The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Are NMN and NAD+ really magic supplements that YOU should be taking?
After last week's part 1 where I covered Protein, creatine etc. This week I'm tackling some of today's talked-about/hyped supplements and explain why it's crucial to approach them with a healthy dose of skepticism. Promising to clarify the role of trendy options like NAD, NAD+, and NMN,
Can boosting naturally declining NAD levels truly reverse aging? And should you trust wellness gurus who pivot from publishing to selling supplements with scant evidence?
With non-human studies forming the backbone of much of the current research, you'll hear why investing in healthy lifestyle habits like exercise and diet might be your best bet. I also call out the pattern of wellness figures capitalizing on fleeting trends, urging you to stay informed and cautious about what's genuinely effective for your health.
Link to the study I mentioned
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Playing us out; "I've got a whole lot of swing" by Thruline
Hey, welcome to the Alfe Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Laap. I'm not sure why I said podcast not loudly. Today we're doing part two of the supplement edition. So last week I covered protein and creatine and all that type of stuff. Today I am talking more lifestyle supplements Instagram I almost called them Instagram supplements NAD, nad+ and NMN, not the wrapper, the other way around. I did a little bit on NMN before and we're kind of coming back to this because this is cropping up absolutely everywhere on Instagram right now.
Peter:So should you be taking it? What is the evidence? What actually is it supposed to even do? Right, without further ado, peter Lap, this is the podcast for the 15th of December 2024. And I hope you're well. I'm just surrounded by the four usual suspects today, so there shouldn't be too much noise in the background. I hope you're well. We're almost at Christmas time. There should be podcasts next week. I think I have a Q&A coming up next week, peter, at HealthyPersonalBodycom, if you have any questions. By the way, again, you can also do that texting thing that all the cool kids are into these days. So I hope you listened to last week's episode and I hope you got something from it.
Peter:That was the part one, so to speak, of supplements.
Peter:I wanted to do a little bit about supplementation and, of course, as a personal trainer, we get asked an awful lot about this type of stuff and, to be honest, we are not always the most qualified to answer all these questions.
Peter:So what we can always only do when it comes to this sort of thing is tell you what the experts tell us, right, what the evidence actually says, and I think that's I think that's useful to point out in advance, because a lot of the times you see adverts for supplements, they feature a personal trainer of some sort or some sort of coach, right, and the same goes for the supplements I'm discussing today NAD, nmn and NAD+, nad, nad+. You see an awful lot of ads on Instagram now, usually with someone in their 30s 40s that goes, ah, I started taking NMN or NAD, and NAD is better than NMN, and I feel so much better now because you know this is what it does. It it's, uh, nmn is is an NAD. They're involved in DNA repair and I'm getting all down cellular metabolism and energy, and I have more energy now and I'm a beast and.
Peter:I'm a, I feel phenomenal and you should buy this as well. Nine out of 10 times the people that say that don't actually have the quality and the qualifications to sell you anything, and 99 out of 100 times people that sell supplements are more in it for financial gain than they are to actually help people. And, like I said last week, I covered the more established supplements protein, creatine, that type of stuff, even pumpkin seeds and I did get an email about the pumpkin one, the bladder supplement, by the way, which was a fair point that pointed out to me that dosage matters and sometimes it's easier for a supplement to get a higher dose of something in than it would be to eat something in its natural form, such as pumpkin seeds, for instance. That doesn't go necessarily for Jude and the bladder supplements that I discussed. In fact that doesn't go at all for it, but for other supplements that's true. If you're looking to get I don't know creatine in, for instance, you could just eat meat, uh, but you'd have to eat a significant amount of meat to get the five grams of creatine that we kind of kind of think of. Uh works really well, so you know. Thanks again for pointing that out.
Peter:All the other stuff, all the let's say new supplements or newer supplements that just haven't been around that long yet. They tend to be like a new I'm trying to be very careful in how I phrase this because I don't want to end up like Stephen Bartlett and be accused of spreading misinformation but they tend to be new inventions and because the supplement market is, relatively speaking, completely unregulated, they can make fairly wild claims, especially on social media, and that can be really really tricky. Like I said, the evidence for, say, protein supplementation and what whey protein does and soy protein and pea protein and all that sort of stuff. What that does is very clear. That stuff is really well studied. It has been kicking around for a long time, we know how safe it is and all that type of stuff. What that does is very clear. That stuff is really well studied, has been kicking around for a long time, we know how safe it is and all that type of stuff. With a lot of the newer supplements that have much bolder claims, we don't really have any of that testing and that is kind of what we come across with.
Peter:I'll start with NAD and NAD+. Now, nad stands for sorry, and I'm going to butcher this, nicotinamide, adenine, dinucleotide. Jesus, I told you I would butcher this. See, I told you I would butcher this. Now, like NMN and all sorts of this. You see this, with a lot of the new supplements, there's a lot of.
Peter:Well, if this occurs naturally in the body and the levels in the body decline as we age, then it must be a good thing to increase that and that keeps you younger for longer. Right, that makes sense. Be a good thing to to increase that and that keeps you younger for longer. Right that that. That makes sense in. As in, it passes. It passes the quick sniff test, so to speak. As in, I feel great in my 20s. My skin is younger. In my 20s I have more energy. In my 20s, by the time I'm 40, I look a bit older. I have a bit less, bit less energy, and one of the things that drops throughout the years is the NAD levels and therefore, if we supplement with NAD and pop that up, that should then give us a boost. Right, that sounds sensible. That sounds like it kind of makes sense. The problem with that, of course and there is always a problem is that you could also say that people in their 20s are younger and I don't know, the body can withstand more battle.
Peter:You haven't done as much damage yet in your 20s as you have done in your 40s, right? That having less energy is maybe down to having kids, because you don't sleep as well, and all that sort of stuff. It's down to lifestyle changes. It's down to working more than you did in your 20s I don't know about you, but than you did in your 20s, I don't know about you. But, um, yeah, you know, in my 20s I had tremendous amounts of energy, mainly because I did bugger all, all day, and now I have essentially two jobs and I work six days a week and and I've got three dogs, and I've got a house and I've got a cat, and I wake up in the middle of the night a couple of times to go to the, and therefore I am more tired now that I'm 50 than I was in my 20s, or at least that's how it seems, because I don't remember my energy levels in my 20s all that well. Maybe I was also tired all the time, right? So it sounds like a thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a thing.
Peter:Now, with regards to NAD, which is also known as NAD+, nadh and all that sort of stuff. So there are some trials that have run on this, some studies that have been done on this, but the studies tend to be ridiculously limited and in very early stages, right. So this is quite often the problem with what I call Instagram supplementation is that they don't tell you that the study was done in a Petri dish, or they don't tell you that, or they say that this is promising anti-aging right, anti-aging right, anti-aging effects. Yeah, in mice or something like that. And the reason we're testing in mice is not because mice are so remarkably similar to us, right?
Peter:Animal studies are showing some promising things with regards to NAD, are showing some promising things with regards to NAD, but I have not really been able to find a human trial at any level. That is remarkably, let's say, robust, is remarkably, let's say robust. So, um, what you'll find online with regards to nad I'll come back to this, because a lot of these claims are, are kind of, are kind of um, lauded on on on instagram. And again, I'm being very careful with how our faces, I'm thinking, I'm picking my words a little bit, right. As you can tell, I don't write the script for this stuff, so I have to. We know, pete, but 200 odd episodes you've never, written a script for anything.
Peter:That's very, very true. Um, so the, the, the claims are uh, okay, cardiovascular health might, might improve, right, especially in middle age and older people. Aging skeletal muscle might have a benefit for anti-inflammatory effects, potentially helping to prevent the loss of muscle function, strength and mass and all that sort of stuff. And mitochondrial mitochondrial functions might. There might be an improvement in cognitive function and all that sort of stuff which they then claim oh, this also helps prevent Parkinson's disease and all that type of stuff. And this is where we're done, really, really moving into the. But does it, though, sort of thing. And we're talking skin aging and all that, basically anything. And this is how you know that the science isn't there when one little thing is claimed to have all the benefits in the world, right. So in this case, I found one article that says it slows certain effects of aging, right, some of which I gave you. Improves cognitive function, uh, stops skin aging, and it increases your metabolic health, which regulates your insulin levels and your cortisol and all that type of stuff, your blood sugar levels and all that type of thing. As soon as someone goes hey, there's one little pill that you can take, fix this. All that stuff, we should start to get really, really suspicious, because quite often that is just not really the case.
Peter:Now, with NAD, some of the things that I mentioned there, such as muscle function, yeah, that is through exercise, right, because NAD occurs naturally in the body and you can increase that by living a healthier lifestyle. And do you now kind of see where I'm going with this whole chicken and egg thing, as in does the decrease in NAD? So does the decrease in NAD that comes with aging? Is that? Are the effects of aging because of the decrease of NAD, or is this because you don't exercise anymore? Your lifestyle goes to pot a little bit, you don't sleep well enough, you don't eat well enough, right? So that is.
Peter:It is really tricky for someone to say now, if you supplement with NAD but you're not exercising, then this will be massively beneficial to you. Nine out of ten times the people that you see making claims about this type of supplement, these early I call early, early trial lifestyle supplements, anti-aging stuff they say I can now go to the gym and yeah, you could already go to the gym and increase your natural nad levels and feel better and feel younger and all that type of stuff, you drink enough water, you get enough sleep and therefore you'll be healthier. Right, you're supporting your metabolic health. It's something that we tend to start doing by improving our diet. Managing cortisol levels is managing stress levels. Can we take a pill for that? Yeah, there are some pills are available, but will natural NAD supplementation be useful for that? Well, that is all of a sudden, really, really debatable, right? When people start saying I started doing a meditation class, I started doing an exercise class and I started eating healthy, oh, and also take an NAD supplement and I now feel wonderful. But it's not then because of that fourth pillar, right, and that is quite often what the sales pitch is.
Peter:The issue with the NAD is that there are some promising results, like I said, in early studies, but everybody knows that you know if you've ever listened to Radio 4 in the UK or read any headline in the Daily Mail, which is a prime example of this. They always say early studies, so we can now cure cancer, certain types of cancer, within 10 years because of X, y, z, and you never hear of these things again Because it turns out it doesn't actually work Just because something is promising in a mouse or promising in a petri dish. That doesn't mean that translates into a living human being. Translates into a living human being, right? I will link to a paper that I found which is Clinical Evidence for Targeting NAD Therapeutically, by Dina Radenkovic, phd, of course, right, and then Eric Ferdinand, phd, and that has an interesting conclusion in that they're basically saying should we do lifestyle stuff here or should we just supplement? Should we just supplement? And what they're saying is that, in addition and I'll just read this bit out, which is why it sounds more fluent In addition, we sought medical indications that have yielded the most promising results.
Peter:In the limited studies to date, we conclude that promising, yet still speculative results have been reported for the treatment of psoriasis and enhancement of skeletal muscle activity. However, further trials are required to determine the optimal method of raising NAD levels, as in supplement or lifestyle, identifying the target conditions and comparisons to the present standard of care for these conditions. Lastly, pharmacological methods that increase NAD levels should also be directly compared to physiological means of raising NAD levels, such as exercise programs and dietary interventions that are tailored to older individuals and which may be more effective. So you know, somebody is an expert when they're putting loads of caveats in. We spoke about this before. You hear this a lot if you follow the right people, right People that know what they're talking about tend not to make ridiculously bold statements about things, because there's a caveat for everything. So let me just de-academize it no, it's not a word, de-expertise it, as in. I will translate this back into Don Peter language, so to speak. Right, so, in addition, we sought medical education that have yielded the most promising results in a limited study. In addition, we have looked for medical indications, so they haven't found it yet. We conclude that promising, yet still speculative results have been reported.
Peter:Okay, so even the promising results that have been reported for the treatment, in this case, of psoriasis and enhancement of skeletal muscle are still speculative. As in, we don't know yet. It's way too early, way too early to start taking this stuff. The trials haven't even been run properly yet, the proper trials on humans and all that type of stuff. Further trials are required to determine the optimal method of raising NAD levels, right? So should you take supplements or should you exercise? And identifying the target conditions, when should you do what? And and all that type of stuff.
Peter:Lastly, pharmacological methods that increase nad levels should also directly be compared to physiological means of raising nad levels, such as exercise programs and diets, which means I haven't been. That is what that means. The supplement has not yet been compared to just going out and exercising Right or eating better. Just let that sink in a little bit. The stuff you're taking a pill for has A not been tested well and extensively enough on humans for safety. That's how supplements work. If it hasn't killed you yet, they can sell it. It hasn't been tested on people yet. It hasn't been tested on people yet.
Peter:The only benefits that have actually been reported are like treatment of psoriasis. Well, that's a medical condition, so unless you have that, you're not taking it. Enhancement of skeletal muscle activity but we don't know yet how that works and when that works and when, not when we know exercise works right Unless you have a medical condition, and that's what they say here. With regards to raising NAD levels, naturally may be more effective. Which may be more effective is. The final statement from that particular paper is that you can almost I would translate that almost as is likely to be more effective, because it is proven Exercising works right. We have all the studies in the world that back that up.
Peter:Living and by exercising I mean just living an active lifestyle, right, uh, for skeletal muscle. If you want to do, if you want to build some muscle, you need to lift things every now and again, but you at least need to move. You need to not be sedentary as uh, as much as as other people are right, so that that is really important. It is almost inevitable, like I said earlier on, when someone promises to sell you something that will fix everything from metabolic health to anti-aging, to skin care, to stress levels and all that type of stuff, to brain function and it will stop Parkinson's and help with Alzheimer's and all that type of stuff, it's magic. Just buy it. And the only actual benefits potentially in people that have been reported that have been studied at some level at least in really, really early, crappy trials, so to speak. The early stage trials are to see if they should progress along those lines. That's what these early trials are for.
Peter:It's for the treatment of medical conditions psoriasis Unless your hair has fallen out and mine already has a long time ago male pattern baldness, not psoriasis and getting some more skeletal muscle I would say enhancement of skeletal muscle activity, as they call it. Then you have to wonder why you would spend 160 to 200 pounds, or let's say 300 bucks, a month on supplementation for this particular stuff. Now, this kind of ties in, and this is why I put them together with NMN, because they are. So NMN is and I'm going to butcher this as well is nicotinamide mononucleotide, so NAD is I didn't mean dinucleotide, so NAD is adenine dinucleotide, so the first word is already the same right Nicotinamide. So it has a similar function to do with, like I said, dna repair, metabolism, cellular metabolism, energy production and all that type of stuff.
Peter:Now NMN is a precursor to NAD+, which then drives those molecular processes, and NMN is again proposed to have the anti-aging properties as it increases NAD plus levels in the body. Now the reason I brought these together is they're not just closely related. A lot of the ads that mention NAD and NAD plus are telling you it's better than NMN, are telling you it's better than NMN because NMN drives the, the, the energy plus is the thing that is directly responsible for all these, all these wonders in the body, and NMN is just a shitty precursor to that right. That's kind of how that is sold. Now I did a thing on NMN a long time ago, part of a podcast episode, when David Sinclair wrote about it in his book. And for those of you who don't know David Sinclair, keep it down, I'm half kidding, kidding, um, right, david sinclair is, is, is someone who's a bit more on the fringes of, um, let's say, of the health and and fitness, uh, fitness field.
Peter:Right, he's written, uh, several books, and that is how, how I know of him because, um, one of my clients kept buying the books and and he, he's one of those guys that says, yeah, we don't need to age, and he wrote like lifespan and all that. So this is why we age and you can live longer if you just buy his stuff, right, it's, it's one of those books, it's, it's one of those, one of those guys that just says, yeah, no, you know, this is exactly the thing that I described earlier with gas, nad or NAD+, as in this, thing naturally declines in age. Therefore, if we supplement with it, you can live forever and be young forever. And don't I look wonderful? Because it's always those guys, right, and we'll ignore the amount of work they have done and all that type of stuff. Aren't their teeth gorgeous? Yeah, they're not his teeth, right? That type of stuff, those type of guys.
Peter:And it is really difficult when someone like that, who writes a book about this stuff and starts selling supplements because sooner or later they all do At the time the book came out, he wasn't selling uh, and a man. Yet he wasn't associated with anything. Yet he was just one of those instagram guys who wrote a book and said I take an amount of porridge every morning and there's nothing wrong with that. People experimenting on themselves, yeah, go nuts. As far as I'm concerned, you could take heroin with your porridge every morning. I genuinely don't care.
Peter:Just don't tell people that there are benefits to taking that stuff when they are completely unproven, or at least it's all speculative. At least explain to people that your thought process is what I described earlier. Well, as I got older, these levels dropped and therefore, if I supplement with this, the thinking is that I can keep my energy levels and metabolism up and all that type of stuff and nobody needs to get fat anymore. Right, that type of that type of thing is usually what. What drives it, as I, as I said earlier, you have to be really clear. So in the beginning, when David Sinclair wrote that book, I'd call him Dr Sinclair, but I really can't bring myself to do it.
Peter:At some stage you need to take the title away from people. You just do so. At some stage you're going to have to say, um, it is, this is not proven yet, right, and and you can't buy this stuff, and and at the time he wasn't saying that this is how much he took or the company which he bought it from, and all that type of stuff, but you can already feel it in the air. These people start off selling a book. They create a bit of demand for it and then, when they become the NMN guy or when other people become paleo mom and all that type of stuff, that's when they start selling on the back of that. That is always what they do.
Peter:You build credibility first by not selling anything and just writing a book about it and how brilliant you are and how you have the secret and and and the thing that is free and or at least that you're not selling, is is is amazing, and you build credibility. And then all of a sudden, boom, here's your supplement. Right, and I also own a share in the company. Steven bartlett style, right, fuel is amazing, amazing. Yeah, your own Huel, steve, you know that sort of thing. It is the grifter's funnel, I call it.
Peter:Start by writing a book. Make sure your title gets used. So in my case, I could write a book as Dr Peter Lapp. It doesn't matter that my PhD is not in a relevant field. I can insist on using the title in the book. It's completely legitimate to do so. I think it's immoral to do so, but it's completely legitimate to do so. And then you promise solutions, solutions, simple solutions. Just take this little pill or take a scoop of something I don't sell and you'll feel better. And then, before you know it, when you're an expert and you get invited a lot to speak on podcasts and television shows and all that type of stuff Oprah and Dr Oz and Dr Phil and all these other guys and then all of a sudden, ah, you know what? Just buy mine because mine is better than the others. Just buy mine because mine is better than the others. And that is to get back to my original long-winded point, kind of how these Instagram ads work. Nad is better than NMN because NMN is trying to raise NAD plus levels and therefore taking NAD plus directly must be better than NMN. And there is nothing that I found that backs any of that up on any reliable level, to the point that I say you should part ways with your money, in the same way that I did, for instance, last week for uh for protein.
Peter:If you, if you're looking to supplement for protein, uh, get your protein levels up a bit. Some protein supplementation with your whey protein or pea protein, soy, soy protein, whatever you take, it's completely safe as long as you buy it from a good source. And I just said, don't spend too much money on it. Creatine supplementation again completely safe, works for most people. Most people are happy with it. Some people get a little bit of a reaction. They don't like it. They sit weird in their tummy or something like that.
Peter:I used to work with one guy that used to I don't know he. He thought he got like heart palpitations because of it. I'm not sure it's true. It could just be that he was a really big boy. He was unhealthy at the time. But again, that stuff is six quid a pop from from uh. My protein not, and my isn't peter laps protein. My protein is just the myproteincom website. There isn't a better version of that stuff available.
Peter:So you don't never need to pay more, right? You don't need to go for the healthy postnatal body protein? There is no such thing, but you don't need to do it. You don't need to buy healthy postnatal, postpartum creatine. You don't need to buy pink creatine or pink protein, but at least that stuff is proven to work. Are there other ways of getting protein? Yeah, sure, but I'm just saying should you take protein? No, maybe not, probably not. But if you decide that you do need it because you have a protein macro you need to hit, then it's completely safe to do so.
Peter:You know you're not wasting your money With NAD+ and NMN and all that type of stuff almost everything that comes out. That promise you. Like I said before all the answers, you're just wasting your money. And let me have a quick look for you to see just how expensive NMN or NAD plus plus supplement is 53 pounds for a month for something called clean NMN. Clean it, and this is what I mean clean NMN. But the other stuff is dirty right. And the plus supplements is 60 quid a month. Pure element entity plus longevity support 65 pound a month. I mean, jesus, you're just wasting your money on this stuff. You really are. So don't buy it, just spend your money on something else. Buy nice food, do a bit of buy and get a gym membership, do some bicep curls. That will also increase your NAD levels. Yeah, nad plus levels.
Peter:I'm sorry, I know someone's going to email about it. I always miss pluses and stuff. I know, you know what I'm talking about. That's all I'm saying. Anyways, that's me done for another week. I can't believe I spent half an hour ranting about these two crappy, crappy supplements. Save your money. That's the message If you listen to this podcast for half an hour. Save your money. I just saved you 60 quid a month, right, 700 pound a year. I saved you just by listening to this free podcast and by not buying garbage. Anyways, peter at HealthyPostNatalBodycom, here's a new bit of music Q&A next week, I think. But anyways, take care of yourself. Bye now.
Speaker 2:Thank you, do, do, do, do, thank you, do do, thank you.