Curation for Longevity 🧬🛍 - The How-to of NMN

Jan 27, 2022

Hello 👋 and welcome to Curation for Longevity by Laura Minquini. I am the founder of MYKIGAI - a new type of community to experience longevity.

In this newsletter we cover all things longevity as a lifestyle. 🚀

To NMN or not to NMN? 🧬💊

As longevity becomes well-known through consumer-friendly scicomm (science communication) from experts like Dr. David Sinclair, terms like NAD+, NMN, and NR are becoming popularized. As a matter of fact, his research is what’s brought these to notoriety. More on this below (The Science - Background and Research).

But what is this thing NMN, that sounds a bit like the inverse of a 90’s rapper (Eminem)?

Have you considered or actually are using it? Have you heard of it, and wondered what the benefits are? Or, are simply scratching your head as to what it is?

On this post, we’ll go over:

✔️ 4 ways NMN supplementation can boost your performance

✔️ How-to NMN Toolkit (free download)

✔️ 5 Ways to optimize NMN regimen

✔️ How-to spot bad NMN

✔️ The Science - Background and Research

NMN is an extremely potent molecule that helps maintain several cellular processes that decline with age including boosting mitochondrial health, supporting DNA repair, and ensuring healthy gene expression. Specifically, it’s known to be an effective method for increasing bodily NAD+ as a precursor molecule. Boosting NAD+ levels is a surefire way to address nearly every hallmark of aging, and in doing so, to slow down or reverse your aging process.

Basically, NMN is a NAD+ booster, and maintaining NAD+ can protect you against deterioration and disease.

For those looking to have a significant impact on their healthspan, finding a good NMN supplement isn’t enough. Knowing how and why it boosts your performance and constructing an NMN regimen optimized for your cellular health is ideal to maximize benefits.

4️⃣ ways NMN supplementation can boost your performance

NAD isn’t only critical for cellular health and longevity, it also plays an essential role in driving our daily performance so we can be our “best selves” in each moment. Whether that’s within our jobs, workouts, or even with our family.

Energy 🔋
We all rely on healthy mitochondria (ancient bacteria that live within our cells) to create energy that helps us with physical and mental endurance. Unfortunately, mitochondrial dysfunction is a major hallmark of the aging process. NAD is a critical signalling factor that tells our cells to replace old and damaged mitochondria with healthy ones, giving us the energy to push through the toughest of times.
Pain 🥲
NAD has powerful anti-inflammatory effects, helping to reduce pain that may slow us down or distract us.
Chronic pain can significantly impede an individual's ability to perform even the most basic of tasks. One of the main drivers of chronic pain is excess inflammation within the body that can be triggered by physical, chemical, and even mental stress. NAD has been shown to decrease inflammatory mediators that drive inflammation and promote an overall anti-inflammatory environment.
Mood 😄
Our mental state and mood in any given moment is dependent on a healthy balance of various neurochemicals (i.e. dopamine, serotonin, GABA, endorphins) within our brain. Periods of depression and anxiety are strongly associated with altered brain metabolism and dysfunctional dopamine and serotonin signaling. NAD plays a critical role in supporting brain metabolism and maintaining a healthy balance of neurochemicals, helping us extract the most value from each moment.
Focus 🧘
Our level of focus is largely governed by our circadian rhythm – our body's internal clock that controls how hormones peak and plummet throughout the day. Typically, our focus peaks a few hours after waking up every morning — when the levels of cortisol, epinephrine, and dopamine are at their highest. Nearly all of us will experience circadian rhythm dysfunction at some point in our lives due to poor sleep habits, stress, and aging. NAD signaling has best implicated as one of the most powerful signaling factors in controlling and maintaining the health of our circadian rhythm. NMN supplementation, first thing in the morning, can help maintain a healthy cocktail of hormones and neurochemicals in our body that drive focus when we most need it.

Longevity ToolKit The How-NMN Checklist 📝

Want to take advantage of NMN’s known benefits?

Want to establish an effective NMN supplementation regimen?

And, finally, how to identify good quality products?

Here is our Longevity Toolkit on ‘How-To NMN’ prepared by Girish Harinath, MYKIGAI’s Geroscientist.

FREE DOWNLOAD

5️⃣ ways to optimize your NMN regimen

Here are a few things you can do to make sure the potential benefits of your NMN supplement are not only manifested, but maximized:

Work on reducing psychological stress and chronic inflammation in the body
Your immune system consumes a lot of NAD when it mounts a chronic inflammatory response. In this modern age we live in, psychological stress is one of the major stimulators of chronic inflammation in the body. Maximize the bioavailability of your NMN supplement by reducing your stress levels through meditation and deep breathing exercises.
Take a full dose of NMN supplement in the morning, on an empty stomach
Stomach acid produced when you eat a meal has been shown to degrade NMN before it is absorbed into your body. Also, NAD production within your body follows a circadian rhythm, which peaks in the early hours of the morning. Therefore, take your NMN supplement when the NAD levels in your body at this time of day to maximize cellular health benefits.
Wear sunscreen on particularly sunny days
UV radiation from the sun has been shown to cause excess DNA damage within skin cells. In the process of repairing DNA damage, our cells consume a lot of NAD that could be otherwise utilized in several other longevity promoting cellular activities (i.e. mitochondrial health, autophagy, etc). Use sunscreen so that this doesn’t have to happen, especially on really sunny days.
Make it a habit to get “a little out of breath” in the morning
Engage in a 10-15 minute HIIT workout in the morning to make yourself slightly out of breath. This stimulates what is known as the cellular “hypoxia response” which boosts NAD levels within the cells of your body. Further benefiting your NMN supplementation regimen
Verify that your NMN supplement is working and continue optimizing your regimen
Low tech: use a journal to check in and keep track of various health metrics (i.e energy levels, mood, pain levels, work out performance, etc) before and during NMN supplementation.

High tech: Jinfiniti offers the only test that can be used to measure NAD levels in your cells so you can verify that your supplement is actually working.

How-to spot bad NMN:

NMN products are becoming the Diet Tea of social media.

I recently noticed Instagram brands taking cues from the diet tea category. Both ridden with false claims for profit. Low pricing, cool branding, and good marketing are potent tools. I would not be surprised if, like diet teas, the Kardashians get on board with this segment.

So here’s my little visual essay on how to avoid the “entrepreneurs” trying to bank on anti-aging.

NMN is as a supplement, and as such it is unregulated in the US. All you have to do is go to Alibaba.com and you too can have a brand…I get it, don’t hate the player, hate the game. The “anti-aging’ industry is a thing, we even collaborate with companies that use the term in their branding and communication. But not all companies are created equally, and not all intentions are the same. As longevity becomes popular, strictly business people who aren’t concerned about the the science or true benefits for the user, will enter the field. This is one of the problems we are addressing at MYKIGAI: think of us as your Michelin Guide for longevity.

Wow, every major publication and institution somehow happens to be on board! But if the links are broken or the articles don’t mention the brand then it is as good as being on the cover of a Forbes franchise in Eastern Europe.

We all use stock photography at some point or another. The “older woman” from the Unsplash free stock images here is a favourite of startups in the aging/longevity space. Apparently she is also a huge fan of NMN, and her name is Megan Brown. LOL. I can spot this because I spend time researching other companies and know a lot of the design tools out there. Customer testimonials and reviews are a must-have in this day and age, and customers potentially don’t necessary want brands to use their photos. Beware that too great a photo, or too long a review, with a full name, is probably more manufactured than most.

I loved this thread about NMN by another longevity founder. He shared some great data on the category and puts at 90% the amount of subpar or fake NMN sold online. 🤯

Pieter V. @PieterVer_Tweet

$209.6 million of NMN is being sold worldwide at the moment and this figure is expected to reach $446.6 million by 2027. Most people start their search for the compound on Amazon or Google, but have no idea how to make sure they are buying the right stuff.

The Science - Background on NMN 🧬🔬

Anyone who’s into longevity knows about NAD+, the coenzyme central to promoting longevity. However, as we age, their levels decline because of chronic inflammation, DNA damage, and dysfunctional cellular signalling. The consequences of low NAD+ include an increased risk of sunburn and skin cancer, cell suffocation (hypoxia), accelerated cardiovascular disease, decreased metabolism, and impaired brain function. Clearly, it’s important to maintain adequate NAD+ levels.

The problem? NAD+ has poor bioavailability. When taken in its original form, it doesn’t have much of an effect on the body because it can’t be directly absorbed by cells.

Luckily, “precursors” can be taken instead, which are transformed into NAD+ via enzymatic reactions in the body. One of them, NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) has been shown to directly increase NAD+ levels, in turn prolonging lifespan. While other precursor options (ex. NR) exist, NMN is thought to be the most promising. Unlike alternatives, NMN can be directly converted into NAD+ in one step. Because of its high efficacy, it continues to grow in scientific interest.

The Research Behind NMN

Dr. David Sinclair has researched several substances and their relationship with sirtuin activity – the gene whose expression extends lifespan. Out of resveratrol, pterostilbene, NR, and NMN, NMN looks to be the most promising. In other studies, the precursor for NAD+ has been shown to extend the lifespan of worms, mice, and yeast. In addition, NMN has been shown to improve complications with glucose metabolism, cardiovascular and neural functions, stem cell maintenance, and even promote longevity.

When assessing the safety of NMN supplements, 10 Japanese men tolerated 100mg, 250mg, and 500mg single-doses of NMN without adverse side effects. Preliminary human studies are currently underway, but as of now, more information is needed for a comprehensive understanding of the molecule.