NMN & NAD for Anti-Aging Just Changed

Brad positions TMG as a plausible explanation for the anecdotal NMN/NR success stories, because TMG is often taken with those supplements. He points to clinical evidence that TMG improves strength and jumping performance and boosts testosterone, benefits that are not seen with NMN/NR. He personally includes TMG in his own supplement (micro vitamin) for those reasons. He does not give a blanket public recommendation but shares his own practice openly, letting the evidence speak for itself.

The study recruited around 60 participants with long COVID, randomizing them to NR or placebo with a crossover phase. Blood NAD rose as expected, yet no metric improved—cognitive, immune, or mitochondrial. Brad frames this as the nail in the coffin for NMN/NR because even a population with obvious NAD strain showed no functional benefit. He notes this matches the pattern of other human NMN/NR trials: biochemical change without real‑world improvement. The absence of any sign of efficacy in long COVID heavily suggests that simply raising NAD is not enough to combat aging or disease.

Brad explains the reproducibility crisis: many spectacular initial findings cannot be repeated. The ITP tests compounds in three independent labs simultaneously, making it far more reliable. When it tested NR, the mice showed increased blood NAD, but no longevity gains or functional improvements. Brad argues this makes it highly improbable that NMN, another NAD precursor, would work either—both act by raising NAD, and if NR fails, NMN almost certainly would too. This failure dismantles the core promise that boosting NAD can delay mammalian aging.

Brad highlights data in muscle—a tissue highly relevant to function—where older exercising individuals maintained youthful NAD levels. If NAD can be preserved by something as accessible as exercise, the blanket argument for supraphysiological NAD boosting becomes much less compelling. Combined with the clinical trial failures, it suggests the original age‑decline model may be an oversimplification, and that lifestyle factors may be more important than supplementation.

Brad observes that many anecdotal reports of feeling better on NMN/NR might be genuine, but notes that TMG (trimethylglycine) is frequently added to avoid methyl‑group depletion. He cites a 2024 meta‑analysis showing TMG enhances strength and jumping performance, and data on boosted testosterone. He speculates that the positive anecdotes could be TMG‑driven, not NAD‑related. He himself includes TMG in his micro vitamin product for those evidence‑backed effects. While acknowledging this is speculative, he believes it aligns better with the clinical data than NMN/NR do.