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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

Don't bother. Sinclair is considered a quack by even some life-extension enthusiasts.

He owns part of the company that makes patented NMN which is just another form of NR which is a another form of very cheap Niacin.

He also owns part of the company that claims he is rolling back his biological clock.

That's not science, that's marketing and profiteering.

NAD production slows down with age and illness. All he is doing is supplementing what was produced more easily by a younger body.

There are a many other factors to aging, most of which cannot be changed (yet) by science.

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I am doing some experiments with NR (no Sinclair in the business chain AFAIK) and pterostilbene and my ability to exercise has improved noticeably. I am 43 and I used to be fairly sore after a strenuous 60 minute exercise - especially my sinews were bad. This wasn't getting any better with more exercise, actually it was slowly getting worse with age, to the degree that I wasn't able to exercise in two consecutive days and sometimes I had to wait until the third day to go to the gym again. (To be clear, I am neither fat nor riddled with any serious disease.)

Nowadays the small pains and aches go away in a few hours, like when I was some 15 years younger. But if I stop the supplementation, the situation reverts to the old bad standard within a month or so.

I also noticed some effect on my visual acuity.

I know this is N == 1, hard to measure precisely and subject to a possible placebo effect.

Note I am not disputing NAD supplementation, only the limits of what it can do and who can benefit from it.

The key to NAD supplementation is the people who need it are older or ill.

There are a lot of other processes in such bodies that become deficient too.

None of the supplement methods for NAD, Niacin, NR, NMN will boost levels beyond what your body will use.

This is what the NAD cycle looks like, you can see NA (niacin) vs NR vs NMN are each closer to production but the end result is the same of what ends up in the blood vs organs like liver.

https://www.lifespan.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/NAD_schem...

There are wild arguments, even with scientific rigor, about NR vs NMN ability to get into cells. It is more likely that genetics matters and it varies from person to person and what else is in their diet.

I had a similar response doing a mostly vegan calorie restricted low protein diet. I was blown away because I had always been told protein = recovery, calories = recovery, but I have been able to rock climb pretty hard 6 days a week for the past 4 months now. Keto, general healthy eating, tons of supplements and all the other things I have tried have resulted in maybe 3-4 hard sessions a week and achy joints.

Why disregard someone simply because they own a piece of a company that also supports the goal? I think any rational person would do the same - you believe in something so you start, invest in, or advise a company.

I think the comment also said that this person’s views aren’t taken seriously in the aging research community. So the combination of their ideas and a desire to profit from them raises flags.

I don't think Harvard would let Sinclair have a lab with some 35 people and publish articles under their name if he was a total fraud/quack.

My impression of Sinclair is that he likes public attention too much and often reports on work in progress with too much certainty, but results like this [1] seem to be fairly impressive.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4

Counterpoint from someone more educated (with a more precise conclusion that he is "not evidence based")

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1492902239312039938.html

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