As someone who wants to keep up with the latest science surrounding longevity and aging well, then you may be familiar with David Sinclair and his views on how we can stay feeling our best as we age.
Dr David Sinclair is Professor of genetics and the co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Centre for Biology of Ageing Research at Harvard Medical School. He is also the author of Lifespan: Why we age and why we don’t have to, and recently released a podcast by the same name. David Sinclair’s podcast and book outline his theory as to why we age and the latest science regarding what we can do to slow the aging process. He is known in the longevity field due to his research on NAD+ and Sirtuins pioneering them as longevity genes. This article will look at what David Sinclair says about NAD+ and how we can maintain our NAD+ levels as we age.
NAD+ and Sirtuins are vital to aging well
Dr David Sinclair is a huge advocate for understanding the cellular biology behind the aging process and finding ways to slow or even reverse this process. A lot of his work has focused on NAD+ and sirtuins which he discusses in great detail in his book, Lifespan. He details how NAD+ is an essential molecule in our cells and vital to aging well. This is because NAD+ powers more than 500 biochemical reactions within our cells. Its main functions are in cellular energy production and as a signaling molecule switching on and off important cellular pathways – including sirtuins.
When we are young, NAD+ is very abundant within our cells, as our cells are able to make and recycle all the NAD+ they need. High levels of NAD+ keep us feeling our best and energized by supporting optimal cellular function and health. Research has now shown that declining NAD+ levels as we age contributes to the cellular aging process and therefore, maintaining high NAD+ levels as you age is vital to support healthy aging.
Benefits of Boosting NAD+
Many studies now consistently show that increasing your NAD+ levels (or maintaining high NAD+ levels) as you age has a wide variety of benefits.
Studies have shown that increasing NAD+ levels can:
However, increasing NAD+ levels isn’t as simple as just pumping more NAD+ into your cells. NAD+ production and also NAD+ decline is complex and requires a whole-system approach if you want to efficiently boost NAD+ levels.
NAD+ decline is complex
As we age our NAD+ levels decline by around 50% every 20 years, alongside this, sirtuin activation also declines – as sirtuins are dependent on NAD+ to function. And it isn’t just sirtuin activity that declines with age because of reduced NAD+. All the other pathways which require NAD+ to function also become less efficient with age. Collectively, this is a major driver of cellular aging and contributes to the signs of aging we feel.
But why do NAD+ levels decline with age? It is now known that NAD+ decline is a complex issue involving many aspects of the NAD+ network. Overall, NAD+ levels decline because:
- NAD+ production and recycling decreases with age
- NAD+ consumption increases with age
Therefore, to increase NAD+ levels and support cellular health it is important to understand the NAD+ network as a whole and target the root causes of NAD+ decline.
A whole-system approach to increasing NAD+ levels
NAD+ is a large molecule meaning it struggles to enter cells. For this reason, cells have several pathways to manufacture NAD+ inside the cell. NAD+ production involves various precursor materials (the raw materials used to make NAD+), multiple synthesis pathways and a variety of enzymes which fuel these pathways, forming a large and complex network. Furthermore, none of these pathways exist in isolation, rather, they all communicate and have various feedback loops.
Scientific studies now show, that multiple parts of this NAD+ production network become altered with age. Therefore, to efficiently increase cellular NAD+ levels it is essential to look at the entire NAD+ network and its interactions.
This is where a whole-systems approach becomes important. NAD+ decline is not the result of one single failure with age, but rather multiple different problems and to provide the greatest increase in NAD+ levels, we must address each of them. This is exactly the approach used to develop Nuchido TIME+. After years of research scientists identified the key parts of the NAD+ production network causing NAD+ decline and also the required combination of ingredients to fix these issues and increase NAD+ levels.
The combination of ingredients in Nuchido TIME+ is designed to
- Increase the cell’s ability to make NAD+
- Increase the cell’s ability to recycle NAD+
- Prevent the cell from wasting NAD+
- Increase the raw, precursors ingredients available to the cells to make NAD+
Using our whole-system approach to fundamentally support the way youthful cells make NAD+, Nuchido TIME+ has been clinically proven to boost NAD+ levels, and restore NAD+ recycling. The increase in NAD+ caused a reduction in inflammation, reversal of glycation and reversal of biological age.