebod could be much younger or older biologically, which shows that the age and slower or faster than they should be. And this first scientists proved two really key things. The first thing it proved was that aging was not fixed and it was not this programmed thing, because if it was, that would mean your biological age and your chronological age should always be identical. It should be playing out at the same rate, but they're not. So that showed us that there's something that's going on inside of our cells, which is either speeding up the aging process or it's slowing down the aging process. And if there's something going on in our cells, it means there's probably something that we can do about it. And the other interesting thing that it showed us was that you can actually measure aging. And that was a big thing because for a long time, people were like, oh, you know, it's really cool that you guys are trying to slow aging or affect the aging process, but Earth, are you going to prove that you are doing this? So the fact that we know there's something we can measure quite reliably now in our cells was a big game changer actually, in this field.

It's really exciting, right? And I think a lot of us, too, we can see the way that our parents aged, our grandparents aged, is very different than what we're experiencing or how we look now. And the science that's coming out around food and epigenetics and stuff like that is fascinating, but I think there's also an extreme and may maybe I'm saying this because I'm living in the US And I'm living in this, in Los Angeles, the Mecca, where there's a lot of tests that are coming out around testing your biological versus your chronological age. Is there like a gold standard type of test that people should be looking for if they want to test this accurately?

So at the moment, there's not, I would say, a gold standard. And even as scientists, we don't agree that there's like one test that's going to be the be all and end all. And this is because the types of tests that are out there at the moment all measure slightly different aspects of aging in the body. So the kind of original biological age test, shall we say, was one that measured your telomeres. So your telomeres are the little protective caps on the end of Your DNA that stop it from unraveling. And what we know is that as you get older, these telomeres shorten. So for a long time it was thought if we measured the length of our telomeres, that would be a really good marker as to how we were aging on the inside. But it turns out that it is, but only in the specific cell type that you measure it from. So it's not a good reflection of what your aging is across the entire body. So the next type of age tests that came out were things that looked at epigenetic age. So this is the one, one of the ones you just mentioned and that looks at patterns of genes that are switched on in our cells because we know that again, as we age, the patterns of genes seem to change quite in quite a predictable way. You go from having patterns of genes that are associated with youth, useful pathways like anti inflammatory pathways and things that are going to keep cells in good health, to having patterns of more pro inflammatory genes and things like that switched on. So again, you can measure this. So this is probably one of the more accurate ways of measuring this. Now another type is something called a glycanage and this is looking at glycans, which are little sugar molecules that are on the outside of your immune cells. And again, the patterns of these glycan sugar molecules change in quite a reliable way as you get older. They go from anti inflammatory to pro inflammatory. So you can look at these patterns and again estimate biological age. And that's quite a good one as well, because we know this is linked to inflammation and inflammation is a key driver of the aging process. And also it's not limited to a specific tissue or a specific cell type. So sometimes when you do these types of tests, it's more reflective of aging across the entire body as well. But ultimately scientists still agree that the best way is to do a range of all these different types of tests and not take one of them as is, you know, the ultimate number, shall we say?

Yeah, I think it's fascinating and this is what really drives the science portion of this podcast. I think that we need to take full advantage of these incredible tests that are coming through modern day science. And as a nutritionist, I feel like I'm a really great investigator. But the more data that I have around my client's constitution, we're able to see what works for them, what doesn't work for them, and really personalize this. And I do believe that the future of healthcare needs to be around this personalizing and having this information and Understanding how your body actually works and what you're absorbing, what the epigenetics around you that are kind of causing you the most harm, it's a really good indicator of how you're going to age. So would you say based on your studies, obviously you've done so many clinical studies, again, which we'll dive into, but when we think about one person's capacity to heal, how they recover, how they handle stress, are these better indicators of how they're going to age on a calendar versus that biohacking checklist that they're taking off?

Yeah, I mean, honestly. So people will ask me, like, what are the best things that can reverse biological age or the things that will impact biological age. And the first thing I always say is how well you will age is more in your hands than you think, because 80% is, is entirely based on lifestyle and it's only 20% that is is genetics and other factors. So most people try to blame the genes, they try to blame the parents or everything else, but really it is your lifestyle. And then the things that actually work really well in lifestyle are not the crazy biohacker trends and not doing crazy chambers and blood infusions and swapping your plasma and things like that. They are actually the things that we've known all along, the diet, the exercise, the sleep, the stress reduction. We know that all of these things have a big impact on your biological age.

So if we think about this through the lens of daily habits, when I was doing some research on you, you said that how we age is really determined by those factors. And would you say that there's one that has more impact than the other? There's a tendency to become either, you know, so hyper focused on dieting and maybe nutrition and what the next trending diet is going to be versus the mindfulness aspect versus you and I were talking about time and nature. But, you know, we live in a world where health and wellness trends, they need to have virality to it and people are looking for whatever is going viral. But what have you seen? Is there growing evidence on specific habits that can change your biological age?

I think one of the things that I've seen, seen that seems to have a really profound impact is actually diet and the, the how much ultra processed food that you have in your diet seems to be one of the things when, you know, we're looking at different people's biological age and what their habits are and things like that. Diet really does play a big role for multiple reasons. Firstly, if you are have a diet that is full of ultra processed foods. The first thing is that there's a lot of chemicals in these foods that despite the fact that these foods don't have nutrients in. It's not even the fact they don't have the nutrients, it's the chemical side of things that are actually damaging and causing damage to the gut microbiome. Then we know if the gut is damaged and we get an inflammation across the entire body. And then on top of that, you're also not getting the nutrients from the, you know, the actual real foods, the whole foods. And one of the tips that I always say to people is try to eat 30 different plants each week. Because honestly, like, so my background is in drug development. So I spent a lot of time testing a lot of different drugs, a lot of different molecules, you know, all sorts of different compounds. And time after time after time, the things that worked and outperformed all the drugs were natural molecules that came from plants, that came from food, that were never investigated by drugs companies because they couldn't patent them, but they were the things that worked really well. So I always say by having your 30 plants each week, you are getting nature's medicine cabinet. Literally. Like the phytochemicals, the flavonoids, all of these things are incredibly beneficial compounds for cellular health. We know that many of them activate a lot of longevity pathways. We that a lot of them reduce the hallmarks of aging, which are the things that drive the aging process. So again, you know, you asked me for one of my quick tips earlier of what you would do. It would be learn how to cook some real food. You know, even if it's some salads, some fruit salads, some really basic stews, anything that just gets that range of plants. And this doesn't include just fruit and vegetable includes herbs, nuts, seeds, spices, even tea, coffee, anything that comes from plants. So it's easier than people think.

Focus on things that do not have ingredient labels, right?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. I swear when I was sharing my healing story with you at the ashram, it would be very easy to get different 15 different types, 15 to 20 even different types of plant varieties in one meal. In one meal. Like, they were just so focused on using ingredients from nature to actually heal the body, which I think is fascinating. While we're on this topic, do you have a favorite meal? Like, I'm sure everyone wants to know what you eat. Do you have.

I eat a whole range of everything. And that's what I say. I don't, I don't. I'm Not. I'm not vegan. I'm a vegetarian. I'm not, you know, I eat a range of everything, but everything in moderation. It's all about having lots of different variety. All too often, a lot of diets are focused on, you know, really cutting out different food groups, are really heavily focusing on a specific food group. But the body and the biology really does like balance. It doesn't like too much or too little of anything. And so my favorite types of foods for getting a lot of plants in are soups. So now in the uk, we have hit autumn and winter, so, like, my diet will be so many different types of soups and stews. Yeah. Which are easy to just chuck everything in, cook it off, and then you can make loads of portions to last the whole day.

Absolutely, yeah. Soup season, healing season. I love it. You and I would make good neighbors. And I love the. The concept of. No, why do you need a label? Be vegetarian one, day, be vegan the next, be Paleo the next. There's no need to give yourself a label. I think variety and diversity is the name of the game.

Yeah.

All right, let's dive in to nad. Before I introduce any types of supplements to my audience, I do a lot of research. I enjoy trying all the products, and I was really fascinated about your work and, of course, the development. You're the founder of Nuketo. Time plus is what I want to talk about today. Everyone's talking about nad, but few people understand what it is. So let's just start off with the explanation. First, can you describe what NAD does to the body, why it's essential for energy and repair, and why we're kind of calling it this. This longevity medicine, Currency of the future.

Yeah. No, I mean, NAD is something that we've known about for a long time. It's not something that's suddenly been discovered. You know, in physiology and cell biology, we've known for many, many years that NAD is a very important molecule that's found in every single cell in our body, and it's involved in hundreds of different reactions. But the two things that it's. It's most important, or I guess most famous for, are firstly, energy production. So in our cells, we have our mitochondria, which are the little energy power plants that literally take the food that we eat and convert it into the energy that all of our cells need to function. And NAD is very important for one of the pathways in this conversion to make our energy. So without nad, we would literally be dead because our bodies would stop Respiration and we wouldn't be able to produce any energy. So very important, number one for energy production. The other thing that it's, it's very famous for is for repair, as you rightly mentioned. So, you know, within our bodies right now, even just sitting here, there is damage happening. Whether that's from our own respiration that's causing free radicals, or it's from any pollution in the atmosphere, from UV light, from the sun. Everything is constantly trying to damage our body. So our body literally has this like army of repair enzymes and proteins that's going around and it's looking for any damage and it's fixing it before we ever know it's a problem. And what we now know is that many of these repair processes actually use NAD as a fuel. So they need NAD to do their job. So this means that if you have high levels of nad, first of all, you've got lots of energy production and you have lots of repair. But if NAD goes low, then energy production gets turned down, repair gets turned down, and ultimately our cells start to dysfunction and become damaged. And that leads ultimately to, to an increase in biological age and the sort of signs and symptoms that we experience as part of the aging process on the outside. So that's kind of why this molecule that we've known about for many years has suddenly been thrown into the world of longevity. Because it turns out that it's actually quite important for our cellular health.

So declining NAD has real consequences then. So you mentioned not only energy, but our cellular health. We're thinking about our brain health, metabolism, heart health. Do you think that the decline of NAD is happening at a faster rate with the result of living in today's modern world 100%.

And I wish there was some studies on this or some real data, but there isn't. But what we know is that your NAD will decline as you get older. We know there are studies in different tissues and different species that NAD ultimately declines in an age related fashion. It's estimated to half every 20 years, but oh my gosh, yeah, every 20 years. And that's actually from birth. So by the time you're 20, you're estimated to have half of what you were born with. By the time you're 40, that's halved again, which is, is pretty scary. But yeah, the other, the other thing is, so that happens in everyone. So it declines in everyone, but the rate at which it declines with in everyone will be slightly different. And it is highly dependent on lifestyle. So in people that are highly inflamed, Have a lot of inflammation, people that are drinking too much alcohol, people who have had a lot of sunburn, all of these things that are damaging to the body and their energy supply will deplete faster than those people who are generally living a more healthy lifestyle. So again, if you're looking at modern day us versus, you know, back when we were not eating ultra processed foods, when we were not exposed to so much pollution, when we were not, you know, surrounded by some of the damage and chemicals and things that we have now, and also not sedentary all day, not sitting all day. Yeah, I would be willing to bet that RNA D would have probably declined, but not at the rate that it does today.

You know, when you ask somebody how they are today, it is very common to just hear that they're tired or like they're running on half empty and we hear statistics like that. So if NAD levels are dropping by more than 50%, gosh, by the time you're 40. This explains a lot. Being in my 40s, I probably felt the greatest shift in feeling my age in this decade and the intensity that really, really comes with that when it doesn't have to be necessary. So the reason why I want to bring that up is, well, this will lead into the next question on all of the therapies that exist today. So we find out about something that's essential for the body, we want to go in and optimize it. We know based on what you said then reducing the things that are going to cause you that inflammation if it's too much sun exposure, the alcohol, too much sugar, too many processed foods. But now the trend is in a lot of the studies. I'd love to hear your feedback on. This is not all NAD supplements are created equal. People here, a lot of my clients just started rushing and spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on NAD IVs or injections or NR or NMN, even had a moment here as well. So can you talk to us about the differences? I know that this led you to the creation of your product, but which of those approaches are actually supported by human data versus just hype?

Yeah. So let's take a little tour on the sort of history of how to boost nad, because it's really interesting. And again, this is something I've really followed for many, many years now because this is a new area of science, which means that what we are lear is constantly evolving. So things that we maybe thought were good 10 years ago, we're now realizing that the science has changed and they're not so Good. And we need to learn from that, which I think, you know, is really important in these areas of new science. So when, you know, first of all, when, you know, the first studies looking at the benefits of NAD were done in cells. And it was shown that if you increase NAD in a cell, that it improved the cellular health. The cells started acting younger. And that's kind of what started people going, okay, let's see if animals, and let's see if this works in humans. And it did. So there then became this huge rush of, okay, how on earth do we boost nad? What is the way we should be doing it? And I guess the most simplest and obvious way was to take pure NAD and put it in a capsule and swallow it. And hopefully that would replenish our nad. Now, it would have been great if it was that simple. But unfortunately, NAD is a very unstable molecule. So in the body, it's referred to as what we call a redox molecule, which means it's naturally very unstable. So it can flip between different states very easily. And in the body, it's actually needed to be able to do that. That's. That's what it should act like. But unfortunately, when it comes to formula and making products and having it outside the body, that's a big problem because it's. It's very unstable. So even today, there are still a lot of companies on Amazon and all sorts that are, you know, saying, buy these pure NAD capsules, and here's the purity certificate, and, you know, 99.9% pure. It doesn't matter how pure it is or what it was when they measured it, when it went in the capsule. By the time you have swallowed it and it's gone through your stomach, there will be no NAD left. So, unfortunately, can't do pure NAD. So this is where the NAD IVs and the injections then became popular. Because the idea here was, okay, can't take pure NAD orally. What's the next best way? Let's put it straight into the veins, put it straight into the blood. You've got it in the body. Brilliant. And again, we thought that was great, get it in the body. But then what soon became apparent was that NAD is not naturally found in the blood. And that's important. NAD is found and required for its function inside of the cells, because that's where the mitochondria are. That's where the DNA is. That's where all of these pathways and repair enzymes that NAD interacts with. They're all found inside the cells. Now, when you do an iv. It doesn't put the NAD in the cells, it puts it in the blood. And not only is NAD unstable, but it's also a very big molecule. And it's also charged, which is why you see the little plus next to it when it's. When it's written out. And large and charged molecules cannot just freely pass into cells. Cells are very gated. You know, they don't like things just passing in and out. And these types of molecules have to have special channels. And the majority of our cells do not have channels that let NAD in. So what we see is that this large infusion of NAD goes into the blood. Blood. And then it either gets stuck in the blood or it gets rapidly broken down and metabolized. So it's not actually going to where you want it to go in the body. And there's actually another paper that's just come out which shows that NAD IVs have some evidence that they may cause an inflammatory reaction.

If your body doesn't know what it is, if it can't metabolize it, then it's going to repel it. Right. It's going to be inflammatory. That makes sense.

Exactly. You, your body is thinking, oh, my goodness, why on earth is there suddenly a huge amount of something in the blood that should only be inside the cells? That means there must have been a trauma. There must have been a, you know, something where the cells have burst open. So it does what it knows best and it induces an inflammatory reaction to deal with whatever this perceived trauma is. And for a long time, a lot of scientists like myself were like, hypothesizing that this is probably why people feel terrible while that happens when they're getting an. But there was no evidence. But anyway, thankfully someone's now done the study and the studies there, which shows it does cause inflammation. So, yeah, just a word of caution, because there's a lot of people still doing those, but I think we're going to see a big shift as more of this data starts to appear. The third way is the precursors. So you mentioned nmn. Again, you can't Google NAD or speak about NAD without having the word NMN pop up. And NMN or another version is nr. These are what we call precursors to nad. So they're basically like one of the raw materials that your body uses to make this larger NAD molecule. And again, the scientific thought process behind this was if NAD is too big and it's too unstable and it's not bioavailable, then why don't we just give the body the smaller raw materials that are bioavailable, that can get in the cell so that the cell can take the raw material and it can turn it into the big NAD molecule. And what we know is that to a certain extent this does happen. And that's because in our cells we have a pathway that literally makes and recycles all the NAD that we need. We actually don't get any NAD from the diet. It is all made inside the cell where it's required because it's so big, it can't really get in any other way. So again, for a while we thought this was the best way, but now what we realize is we actually now understand the reason why NAD is declining in the first place. And this is really relevant because the reason it declines is that the key enzyme in our cells that takes all the raw material and turns it into nad, that enzyme declines as we get older. So if you can take all the raw material you want, you can be eating NMN and NR all day, but if you do not have the enzyme to actually turn it into nad, it starts to build up in the cells. And this is what we see in, in clinical studies now, we're seeing that just if you just keep increasing the dose of NMN or nr, it gets to the point where your cells can't deal with it anymore. They can't actually physically convert it. And I always say it's kind of like if you think of your cell is like an NAD producing factory, and you know, you went into the factory and was like, why is my NAD production gone down? And you saw it was because all the machines were broken, you would never say, well, let's ignore that problem and let's just order some more raw material and hope that we get some more NAD out the other end. You would say, no, we need to deal with this problem. So that is what we have been trying to do in dealing with that problem.

And is there anything that people can be doing to optimize that intracellular enzyme that they need to make it more bioavailable?

So the really fascinating thing is that many of the lifestyle practices that we already know are very beneficial for longevity and just general cellular health actually work in part by switching back on that enzyme. And the two key ones are high intensity exercise and intermittent fasting. And the way that both of these things work is they literally create a bit of energy stress in the cells. And whilst, you know, we always perceive stress as negative, actually a little bit of stress in our cells actually is beneficial. Because it switches on repair pathways and beneficial pathways. So when you are fasting so you don't have the energy coming in, or when you are exercising so you've got more energy going out, what that does is it rings a little alarm bell in your cells which goes, oh my goodness, there's an energy crisis going on here. Our cells need to do something to survive this energy crisis. So it switches on a trigger called ampk. And that's like the little alarm bell in the cell. And what that does is it goes, what can we do in the cell that is going to A, increase energy production and B, increase repair? It goes, let's switch on NAD production because NAD does both and it literally turns up the enzyme and that produces nad. So your cells have more NAD to fuel the mitochondria to produce energy, but also have more NAD to drive repair to ensure that the cells will survive this period of stress.

I love that you didn't list another supplement or something like that. So optimizing AMPK pathways through basic high interval practices or intermittent fasting, which are also ancient practices, is, Is fascinating to me. Yeah, I remember there's a man that I took on as a client and when he showed up to see me, he was wired and tired. He was going for an NAD weekly iv. He was also taking liposomal NR and liposomal nmn. And it was a lot. He didn't feel much better. There wasn't a lot that we were seeing in terms of his recovery. We actually did a telomere test with him as well and he, he was just really inflamed.

So, I mean, somebody that's doing that, literally what would be happening is the NADIV's are causing inflammation and then taking these large amounts of precursors. It is literally going back to the factory analogy. It is just piling these factories, these cells full of precursors, and the cell is going, oh my goodness, I can't deal with this. And it starts to build up. And what we know is that cells like homeostasis, they don't, they like balance. So the cells then start to react and try to get rid of this buildup of precursors. And again, this isn't theory, this is demonstrated in clinical trials. And what we actually see is for the cells to deal with this excess NMN and the excess nr. What they do is they switch on another enzyme. And this enzyme is called nnmt and it's a methylating enzyme. And what it does is it literally sticks a methyl group onto the precursor and it forms something called methy catidinamide. And this methyl group is like a little chemical tag that basically tells the cell to, like, get this out via the waste chute. Like, you know, get it, get it in the trash. And what we see in people that are taking huge doses of these precursors is that suddenly the cells have to start using all their methyl groups to get rid of this precursor, which causes methyl donor depletion, which we know then causes all sorts of other problems, because our methyl groups should be used for things like epigenetics and repair and things like that. So you have these people that are taking these things in good faith, thinking more is better and they're helping, and actually they are then triggering other problems. So you'll hear a lot of people talking about, you know, if you're taking nmn, you should take trimethylglycine as a methyl donor to fix this problem. But then you kind of back into the whole drugs thing, where you take a drug, it gives you a side effect, so you take another drug, another drug, it just all becomes a bit crazy.

This is what's happening. And I love that you're spending some time talking about that, because through these trends and a lot of people's desperation to feel better, obviously we all want to age backwards or slow down the rate at which we age. And so it's not uncommon for me to work with somebody who shows me 30, 40, 50. Last year, there was a woman with over 67 supplements that she was taking every single day. She heard it was good here, she read an article there, there was an article here. And more is not better. I think understanding your biology is so key in the studies that you've done. Is it worthwhile understanding your genetics if you're a poor methylator or not?

Yeah, I mean, I think for. If you are planning on taking things like NMN and nr, then you do not want to be taking high doses of these if you are a poor methylate at all. And this is why we do see people, you know, they're taking it and they're going, I thought I was going to feel energy off this, and I feel even worse. But again, it goes back to said, let's just take a step back. And now that we know what the root of the problem is, now that we know why NAD declines, let's actually look at fixing that and get our body to actually work to produce NAD like it did when we were younger. So that's really what we've been focused on. Because, you know, for me, as a scientist, before I developed the product. I was really looking at the sort of NAD landscape and thinking none of these things, none of these ways people are boosting their NAD make any sense. Now that we actually know why NAD declines. Like if you, you know, NAD is declining because the main enzyme that's producing it has got turned down. It's declining because a lot of these precursors are building up and just getting methylated and getting excreted out of the cell. And also the other thing that we haven't mentioned is a big. Another big reason why NAD declines is, is chronic low grade inflammation. So we know, again, as we get older, we just become more chronically inflamed. And one of the key culprits for this is something called CD38, which is a enzyme in our cell that basically drives the inflammatory process. And what we know is that when this is overactivated or chronically switched on, it degrades or depletes our NAD massively, because again, it uses NAD as its fuel. So you end up with this situation where in older people you have chronic inflammation. This NAD is being drained because the chronic inflammation is draining it. And then at the same time your production of NAD has been reduced. So you've got this perfect storm of that production has gone down and the use has gone up. And no wonder we see this massive exponential decline. So what we did was really try to develop a product that is actually addressing all these little individual factors and fixing them rather than ignoring them.

Fascinating. I love that I have you as a scientist really preaching that you have to get the foundations of health right. Low grade inflammation. Inflammation itself is such a buzzword these days. And a lot of people aren't doing the investigation to see where that inflammation is coming. Mostly for them, right? Stress alone. Gosh, living this year in this world was a form of inflammation for a lot of us. And I think this is what makes your study so unique. And I remember hearing that you referred to your product as being a whole system formula. So can you talk to us about the difference between new ketotime and how its approach to restoring NAD is different? Understanding all these root causes especially.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, it doesn't contain nad, which is what a lot of people go. Look at the back and they go, yeah, I don't understand this. Like, how on earth does this boost NAD if it doesn't have NAD in it? They look at it and go, there's like a botanical blend, like, where's the nmn? Where's the nad? Like, what is this doing? But basically Everything in the formulation is specifically designed and every ingredient in there is in there not because it's a trendy ingredient, but because is literally fighting for its space in that formula because it has a very specific job. So, you know, just kind of going through the. What we mean by the whole systems is that everything is target in a different point in the NAD pathway. So it's fixing a different problem. So, for example, we've got two ingredients in there that are specifically designed to switch back on the NAMPT enzyme. So that is the enzyme that takes the precursor and turns it into nad. And one of those is rutin, which is derived from Sephora japonica, which is a, is a bark from a tree, basically a plant bark. And that is a direct activator of that enzyme. The other ingredient in there is something called alpha lipoic acid. And this again is also activating that enzyme, but that works through a different way. So that actually works by switching on ampk. So that little sensor that we were talking about earlier, that's activated by exercise and fasting, we know that this ingredient actually activates that. So those two things are specifically in there to switch back on the enzyme. Now, once we've got that enzyme switched on, we also want to look at things that are wasting NAD. So I mentioned earlier, inflammation through CD38 is draining our NAD supplies. So we actually have an inhibitor of CD38 in there. And an inhibitor of CD38 is something called apigenin. Now, if you look at the back, you will not see the words apigenin. What you will see is parsley powder. And the reason for that is, is, you know, apigenin is commonly known as a CD38 inhibitor when it's purified, but only when used in cells. So you can purify the molecule, put it on some cells and it will work. But apigenin does not exist in nature in its purified form. So if you try take purified epigenin and swallow it, it is ruined. It does not actually get absorbed. But if you take it in a natural extract where it has other molecules like glycosides and things attached to it which protect it through the gut, it is then cleaved off and then it's free to go and do its job in the body once it's gone through the gut. So again, just going back to that idea of using things more in their natural forms. Whereas as a society we have gone towards highly purified, highly extracted molecules, and everyone again believes that these are going to work better than something in its more natural form. It's. It's. It's really not the case. So we have that in there. We also have a green tea extract. And the reason for that is for a very powerful molecule called egcg. And EGCG actually works to turn down that methylation process that is actually trying to get rid of the precursor. So instead, it promotes the recycling within the cell. And finally, we do have a precursor in there. So we don't use nmn, we don't use nr, but we do use something called nicotinamide. And nicotinamide is just a basic vitamin B3, because despite the hype of NMN and all these sorts of things, which are also vitamin B3 derivatives, it's been shown in studies that plain old nicotinamide is actually the most bioavailable form of the precursor that our cells actually use. And if you look in physiology, nicotinamide is what our cells naturally use, not NMN and not nr.

Right. So based on everything that you said, I want to point out to the audience that what got me, like, really excited about this is, one, you understand what every ingredient is. Two, what I admire and what people need to know about when you're taking these ingredients in their synergist or, sorry, in their individual form, the body doesn't work that way. Like, ancient healers knew that herbs worked synergistically within the body. And you recognize every single ingredient on this and the botanical lineup in this blend is something that got me really excited. And you can tell. I can really tell that you focused on that synergistic aspect. And I think that it's refreshing again to go back to what we started this conversation saying is, like, nature is really providing us with everything that we need. And through your studies, I want to get into the studies that you have, understanding how we can actually reverse a lot of damage that's happening. So can you talk to us about your incredible clinical trial trials? You saw some pretty measurable improvements through energy, through other markers of cellular health. Maybe you can talk to us about glycanage also, which is what I read about.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I started the company, my mission was really, how do we. How do we create products that are available to consumers, they're not drugs, but actually have some really good science behind them and some really good testing. Because, believe you and I, when I left my very credible job in drug development to start a supplement company, you know, everyone really thought I'd gone crazy because they were like, you know, these natural botanicals, they don't work and there's snake oil and there's no evidence. And that's where I was like, no, you know, we are, you know, I'm really on a mission to prove that with the right formulations, the right combinations, the synergy that these things really can have a powerful effect in the body. So I always knew that I wanted to do some serious clinical research on this. So we did a full double blind, placebo controlled crossover study, which as far as a study goes, is the gold standard, even in drug development, never mind supplements. So we did that study and we measured multiple different factors. I mean, one of the first things we obviously wanted to measure was looking at NAD levels. One of the first things that we wanted to measure in the study was obviously nad, because you will not imagine the amount of NAD products that are out there that claim they boost NAD, but have absolutely no evidence to show that they do. So this was one of the first things that we measured and obviously demonstrated that it does increase NAD levels. But the more important thing that we demonstrated was that our product works in an entirely different way because it actually increased levels of that NAMPT enzyme. So it's the only product that has been proven in a human clinical trial to actually fix the root cause of NAD decline. So we can literally see levels of that enzyme increasing as, because we measured it in study. So for us, that was really exciting because it showed that, you know, this isn't, this is working in a very different way and it's much more holistic way. It's actually fixing the problem. It's making your cells make NAD like they did when they were younger. And then the next set of things that we wanted to measure was, okay, everyone's raving about NAD and saying that it's beneficial and they want to be boost it. So we've proved we can boost it, but now we want to prove what are the benefits. So is this increase in NAD actually going to have some benefit to some of the biomarkers that we would like to see changing or, you know, going backwards, essentially? So one of the first things we wanted to measure was inflammation, because again, we know that some of the other practices that people are doing to raise NAD are actually driving inflammation, which is not what you want. And we measured an inflammatory cytokine plant panel and showed a reduction in inflammation across the body, which, you know, is great because aging, sorry, inflammation, is one of the key drivers of the aging process. The other thing we looked at was glycation. So glycation is when our, like, sugar molecules become irreversibly bound to proteins in our body. The biggest example is collagen, and it causes the collagen to stiffen. And this is why we see skin aging, but also why we see cardiovascular aging. You know, measuring levels of glycated serum protein is a common measure when looking at its health. And again, we saw a reduction in glycation. And all of these results, by the way, were within 28 days. So this was just within 28 days of supplementation. And I think for me, though, the most exciting bit was we did actually measure biological age. And the test that the participants used in this study was glycanage. Again, because glycanage is measuring inflammation across the body. It's very reflective of the whole body. And we know that you can see differences and changes when you're measuring lifestyle factors. And what we found, again, with within just 28 days of supplementation with, with the product, with Nishido Time plus, we saw a reversal of biological age by 1.26 years. So this for us really demonstrated that not only can you naturally switch back on NAD again, but by doing so you can actually reverse biological age. So for me, as a scientist, I was very proud to get that, got it published in an awesome journal as well. It's a nature group journal, which is very unusual and rare for a consumer supplement.

You want to have these published studies. I know that you can agree, as you said before with all the supplements, that it's becoming the wild west out there with things that are available. People with no background in this are launching supplements based out of trend and the demand from media and stuff like that. So I think it's so incredible that you publish these. The results that you have are pretty phenomenal. And I'm just curious too. You know, I often think that when you're doing any type of clinical data or testing on humans, there's gotta be a lot of variables. Like, were there any criteria that you refer on that had to be followed in order to have these results?

Yeah, so we actually did a really crazy thing as far as a clinical trial is considered. So. So usually for a clinical trial, as you say, humans are very complicated people species. You know, we have a lot of differences. There's a lot of things to control for. So usually in a clinical trial you have these huge exclusion lists where all of these different types of people can be part of it. You know, you can only have men, no women, God help, no women. And only, especially when it comes to things like nad, you pick a cohort of people that are likely to respond. So if you look at a lot of the NAD studies on a lot of other things like NR, NMN, they will genuinely be 55 to 65 year old men, usually obese, usually with some sort of metabolic illness. And because we know in metabolic illness, these people will usually have much lower nad, therefore you are more likely to see a result and see a change in NAD levels. But what we did was completely different. We used male and female, and we also used people right the way from age 20 all the way through to age 80, which, considering we only had 30 people in the study, was a massive risk because you would expect that people who were 20 and young would not and healthy would not see a big increase or change. So the fact that we saw statistically significant results across this study in such a huge age range with a very big diversity was a big risk, but also a big credit to show actually how, how powerful the supplement actually is.

I'm so happy I asked that question. My gosh. And kudos to you for really taking a stand on having that diversity. That's huge. Yeah, well, there's like one of those.

Trying to get the signs out to the everyday person. And the everyday person is not reflected in a clinical trial. Like, we needed to have a range of people in this trial that are actually going to be the people that would take this product. So for it's, you know, it seems obvious, but unfortunately there's a lot of science that happens that doesn't always do that.

Absolutely. And okay, so you brought up women. Let's just go there for a second. You know, a lot of women going through perimenopause, which is a trend right now, or menopause, or just the changes that come with all hormonal changes for that matter. Is NAD something that we can put through the lens of prevention for a lot of the symptoms that we talk about through stress or chronic fatigue that come with those.

Yeah, and this is a great question, because you know what? One of the most surprising things for us, although in hindsight it's not surprising, but it has been surprising, was the amount of women that would randomly and spontaneously email us or message us and be like, oh, my goodness, you do not understand how much this has helped with my perimenopause or menopause symptoms, like my brain fog, my lack of energy, my sleep, those top three things, they were like, I feel like a different person. So we were like, wow, this is, you know, this is a lot of women now saying this. Like, this was never designed as a product for to help people with menopause. But actually, when you look at the sort of theory and the science behind it, it's actually not surprising that it does help women through this phase so much because. Because while SNAD obviously decreases in both men and women, in women we also have a period of our lives where we also have a massive shift in the hormones, particularly estrogen. And what we know is that estrogen is very important in regulating some of the pathways and processes that NAD regulates as well. So, for example, NAD is very important in our mitochondrial function for our energy. It's very important in regulating inflammation and repair and linking to biological age. Well, what we also know is estrogen, very important for our mitochondria. Our mitochondria are literally covered in estrogen receptors. Also very important for regulating inflammation in our body. As estrogen goes down, inflammation goes up. And the other thing we now know is that estrogen in menopause actually has a huge impact on biological age. So in women, there was a study done that demonstrated that, that in the six month period between perimenopause and menopause, a woman's biological age increases by an average of nine years in just six months. So you can now see that, you know, in a, in a woman, not only is NAD going down, but at the same time your estrogen suddenly drops. You've got like the perfect storm for cellular chaos, which is why women really do feel like they've aged during this period. So what we think is that, you know, even if women aren't replacing the hormones or anything like that, just by restoring nad, it's kind of addressing half of the problem, which is why it really does help with brain fog and the tiredness, the fatigue, the sleep. So, you know, so much so that again, you can probably tell that as a company and as a person, I don't like to rely on anecdotal date, you know, feedback or reviews. We like to get data and evidence. So. So we're actually going to be doing a study looking specifically at menopause to get some data on this. And individually we've actually done some studies on sleep energy levels already, which some preliminary studies which have shown some really good data for improvements to sleep and energy.

That is a game changer. Even hearing those words as a company, taking that on as an initiative specifically for women, on a product that wasn't even created for that is just magic because there is a lot of suffering that comes with it. And I think that right now, as much as I'm happy about the talk that's happening around hormone replacement therapy. We're still not addressing cellular health or quality of digestion or those foundational things that you talked about. And with those come with a lot of symptoms and side effects as well. So that's incredible. Thank you so much for, for sharing that. I'll have to have you back on after that study happens.

Yeah, definitely. I think that'll be. I think we'll have some really interesting observations from that because, again, I think it was, you know, when you're looking at women's health and menopause, it was always thought that, you know, menopause is a consequence of aging, but actually now we're seeing the other way around, that actually aging is actually a consequence of menopause. Like, it works both ways. It's actually, actually speeding up the aging process, which means it becomes even more important to double down on all of the lifestyle factors and the other things that you can be doing to kind of mitigate that as well.

All right, so for listeners who are very excited about new keto time, is there an optimal way to take this? I mean, the serving size is only three capsules. Do you recommend cycling in and out? Is there, you know, any restrictions around who should be taking this?

So we, we don't recommend cycling. We recommend you can literally take all three capsules in one go. The one thing we do recommend is taking it with food rather than on an empty stomach. If possible, try and take this earlier in the day because this is when NAD is naturally higher. So you're kind of following the natural pathway of nad. So maybe it's with the first meal of the day, if that's breakfast, if you eat breakfast or with your lunch. But that's how we, we recommend take it. There's no known contraindications apart from we don't recommend it in pregnancy and breastfeeding because it's, it's just not being trialed in this specific group. But, but otherwise, you know, it's. It's something that is, is something that can benefit everyone. As I said, we've halved our NAD by the time we're 20. So even in the younger people, everyone says, is there, is it too young? Is it too late to start this? There's no optimal age or, you know, to start it. Never too young, never too old.

What excites you most about the future of NAD research?

I think the fact that it is something, you know, a lot of people will say to me, what, what supplements do you take? And I'm like, supplement what? What I Take is. What I take is very personalized to me. I take it because I know I've got a deficiency or I know I've got a mutation that's going to make me not abso something or whatever. So I always say a lot of supplements are highly personalized. But NAD is one of the things where if you're. It doesn't matter, you know, what genetics you've got or whatever deficiencies or anything, it declines in everyone. So it's actually something that is like, if you're going to take one thing and you're going to invest in one thing, it's get NAD sorted. Because your NAD drives so many critical processes in the body. So I think what excites me is the fact that, that now when I talk about it, a lot more people have heard about it and a lot more people are understanding that the benefits of it and it is something that is more accessible to people. You know, it's. It's not a drug. It's not, you know, which is exciting. And I think the bits that I'm excited about for future research is starting to see a lot more studies in humans looking at really what the downstream effects of this are and its impact on biological age and things like that. That beautiful.

All right, head over to new keto.com everyone listening can use code MONA20 at checkout to go ahead and start reversing your biological age. I'm so grateful again for you as a scientist. Just talking about all the foundational things as well. We're going to combine this with intermittent fasting. When you mention intermittent fasting, I'm sensing that we're not shooting for massive numbers. I recommend like 12 hours a night. Give me 12 hours and you're doing something incredible for your body. Yeah.

Perfect. Beautiful. I completely agree. It's about balance.

Absolutely. All right, Is there a way that you like communicating with your audience or sharing information about the work that you do?

Yeah. So for me personally, Instagram, rnicolaconlun, I talk about a lot of things to do with healthy aging, biological age, not just nad. I'm a total science geek. So if you like, if you like to learn a little bit of the science, that's where to find me. And for the product, it's best to go to nido.com so that's n u c h dash I d o and also on Instagram, at Nido, we have an awesome team that do a lot of different content on longevity and age and well, so go and follow us on there as well.

Dr. Nicola, I've taken so many notes today. Thank you. I wish I could get into your brain to wrap things up. Tell us about if you could leave listeners with just one takeaway about aging and becoming more rooted again in their mind and their body, what would it be?

That aging is in, is in your hands. It really will make a difference. And I know that you've heard all the boring things before about diet, exercise, sleep, but they are, are so important. And yeah, if there's, there's one thing you can do, it's, it's get those foundations right.

I love that. Give it the right inputs, and then your body will add years to your life. That is so good. Thank you so much for joining today. Can't wait to have you back.

Thank you so much. It's been our pleasure.