NAD is everywhere right now. Supplements, podcasts, longevity clinics everybody’s talking about. And I’ll be honest, most of the time when something gets this trendy, I get a little skeptical. But NAD is different. This is not a fat. This is something I’ve been paying attention to for a long time. So what is NAD and why should you care? A few years ago, the wildfires came through my town in California. I lost my home. But what haunted me wasn’t the fire itself. It was what I saw in my clinic weeks later. Neighbors I’d known for years, burning eyes, crushing fatigue, lungs loaded with invisible ash, they couldn’t even see. That’s when it hit me. The air inside our homes is silently working against us. Every single day, not just during wildfires, but right now in your home, from your candles, your furniture, your cleaning products. That’s why I created Total Air as part of my new brand HomeKind Medical Grade Filtration, the same standard I trusted in the operating room, now protecting your family at home.

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Go to homekind.com and use code Clean Air for 10% off Total Air Filters because every breath matters make each one count.

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So first of all, NAD is involved in hundreds of chemical reactions. The fuel behind everything your cells do. An NAD is really responsible for how your mitochondria make energy ATP. No NAD? You don’t have any energy production. NAD not only activates your sirtuins, your longevity genes, your body’s guardians against aging and inflammation, I could go on and on. But here’s the problem. NAD declines steadily as you age. Now here’s why that decline matters more than most people realize the powerhouse of making energy. In fact, uh, I’ll use an example that I use with my patients, uh, to talk about how NAD is so important. And because it’s baseball season right now, the key to a double play is the second basem. Why? Well, the short stop gets the ball that’s hit, throws it to the second baseman. The second basem has to get the ball out of his glove, tag the runner who’s coming into second, get the ball and throw it to first.

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The faster the second baseman accomplishes that, the better chance you’re going to get a double play. So NAD simplistically is the key to making energy efficiently in your mitochondria. So without a great second basement, without NAD, that play falls apart. The problem is that mitochondrias start to sputter. Your NAD levels go down as you get older. DNA repair slows. Inflammation rises. You make less energy. You have slower recovery. Your brain doesn’t work as well. You get brain fog. So the exhaustion and fogginess most people chalk up to just getting older is often this happening. Okay, well, you might be thinking this is a natural part of aging, right? Well, what can I actually do about it? Well, this actually started a very long time ago with the French paradox. Now, you may remember the French paradox and that was French people eat a lot of fat.

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They eat a lot of cheeses and they certainly don’t seem to have any cares about eating healthy and yet they have far less heart disease than Americans even though they smoke like fenes over 39% of females in France still smoke and yet they’re skinny as rails. And so the French paradox purported that it’s because of all the red wine that French people consume. Red wine has a number of polyphenols, but the most important of those polyphenols is called resveratrol. And strangely enough, resveratrol is a polyphenol that really helps support NAD levels. And my good friend, David Sinclair, who is at Harvard, uh, got fascinated with this particular polyphenol in how it supported not only NAD levels, but the situins, which are really part and parcel with making us young and supporting our mitochondrial function. Now, it turns out that the French paradox probably wasn’t all it was chalked up to be.

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In fact, to get a meaningful amount of resveratrol in your diet, you would have to drink 150 bottles of red wine per day. Now, I’m not challenging you to do that, but that gives you an idea that, well, maybe the idea that red wine drinking was their secret wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but it doesn’t mean that supporting your NAD levels is not a bad idea. And the good news is you can actually support your NAD levels. For instance, one of the fascinating conclusions of looking at fasting and how it works is that it raises NAD levels. Exercise particularly strength training raises NAD naturally and amplify everything else you do. Now, you’ve heard a lot of hype about NR and NMN. Now, these are NAD precursors and your body converts them directly into NAD. Now, this is an area I’ve been watching closely for a very long time and the science has gotten really good and that’s why supplementing with NAD is a game changer, but here’s where I want to pump the brakes for a second because the supplement market around this has gotten a little wild.

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In fact, there are multiple studies that suggest that NAD precursors like NR or NMN will help boost NAD levels, but at the same time, studies have found many NMM products contain little or no actual NMN by the time you take them. They break down fast and what you order isn’t always what you get. Quality sourcing and stability matter enormously here. Now, the good news is when you get it right, these pills are effective, sustainable, and simple to use.

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So what should you look for? What are the non-negotiables? Well, you actually wanna look for proof that these NAD precursors are actually increasing NAD in experiments and preferably not only in vitro experiments, but also in vivo in animal studies. The other thing you really wanna find out is, well, if you’re going to take these supplements, what should you expect to see? Well, since NAD is <laugh> the second basement in the double play, you should realistically expect an improvement in, for instance, exercise performance, an improvement in energy, an improvement in how your brain functions, how it works. And if the science is correct, you should expect that your health span, which is the number of years you remain healthy, not the number of years you live is extended. In other words, it’s on thing to be … Well, I’ll give you an example. I’m about to turn 76.

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I still hike eight to 12 miles a day in the hills of Tuscany or France with my wife and quite frankly, there are other people who can do that, but there are not a lot of people who can do that anymore. Now, do I expect to continue to do that when I’m 86? Yes. Why? Because I haven’t changed now in my ability to cover that ground, uh, for 20 years. And I expect that my brain will continue to work the way it works now. When I compare people who, for instance, are 90 years old, there are some really good 90-year-olds that are my patients. In fact, I have several really good 100-year-old patients. On the other hand, there are very few good 90-year-olds that I meet. There are very few 100-year-olds that are good that I meet. What’s the difference? Well, one of the differences that these super agers have NAD that continues to work.

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Is there an age where you’d say supporting NAD stops being optimal? Well, I think we should put it another way around. Is there an age where we should start supporting NAD levels? And sadly, that age is falling more and more. Remember, most people, if you pay attention to the news, are aging at an accelerated rate. You just have to look at cancer ages in young people. There are now 25-year-olds, 30-year-olds who are developing colon cancer, which was unheard of during my training as a general surgeon and yet we see it now every day. And if cancer is a consequence of poor mitochondrial function like most of us think it is, then maybe we should start supporting NAD levels long before we think we’re getting old. So should this be something that’s no longer considered an option, but something that we should really think about early in our lives supporting?

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Likely, someone who’s feeling exhausted, foggy, dragging, they want, want to try that one thing to support NAD levels. And is that where I’d start? Well, it’s certainly if you’re already, if you’re in your 20s or 30s and you’re feeling like you’re 40 or 50, that’s a sign that the basic mechanism of energy production is failing you. How about this question? What would you say to someone who’s been burned by a bad NAD supplement before and is skeptical? Well, remember, this science is evolving and the science of producing a product that will actually support NAD levels that you can actually swallow it and measure a result is, is evolving. And because NAD is so big, a lot of companies are hopping in not producing a quality product just because you’ve heard the name like NR or NMN. So buyer beware. Thanks to actually my, uh, friendship with David Sinclair, I’ve been fascinated by NAD supported supplements for about 25 years now and I’ve watched the evolution of these supplements and how to support NAD.

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You know, I get asked all the time, “Dr. Gundry, why did it take you so long to make an NAD supplement?” And my answer is simple, because I wasn’t willing to make on until I could make it right. And here’s the problem with almost every NAD supplement on the market. They hand you a single precursor, usually NMN or NR and walk away. Well, that’s like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Yes, you’re adding more NAD, but you’re not fixing the reasons it keeps disappearing. So when I designed Elevate NAD Plus, I built the formula around a different question. Why is your NAD depleting in the first place? The science points to several culprits. As we age, oxidative stress quietly burns through NAD reserves. Senescent cells, I call them zombie cells, consume your NAD without giving anything back. And there’s an enzyme called CD38 that becomes increasingly active with age and literally choose through your NAD stores.

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So we went after all of it. We included both NMN and NR, two distinct precursor pathways because the research shows they complement each other. We use a patent pending beadlet system to protect the NMN through your stomach acid because NMN only converts to NAD in your gut. We added Curcetin to help clear those zombie cells and inhibit CD38. We added curecetin to help clear those zombie cells and inhibit CD38. And we included a clinically studied form of ergothianine called ergoactive, which not only supports brain health but has emerging research showing it can raise NAD levels through a completely separate hydrogen sulfide pathway that NMN and NR simply can’t replicate. This is what it looks like when a supplement is built by a researcher, not a marketer. So if you’re shopping for any NAD or NAD precursor supplement, here’s your checklist. Look for both NMN and NR.

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Two distinct pathways are better than one. A delivery system that protects NMN through stomach acid, otherwise it may not survive to become NAD. A CD38 inhibitor, Circetin, is the most researched option. Antioxidant support to protect the NAD you produce, ergothionine, particularly ergoactive for the novel production pathway, full label transparency, no proprietary blends hiding doses. You want to avoid single precursor only formulas with no depletion strategy, supplements with no delivery protection for NMN and products that are not third party tested for potency. Independent labs have found most NMN supplements contain less than 1% of their claimed dose.

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Now it’s time for the question of the week from at Yee Skyblue eight over on YouTube on my episode about which foods are wrecking your gut. They ask, “Is just basic organic oatmeal bad for you too for breakfast?” Well, sorry to break your bubble, but almost all organic oatmeals tested still test positive for glyphosate and other pesticides and herbicides. So no, oatmeal is not a great breakfast unless you’re a horse, in which case my horse woman daughter assures me that oats are great breakfast for horse, but you don’t look like a horse. Yee sky blue. Great question though. Now it’s time for the review of the week, a review from @Raspberry, 2828 over on YouTube on my thumbs up, thumbs down episode. They said I am forever grateful to your willingness to share all you’ve learned for free. The time you’ve given to make this contact impacted my family’s lives in the best way possible.

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Thank you for thumbs up. Well, thank you, Raspberry 2828. You know, I’ve learned so much from my patients over the last 25 plus years. I like to return the favor by telling you what I’ve learned and great point. It’s for free. I mean, where do you get that anymore? And thanks for writing in. And if you like what you hear, please rate us on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you get your information because you’ll turn other people on to, I hope, some great information for free.

At first, I didn’t think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice.

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There were thousands of movies and shows and they were all free. Truth

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That’s a wrap on today’s episode. And before you go, I wanna leave you with on task. If anything you heard today made you think made you wanna dig deeper or gave you something you’re going to pass along to someone you care about, please take 15 seconds and leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I know that sounds small, but those reviews are how Apple and Spotify decide which shows to surface to new listeners and this show only grows when people who’ve never heard of it suddenly find it. That person finding this podcast today could hear something that genuinely improves their life or the life of someone they love, maybe even saves one. Everything I share here comes from my research when writing my next book and my clinics, where I’ve been seeing patients six days a week for over 25 years working with nutrition and supplements as the primary treatment.

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This is real world medicine. Help me get it to more people and thank you. Truly thank you. I’m Dr. G and I’m always looking out for you.