Question: NMN vs. NR: What's better? And is TMG necessary?
Yeah. There are no human studies looking at NMN and how it's metabolized. There are studies of NR. No one has showed any positive benefits of supplementing NR in humans yet, but they haven't really done any long-term studies or looked at many things, and they really haven't looked at anything that I would really want to see for NR. They've looked at things like glucose and lipids and other metrics of metabolic health doesn't really do anything for that.
This is what I would say. My strong suspicion is that NMN is not absorbed intact. It's broken down into NR and it's absorbed intact as NR, while NR is just absorbed intact in NR. I believe that both of those supplements are going to lead to NR getting into the liver. I mean, I would use NR because there's more data on NR, and I wouldn't use NMN because there isn't any data on it. But it probably makes no difference at all because they're probably both absorbed as NR.
Maybe if your digestion is weaker, you're going to do better within NR than NMN because you probably almost certainly are not absorbing NMN intact. If you're not digesting it, then you're absorbing less of it. But probably for most people, it makes no difference. I believe that both of these are going to generate NAD levels in the liver much more effectively than nicotinic acid or niacinamide would, the two common niacin supplements that are available on the market now and have been taken for ages. I think it will be better at boosting NAD levels in the liver. I think that will allow the liver to nourish many other tissues in the body to get a better NAD response in those tissues.
My suspicion is that this is going to have a positive effect for anti-aging, for cellular repair. I think it's probably going to have a lot of promise for mental effects in the brain where there's high NAD turnover for neurotransmitter release. I think it's going to have probably really good effects in the gut where there's high NAD turnover because the gut faces so much damage by just being forced to deal with everything that you put into your body, unlike everything after the gut, after absorption, which has really high quality control. I think it's going to be great for skin issues.
I think that in order to get the best NAD response and to tax the methylation system the least, you want to take a smaller dose with every meal rather than taking a higher dose once. I would take like 150 milligrams max at a meal. If you're going to take 450 milligrams, I'd take 150 at each of three meals. If you want to take less than that, you either use the powder or empty half of it out in a capsule. Like take half the capsule, empty it out into your mouth with a meal, 150-milligram capsule to do that. It will give you 75 milligrams. Take that three times a day.
Then there's no good test to really see whether it's doing anything for you. You really have to judge it by your response. Are you getting tangible benefits from it? If so, then I think it's fine to keep it up. But yeah, I would take 100 milligrams of TMG for every 200 milligrams of nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide. Personally, I wouldn't use the NMN and use the NR because there's more data on it.
This Q&A can also be found as part of a much longer episode, here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/podcast/2019/03/08/ask-anything-nutrition-feb-23-2019
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Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.
