Why CD38 Destroys NAD+ Faster Than You Produce It

Gary Brecka (0:00)

Hailey Bieber sat right next to me in a chair on national television, hooked up to an IV bag, and said she was going to do NAD for the rest of her life and never age. And almost overnight, NAD Plus turned into a $4.5 billion industry of IV drips, patches, nasal sprays, pills and powders, with clinics charging $2,000 a bag on the promise of reversing your age. Today, we're gonna separate the facts from the fiction on NAD, because some of what you've heard is absolutely true, and some of it is complete nonsense. NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is in every single cell in your body, and it has two jobs. The first job is energy. The second job is how that NAD gets used. NAD is real. It declines in your tissues as you age. The reason is that it's being destroyed, not that you stop baking it. Hangover cures? Fiction. Risk-free for everyone? Also fiction. Here's the biggest fact of all.

Haley Beaver sat right next to me in a chair on national television, hooked up to an IV bag and said she was going to do NAD for the rest of her life and never age. Kendall Jenner was sitting right in the chair next to her. And almost overnight, NAD plus turned into a $4.5 billion industry NAD has. a history of IV drips, patches, nasal sprays, pills and powders, with clinics charging $2,000 a bag on the promise of reversing your age, curing your hangover and even fixing your jet lag. So today we're going to separate the facts from the fiction on NAD, because some of what you've heard is absolutely true, and some of it is complete nonsense. And by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly which is which. I'm Gary Brecka, this is The Ultimate Human, and let's get started. So claim number one, NAD is just another overhyped supplement FAD. Verdict?

Fiction.

NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is in every single cell in your body, and it has two jobs. The first job is energy. Every calorie you eat, whether it comes from fat, carbohydrate or protein, has to pass through NAD on its way to becoming ATP, which is the energy currency of your cells. Without NAD, that conversion doesn't happen. The second job is how that NAD gets used. There are enzymes in your body that eat it. The proteins that regulate your metabolism and how your cells respond to stress, they run on NAD. The enzymes that repair damage to your DNA burn through NAD every time they go to work. So the hype was never about whether NAD matters, because it clearly does. The hype is about how you get it back. So claim number two. Your NAD levels crash 50% by the time you're 40 True.

Scientists have studied NAD levels in the skin, brain, liver, and even the muscle. They found that NAD runs lower in older people. For example, liver tissue in people over 60 comes in around 30% lower than in younger adults. And brain imaging shows the same downward trend. Claim number three. Your NAD drops because your body stops making it. The verdict? Fiction. Your body doesn't stop making NAD as you age. You actually destroy it faster. There's an enzyme called CD38 that sits on the surface of your immune cells, and its job is to chew up NAD. Research out of the Mayo Clinic showed that as you age, and especially as chronic inflammation climbs, CD38 levels rise and start burning through your NAD pool faster than you replace it. So a real NAD strategy has three parts. You replenish what's low, you slow down what's destroying it, and you support the machinery your body uses to recycle it. Claim number four.

NMN and NR are better than taking NAD itself. Verdict? It depends. NMN and nicotinamide riboside are what we call precursors, meaning they're raw materials your body converts into NAD through a few enzymatic steps. Taking NAD itself is a direct replacement of the finished molecule. Now let me give the precursor crowd their due, because they do have a point.

As a standalone ingredient, NMN and nicotinamide riboside actually carry the deeper research trial.

Clinical trials show that they reliably raise blood NAD levels, and if you're comparing them against plain NAD powder stuffed into a capsule, the precursors win that fight. Because as we covered earlier, naked NAD gets torn apart in your gut before it even reaches the cell. But notice the assumption buried in that comparison. It assumes the NAD shows up naked and alone, and that's exactly why my verdict is it depends. Because the answer entirely depends on what the NAD is paired with. This is the reason Symbiotica built their formula the way that they did with the protective liposome and added cofactors. Claim number five. NAD supplements are completely risk free. The verdict? Fiction. And I'm going to tell you exactly who should not take them. The short term human safety data is actually excellent. Trials have gone up to three grams a day with only mild side effects. But well tolerated is not the same as the right for everybody. If you have active cancer or recent cancer history, talk to your oncologist before touching anything that raises NAD.