Top 10 Benefits of NMN
| Ⓒ By Jonathan Roseland |
I'm not a doctor, medical professional, or trained therapist. I'm a researcher and pragmatic biohacking practitioner exercising free speech to share evidence as I find it. I make no claims. Please practice skepticism and rational critical thinking. You should consult a professional about any serious decisions that you might make about your health. Affiliate links in this article support Limitless Mindset - spend over $150 and you'll be eligible to join the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.
NMN is a refined form of Vitamin B3 that feeds your Mitochondria the crucial fuel, NAD, that it needs to empower your health.
Elite anti-aging researchers at places like Harvard identify it as a promising molecular piece to the longevity puzzle and, most interestingly to me, the self-quantification community has identified it as a Nootropic; an enhancer of energy, motivation, and cognition.
When deciding on a Nootropic or anti-aging tool I urge biohackers to take a dual-pronged approach...
- Look at the science on Pubmed - Pubmed is the international database of scientific studies, papers published in journals, and clinical trials. There are over a hundred scientific papers about NMN and 34 items of human research, which is a respectable body of science.
- Consider the anecdotal evidence - Along with the published science you want to give some consideration to what rigorous self-experimenters are reporting about the effects of a given Nootropic or anti-aging agent. A single anecdote is not really useful, it's just an unverifiable data point, but if ten people are saying the same thing that's meaningful. On Longecity.org, the most popular anti-aging forum, you can find several hundred posts discussing the subjecting effects and documenting the blood test data resulting from NMN experimentation.
This article will delve into the science and some of the more credible anecdotal signals of what to expect from NMN.
Anti-Aging
As the decades pass, the entropy of life throws a wrench into our Mitochondrial function which manifests as dementia, Alzheimer's, and heart disease. Dr. Philip Milgram of the NAD Treatment Center in San Diego, California proclaimed:
"NAD will turn out to be one of the greatest advances in medical science since Fleming invented penicillin."
The esteemed Harvard researcher David Sinclair has devoted years to studying the NAD molecule and takes 500 - 1000 milligrams of NMN daily.
Notably, over 70% of NMN users responded positively to the survey question, Does taking NMN make you feel younger?
Alzheimer’s Treatment
There are 15 papers indicating NMN as a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, a 2017 Chinese paper goes as far as saying that NMN reverses Alzheimer’s via a JNK activation mechanism. A 2015 animal study out of the University of Maryland, School of Medicine in Baltimore found that it preserves mitochondrial function, it was demonstrated that:
...mitochondrial respiratory function was restored in NMN-treated AD-Tg mice. Levels of SIRT1 and CD38 change with age and NMN treatment. Furthermore, we found a shift in dynamics from fission to fusion proteins in the NMN-treated mice.
Weight Loss
A pioneering and articulate biohacker, LawrenceW, used NMN for about a year and meticulously reported the effects and subjective experience on Longecity.
My weight beginning to drop within a couple of days. Within weeks I felt that I was shedding belly fat and noticed a visible flattening of my tummy... On January 7, 2016, I recorded my lowest weight of 196.8, a loss of 19.1 lbs. At that time, I also noticed an increase in strength, endurance and muscle size. By the end of the program I weighed 208 and I believe that I had lost around 20 lbs. of fat and replaced it with around 12 lbs. of muscle.
This is a place where the anecdotal reports don't necessarily agree with the study results, two animal studies done by David Sinclair are inconclusive about NMN's weight loss effects but concluded that:
Overall these data suggest that while exercise and NMN-supplementation can induce similar reversal of the glucose intolerance induced by obesity...
Diabetes Treatment
27 Pubmed results draw a connection between NMN and Diabetes. A 2019 Japanese paper summarizes:
Additionally, a decline in NAD levels is closely related to the development of various metabolic disorders, including diabetes and fatty liver disease. In addition, many studies have revealed that administration of NAD precursors, such as nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN)... efficiently increase NAD levels in various tissues and prevent such metabolic diseases.
David Sinclair credits the combination of NMN and the controversial drug Metformin for reversing his pre-diabetic status. In the survey, respondents indicated that the biomarkers C-reactive protein and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) a as a result of extended NMN use.
Addiction Recovery
Before the New York Times was praising (and then criticizing, and then praising) NAD+ as an anti-aging gamechanger it was renowned as a powerful tool by addiction centers in the noble business of saving souls lost to drug and alcohol addiction. Three books on Amazon detail rehab protocols and case studies of success with NAD treatment. There are no scientific papers discussing NMN specifically and addiction but it stands to reason that it would be helpful to those with more mild addictions, in addiction centers they use NAD intravenously, which is a more direct way of getting the NAD molecule which NMN is a precursor of.
Increased Energy and Motivation
According to the clickbaity title of this Daily Mail article (which is surrounded by an atrocious amount of annoying banner ads!), NMN gave David Sinclair's 70-year-old father the energy of a 30-year-old, which sounds unbelievable but it's corroborated by a handful of anecdotal reports by elderly and middle-aged biohackers. LawrenceW here has found NMN to be the closest thing to a real-life Benjamin Button Biohack:
Several months into the original regimen of NMN my neighbors were stopping me and commenting that I was looking healthier, younger, more energetic, buff, really good, etc. One of the more interesting comments was that I was moving like a much younger person. After that comment I focused on my walking mechanics and realized that I was walking with a much straighter posture with shoulders back, chest out and a looser, more fluid and quicker stride as all my joints were more flexible and pain free. Physically, I felt like my body did 20 years earlier.
Workout Performance Enhancer
500 - 1000 milligrams of NMN reportedly unlocks greater reserves of physical strength. A middle-aged biohacker enthusiastically reports:
The big change was increased endurance in the gym and on my bike. I had more and more “good days”, and found I was increasing the weights I used, and getting better times when I worked hard on the bike... Now, I can push weights in the gym like I did 20 years ago.
The majority of the respondents to the NMN survey noted an uptick in physical energy.
Arthritis Treatment
LawrenceW, an elderly (but very sharp) biohacker reported:
When I was on NMN, the arthritis in my knuckles began to clear in the 3rd week. By the 3rd month all of the arthritis in every joint in my body had cleared. That was the same experience for 3 other members of our NMN group that also had arthritis. When I went off the NMN, the arthritis started to come back after about a month and after 1 year of no NMN, it had returned to all of the joints that were previously affected but not to the pre-NMN degree of pain and stiffness. After 1 year of no NMN, I tried Niagen for 3 months. After 3 months I did not notice any clearing of arthritis from any of my joints. After the 3 months on Niagen I restarted my NMN regimen. Once again by the 3rd week I noticed that the arthritis had started clearing from my joints and by the 3rd month the arthritis had once again cleared from every joint in my body... NMN had cleared the arthritis from every joint in my body.
And a handful of other anecdotes can be found around the internet hinting that it could be a real godsend to those suffering from arthritis. A single 2019 animal study evaluated NMN's role in addressing arthritis.
Anti-Inflammatory
Chronic inflammatory response is at the core of much chronic disease and suffering. There are a handful of published papers and studies evaluating NMN as an inflammation hack. A 2019 animal study out of the Medical College of Georgia summarizes...
Further studies showed improvement in markers of cellular energetics and attenuation of inflammatory response with [NMN] treatment.
LawrenceW meticulously recorded blood test biomarkers which revealed:
My inflammation markers all improved.
C-reactive protein dropped from a post NR 0.9 to 0.49.
Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha dropped from 1.9 to 1.2
Interleukin-6 plasma dropped from 1.2 to 0.9.These last three tests were all measurements of inflammation levels in my body. As increased inflammation is tied to aging and a decrease in general health, I was pleased to see my inflammation levels being reduced.
Sirtuin Modulation
Deep inside each of your cells, you have genes for addressing whatever biological challenges you face. But, for your genes to respond dynamically to stress, environmental toxicity, or illness they need to be switched on or off. This is done by Sirtuins, which are the light switches of the genome. There are over 70 scientific papers drawing a connection between NMN and Sirtuin function. In modernity, we have smartphones, smart TVs, and smartwatches yet everybody seems to be getting stupider, If you want smarter genes, NMN supplementation is a good idea.
As you can see, some of the anecdotal data come from this Longecity survey of NMN users. If you have used NMN please contribute your experiences with it to this survey. Encouragingly, the vast majority of users responded positively to the two questions, Would you recommend NMN? and Would you continue using NMN?
Sound too good to be true?
Looking at this impressive list of benefits, it's understandable that you might be a little skeptical of NMN as such a wide-ranging biological panacea. The important thing to understand is that NMN on its own is not healing or fixing anything, it's just a fuel that allows your Mitochondria to properly do their job. Increasingly, anti-aging researchers are recognizing that Mitochondrial dysfunction underlies nearly every common chronic aging disease and health problem that holds us back from living fully. Mitochondrial function is downstream of every biological system and every organs' proper functioning. Supplementing NMN just gives your Mitochondria more of what they need to empower your body to heal and fix itself.
Perhaps you're a younger, mostly healthy person, without any major health issues. There's no downside to supplementing additional Mitochondrial fuel. The surplus of mitochondrial power will be channeled to your brain, enhancing your cognition or your immune system; fortifying your defenses to disease, infection, and illness.
Finally...
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