Niacinamide is a precursor to NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), (an important signaling molecule that’s believed to play an necessary position in longevity. In truth, the most effective single NAD+ precursor is niacinamide, and that is motive alone to coach your self about its advantages, however niacinamide, often known as nicotinamide (NAM), can be priceless in its personal proper.
Supplementation with NAM has been discovered to enhance insulin sensitivity in fashions of human diabetes, as an example, and it additionally decreases oxidative stress and prevents fatty liver.1 It additionally exhibits spectacular promise for preventing weight problems and related illnesses, together with stroke, cardiovascular illnesses, diabetes and sure cancers, which have reached epidemic ranges worldwide.2
However the important thing with NAM is that you just want the precise “Goldilocks” dose. The commonest mistake individuals make is taking an excessive amount of and thereby truly sabotaging any metabolic advantages.
Niacinamide Reprograms Fats Metabolism, Ameliorates Weight problems
NAD+ modulates power manufacturing and lots of enzymes and in so doing controls a whole lot of processes in your physique, together with the survival of cells and power metabolism. NAD+ is influenced each day by what you eat, train ranges and extra, and likewise declines with age, resulting in modifications in metabolism and an elevated threat of illness.3
Boosting NAD+ ranges could also be akin to a fountain of youth, which is the place niacinamide — as an NAD+ precursor — is available in. Greater than 2 billion individuals worldwide are obese, 35% of whom are severely overweight.4 NAD+ has notable roles in weight problems, with increased ranges linked to decreases in fats tissue in overweight rodents and people.5
Writing in The Journal of Dietary Biochemistry, researchers from Tsinghua College, Beijing, revealed that NAM reprograms adipose mobile metabolism and will increase mitochondrial biogenesis to ameliorate weight problems.6 In a research on overweight mice, NAM supplementation led to important reductions in fats mass and improved glucose tolerance, whereas growing mitochondrial biogenesis in fats tissue.7
Niacinamide Prompts NAMPT
Within the research, NAM additionally activated the speed limiting enzyme for NAD+ NAMPT (nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase). Nichola Conlon, Ph.D., a molecular biologist, antiaging specialist and founding father of a nutraceutical firm that produces an NAD+ boosting complement, defined in our previous interview:8
“The explanation the salvage pathway declines with age is due to this one key enzyme. NAMPT truly recycles niacinamide and converts it into NMN [nicotinamide mononucleotide], which then will get transformed again into NAD. The speed limiting step, the bottleneck in that course of, is NAMPT. And lo and behold, that’s the key enzyme that declines as we grow old.
Research have demonstrated that you just get a 50% lower on this enzyme between the ages of 45 and 60. That is a major decline contemplating how necessary that is for brand new NAD manufacturing. The decline within the ranges of this enzyme once more correlate with the decline in NAD that we expertise.
Many illnesses and points which might be related to NAD decline are discovered to be due to a discount on this enzyme. So, it is completely vital to try to enhance the activation and expression of this enzyme within the physique to reinforce NAD. It labored brilliantly to offer us excessive NAD ranges after we have been youthful, so why not restore it again to that?”
Apparently, this latest research on overweight mice confirmed the dose that I really useful after I first posted it three months in the past. They discovered the NAM supplementation elevated mobile NAD+ stage by 30% — and this was with out the extra interventions I suggested, similar to train and time-restricted consuming. The researchers famous:9
“Unexpectedly, we discovered that NAM additionally elevated glucose derived amino acids to reinforce glutathione synthesis for sustaining mobile redox homeostasis. Taken collectively, our outcomes demonstrated that NAM reprogramed mobile metabolism, enhanced adipose mitochondrial features to ameliorate signs related to weight problems.”
In abstract, the research revealed spectacular advantages yielded by NAM supplementation at a low dose of two.5 milligrams (mg) per kilogram of physique weight day by day for 3 weeks10 which is about 170 mg for a 150-pound individual. I had really useful 50 mg 3 times a day. Along with will increase in NAD+ they famous:11
Decreased fats accumulation in mice with diet-induced weight problems — by 47% |
Elevated lean mass by 1.4-fold |
Enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis and features |
Elevated glucose derived glutathione to keep up redox homeostasis |
Elevated fatty acid catabolism and amelioration of weight problems12 |
Decreased physique weight of mice fed a traditional weight-reduction plan |
Niacinamide Is the Greatest NAD+ Precursor
In my analysis for my landmark ebook, “EMF’D,” I learn dozens, if not a whole lot, of papers on NAD+ and now understand it’s doubtless due to monetary pursuits that the most effective precursor — niacinamide — isn’t really useful extra incessantly.
The fast breakdown product of NAD+ is niacinamide and the enzyme NAMPT is the speed limiting enzyme within the salvage pathway to revive niacinamide again to NAD+. As you possibly can see by the pathway beneath, niacinamide is first transformed to NMN earlier than NAD+. That is doubtless why researchers like David Sinclair with Harvard Medical Faculty and others promote NMN.
Nonetheless, the enzyme NMNAT1-3 that converts NMN to NAD+ isn’t the speed limiting enzyme. Recall that NAMPT is what controls how a lot NAD+ you make. So, flooding your physique with NMN isn’t going to be as helpful as utilizing small quantities of niacinamide and activating NAMPT. Preferrred dosing of niacinamide is from 25 to 50 mg 3 times a day. It’s the uncommon one who is not going to reply favorably to this easy intervention for growing NAD+.

Why You Have not Heard of Niacinamide
With regards to NAD+ precursors, there’s likelihood you haven’t heard about niacinamide, regardless of its highly effective advantages, and it’s because it prices a lot lower than different NAD+ precursors, similar to nicotinamide riboside (NR).
Nobody is selling niacinamide as a result of it prices lower than one cent a day and in consequence there’s merely no cash to be made in selling it. Ideally you purchase niacinamide powder and use 1 to one-half of one-sixty-fourth of a teaspoon 3 times a day (25 to 50 mg).
If you want a extra exact dose you could possibly use the dose within the research of two.5 mg/kg or 1.13 mg/pound of physique weight in three divided day by day doses. If you’re a 150-pound individual this is able to be about 50 to 60 mg 3 times a day.
You have to particular measuring spoons to measure this small a dose. That is necessary, as extra is most undoubtedly not higher. For those who use an excessive amount of you’ll truly inhibit sirtuins, that are necessary longevity proteins.
Spending $11 on 250 grams of niacinamide powder provides you with an almost four-year provide. That pencils out to 23 cents a month — or lower than one penny a day. It’s principally free. NMN in therapeutic doses of 1 to 2 grams per day will be $100 to $200 a month, or 400 to 800 instances dearer than niacinamide powder.
Why Boosting NAD+ Ranges Is Necessary
As talked about, the rationale why the analysis into niacinamide is so thrilling is as a result of it seems to effectively and safely increase NAD+, which in any other case declines with age. In animal research, restoring NAD+ ranges in older or diseased people promoted higher well being and prolonged lifespan, which suggests NAD-boosting molecules have the potential to extend resilience, scale back illness and lengthen wholesome lifespan in people as nicely.13
Analysis into NAD+ remains to be in its infancy, however James Clement, creator of “The Change: Ignite Your Metabolism With Intermittent Fasting, Protein Biking, and Keto,” carried out his personal analysis, beginning with a medical trial testing intravenous NAD+ in aged individuals, in collaboration with Dr. John Sturges.
Clement underwent the remedy himself, which concerned an infusion of 1,000 mg of NAD+ per day for six straight days, and located it remarkably efficient for tremors he’d had since he was 20 years outdated. Whereas he believes 1,000 mg could also be an excessive amount of for individuals who don’t have a extreme NAD+ depletion — and can be value prohibitive, at $1,000 per IV — he famous that many way of life components can scale back your ranges, together with alcohol consumption.
Growing old is one other issue and, based on Clement, NAD+ could also be depleted by 50% by the point you’re 60 (in comparison with in your 20s or 30s), and once you’re 70 you might solely have 10% of the quantity you probably did once you have been youthful.
“After which at 80, there’s virtually none,” he stated, including that this can significantly impair your physique’s capability to restore damaged DNA. “You possibly can see how this large build-up of broken DNA in each cell of your physique is doubtlessly one of many driving forces of those morbidities that you just see with ageing, coronary heart illness, most cancers [and] Alzheimer’s …”
Pure Methods to Elevate Your NAD+
Niacinamide supplementation will be useful, however for greatest outcomes it ought to be completed along with a wholesome way of life. There are various pure methods you possibly can take to spice up and preserve youthful NAD+ ranges, together with:14
- Bodily train — Naturally will increase NAMPT by activating AMPK, which in flip will increase NAD+. Conlon cites analysis exhibiting about three weeks of resistance coaching will increase NAMPT by about 127%, which once more is way higher than what you may get from an NR complement alone.
- Fasting or time-restricted consuming — Naturally will increase NAMPT by activating AMPK, which in flip will increase NAD+.
- Circadian rhythm optimization, by going to mattress at sundown and getting up at dawn and avoiding blue gentle after sundown, may have profound impacts on growing NAMPT.
- Keep away from radiation publicity — To guard your NAD+ by stopping its consumption by PARPs (poly ADP ribose polymerases), contemplate avoiding EMFs within the type of your cellphone, Wi-Fi and different types of DNA damaging radiation, similar to pointless medical X-rays and CT scans.
- Sauna bathing — Warmth stress helps increase NAD+.
It’s tough and sophisticated to check NAD+ ranges in a lab, and Conlon is skeptical that the majority corporations that publicize NAD+ testing are getting correct outcomes. So how will you know if the methods you’re utilizing are literally growing your ranges? Take note of the next three objects, which practically all the time enhance as NAD+ ranges enhance, based on Conlon:15
- Power ranges, extra “rise up and go”
- Psychological readability and focus
- Sleep