← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
577. Tired, Foggy, Aging Fast - Let’s Talk NAD!
00:49:26
Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:01]
A
What happens if we don't have enough nad? The same amount of stress may now cause that cell to have to go through door number two, three, or four instead of hanging out and walking through door number one. And since cells, like I said, never know when they'll be stressed or how much, we want to make sure they have enough NAD to respond appropriately. And that becomes important because science knows that our NAD levels go down progressively the older we get.
- [00:29]
B
Welcome to the Thyroid Fixer podcast, where we dive deep into the world of thyroid and hormones. Especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and menopause, and really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism. I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be. So if you're battling weight gain and hair loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plummeting and your libido left town, then you're in the right place and you have found your tribe. Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. Okay. You know that I love peptides, and I love what peptides can do for our skin. Now, we know with age and UV exposure, we're getting wrinkles. Our skin is aging. It's getting age spots. So there's one company in particular, One Skin, which. Side note, founded and led by an all woman team of skin longevity scientists, they looked at over 900 peptides. And from diving into the science of these 900 peptides, they combined many of them and developed OSO1, which is the first ingredient scientifically proven to interrupt our core aging process, where our cells just really stop functioning normally. And then that collagen and elastin that plumps our skin and makes it look good and youthful goes into the toilet. And then what happens with age and UV exposure, the release of harmful inflammatory chemicals that's just going to damage our skin and make you look older than you already are. That's not good. We don't want that. We want to look younger and we want to stop our skin from aging. So OSO1 switches off these bad cells, these toxic cells, and it addresses the root cause of skin aging, which helps your skin stay younger and healthier. It's your largest organ. It's not just about appearance, but you know, appearance is great when you to look a little bit better and you look a little bit younger and you take a couple years off of your face. Who doesn't want that? So that's why I love my one skin. OS01. I chose one skin because of the research, because of the peptide action on our face. As much as peptides work in our bodies, they also work topically. You just have to try this, just try out one skin. You can let me know about your skin's appearance after you use it for a month or so. So you're going to go to one skin.co that's O N E S K I N.co forward slash Dr. Amy. Use the code Dr. Amy D R A M I E. This is giving you 15% off your first order. You are not going to regret it. Your skin is going to thank you and then you're going to thank me. I completely and totally hear you and I see you and I understand you and I know exactly where you're at. You're gaining weight. You can't lose. You have all the symptoms that no one's listening to. The fatigue, the hair loss, the brain fog. You can't remember why you walked into a room. You don't want to get dressed and go out because you know if you have that glass of wine with your friend, if you have that dessert with your husband or even order an appetizer, you're going to be five pounds heavier the next day and your clothes are already tight. Every single doctor is telling you that you're normal and everything is fine. You've been to multiple conventional medicine doctors trying to use your insurance, hoping to God that somebody has an answer. Then you've dropped thousands of dollars on functional medicine or integrative medicine because you keep hearing how functional medicine gets to the root cause of the problem. But not every functional medicine practitioner knows the thyroid and knows the hormones and can treat you as a nuanced, personalized individual, a unique person. That is exactly what my team and I do. We specialize in thyroid problems. We specialize in hormones. You can't do one without the other. You cannot just see someone for your thyroid and have them ignore your hormones or have them half ass your hormones. They better be a hormone and thyroid expert. If you are going to spend your time, your energy and your money, if you are going to invest in functional medicine, they need to be a thyroid and hormone expert and treat you as an individual. They can't have a cap on how much T3 that they're going to give you. They have to personalize your treatment plan to get you feeling your best, no matter what that looks like, so that every system in your body functions at the very top, at the very best. And that is exactly what we do. I made it my mission because I went through this. I was dismissed, I was gaslit, I was misdiagnosed, and I dropped thousands of dollars before I found an answer. That is why I made it my mission to be able to treat people in all 50 states so we can prescribe via telehealth, thyroid and hormones and peptides. Yeah, the GLPs as well, to all 50 states, most of Canada and now Puerto Rico. That is my mission to be able to help you wherever you are, because I want you living your best life. I want you to join me in optimization land where you can go out and love life and go out with your friends and go out with your partner and not gain weight looking sideways at a brownie. Yes, we do have financing options available. I'm talking like 0% or 12 months, the whole thing based on your credit score. We got you. And our programs are affordable. They're completely and totally affordable. And they will get you from point A to point B. They will bring you into optimization land. So please don't waste another moment struggling, please. I want you living here with me, a great, happy life in optimization land. So go to my website@dramy.com, click the Become a patient button so we can have a chat. Let's talk it out. Let's hear what you've done, what you haven't done, what's worked, what hasn't worked. And let's get you on the right path to feeling your absolute best. If you can imagine the best life ever that is absolutely possible for you. I'm not BSing you. I am not BSing you. I was in your shoes. Many of my patients have been in your shoes. We will get you there. And that is my promise to you. Dr. Greg, I'm so happy to have you on the show because as we were talking off air, I have not yet dove into the world of NAD and all of the benefits. You know, we hear a lot about it, whether you're living in this biohacking world or not. You've heard about nad, but if you're like me, you might be like, well, okay, I heard that it's important. I heard that it's good. Maybe it helps with our energy or something, but what is it? And why do we need to care about it? And how does it impact our. Our health and our aging? So I'm super excited to have you on the show because you know about this amazing little molecule, and you're going to unpack it for us today.
- [08:29]
A
Yeah, yeah. Hopefully the listeners will get a lot better understanding of what it is and why they might want to consider doing things to keep their levels up a bit higher as they get older.
- [08:40]
B
So I guess let's start with. Well, should we say nad? It always has a little plus sign after it. Is it NAD plus or is it just nad?
- [08:48]
A
So the NAD would be like a variant of it. So the. Like, you've heard of the genome, right? Like the collection of all your genes or the microbiome, the collection of all of our living organisms, like the probiotics and other things. And NAD has its own metabolome, which is just kind of a fancy way of saying, like, all of its metabolites. And one of those is nad, but NAD plus. So, like, you know, for listeners, I would have done biochemistry back in, like, 1993, and back then, you'd have learned about NAD, but you'd have learned about it in two contexts. One is NAD going back and forth between that form and what's called nadh. And that, that's called a retox preparing, but you don't need to get into that. But that's a fundamental molecule that carries the energy stored in food into mitochondria, so it can be made into energy. So whether it's carbohydrates or fat, that combo of NAD going back and forth between the NAD form and nadh is instrumental in converting food into energy. So that. That would be one, and then there's another one that has those same two things, but a P, so like NADP and nadph, and that's more about protecting cells. So think of like a molecule like glutathione with the P tagged onto the NAD molecule. Then that's involved in a lot of important detoxification and cellular defense mechanisms. So NAD becomes the most important of all of these collection of things, because long after I was in biochemistry, they also discovered that it was used as fuel for the enzymes called sirtuins that are like a really important cellular stress enzyme system. And it's. NAD is also fuel for enzymes that repair DNA. So, you know, crazy important as our cells get older. And then lastly, NAD is fuel for things that have to do with inflammation. So those newer understandings of why NAD had these other roles beyond the ones that I learned about 30 plus years ago is one of the reasons Starting say early 2000s, it started to be embraced in the more longevity and new SC world. It wasn't just these old jobs. And don't take it like me, belittling these old jobs are crazy important. But that's why it used to the way you would have seen it in biochemistry would have been nad. And then parentheses around an H, it can be in either of those two like the NAD or the nadh. But now we generally refer to NAD because it has jobs independent of the classic ones.
- [11:41]
B
Okay, so why we care about our NAD levels? We need it. And correct me if I'm wrong if I gathered all this info from you here, we need it to get energy to our bodies to repair damaged cells, to help us with DNA. What else, what else am I missing? Like just if we had to do a bullet list of here's why you should care about your NAD levels.
- [12:06]
A
So making energy number one like old school, well known role number two would be what I think of as cellular protection. So detoxification, making cells more resilient to stress of all parts. And that number 3, 4 and 5 are the newer roles. Right? So 2Ns really think of those as the way that cells respond to all kinds of stress. So stress, resilience, DNA repair, you hit on as well. So those are the main reasons and the main one I think of is responding well to stress and repairing themselves. Because just like us, our cells get stressed all the time from many of the same things that cause us stress. Right? Even social stress affects the health of our cells. And if they don't have enough NAD to rely on when they're stressed, then bad things happen. So we want them to be fueled up and have more than enough nad. Because just like us, they never really know when stress is going to hit. And if they're prepared, then they can be resilient and, and shrug it off and maybe even become fitter because of that stress.
- [13:13]
B
So I don't think people, you know, people do pay attention to how stress affects their body. Like they'll start experiencing dysregulated sleep, mood disorders, even weight gain, dysregulated glucose. But I don't think that we think about it on a cell level. So when our, our cells get stressed from like you said, any of the stressors that can affect us that we're actually aware of mentally and physically, what happens at the cell level? Are we talking cancer? Are we talking disease state? What, what does the cell do when it's stressed?
- [13:48]
A
Yeah, so I always think of it like there's a few different doorways that a cell can walk through when it gets really stressed. So doorway number one is by far the one we want. And that's like the stress was maybe what a biohacker would call as hormetic, right? It was something like a cold plunge or an intentional stress that you're doing to toughen up and be more resilient. And in general, when a cell has enough, you know, built in resilience or resources like nad, and it gets the right amount of stress, then it will be better for that. It'll toughen up, right? So that's door number one. Door number two means the stress was more than I could deal with. And some damage happened. So, you know, maybe some DNA got mucked up, maybe some proteins got misfolded, maybe the mitochondrial network got a little bit disrupted. But fundamentally, the cell's still repairable. And that's where things like that, you know, DNA repair role of NAD fits in. It's where a term like autophagy fits in, which I know, you know, and some listeners probably have heard, autophagy is about recycling some of the damage that's inside cells. And so door number not horrible. Like, it's. It's normal. And we, you know, can do things as biohackers to make sure we do better. When cells go through door number two, door number three would really be where something called a senescent cell starts to come into the play. And that means the stress was so much that the cell is no longer repairable. And so when a cell's no longer repairable, we don't want it making new copies. And so cellular senescence is the preferred outcome in that case. But another variant of, like crazy stress and not really repairable may go towards cancer, right? Like, that would be fundamentally unrepairable cell, but instead of being frozen, it's just going crazy and making many, many copies of itself. And door number four might be. The stress is so traumatic, it just goes right into cellular death. So, you know, those are really the big options. And this is like oversimplifying a complex thing, but that's directionally what happens. And what happens if we don't have enough nad? The same amount of stress may now cause that cell to have to go through door number two, three, or four instead of hanging out and walking through door number one. And since cells, like I said, never know when they'll be stressed or how much, we want to make sure they have enough NAD to respond appropriately. And that becomes important because science knows that our NAD levels go down progressively the older we get.
- [16:29]
B
I was just gonna ask you that. I was gonna say, well, probably like our hormones, right, our NAD levels are tanking with age. So at what age do we normally see them? These NAD levels start to decline, and then how much does it decline?
- [16:43]
A
Probably by late 20s is starting to go down the. There's a lab in Atlanta that's done the most NED testing that I'm aware of. And what the person that runs that company has told me is that in general, like say a university aged person, you know, like late teens, early 20s, tends to have what he would think of as an optimal amount that progressively declines. So for listeners, I'm in my early 60s, and when we were developing Qualia NAD, I measured my NAD levels a few different times, both before taking the product and then as we, we were prototyping it. And my levels, without supplementing things to boost my NAD would show up on his interpretation as suboptimal, despite me doing all kinds of what I think good things to support great health. Right. And being, you know, low stressed, sleeping well, eating well, exercising. So I don't know that we would have like an exact age, but you can pretty much bank on decade. Decades by decade, they're going to gradually just go down so they don't fall off a cliff any time, but they are ramping down. And that if we're not doing things to keep them higher, even, like I periodically heard, oh, well, exercise boosts NAD levels. And there's a truthiness to that. Cool study, if you don't mind me sharing it.
- [18:05]
B
Oh, yeah, please.
- [18:06]
A
Yeah, yeah. So in the study, there was three different groups. There was basically a control group that was sedentary. There was a group that was made up of elite sprinters, so that type of athlete. And then another group of elite long distance running athletes. And every group, their NED levels went down progressively with age. But what was true is the sprinters maintained higher levels for their age than the long distance runners, and both maintained higher levels than the sedentary people. So things like exercise, many of the biohacking things that you are doing that you talk about, your audience, I'm sure, are doing more to keep our levels higher. And even with that, they're still going to be suboptimilar as we get older.
- [18:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, they're still going down. Exactly. Well, I would joke, I'm like, we're not aging like Benjamin Button, so we have to employ these tools that we have at our disposal. In order to properly anti age now. I mean, listen, if you're listening, and you're probably not a listener to my podcast, that this is you, but if you're listening, you're just like, whatever, I don't care. I don't care. If I get osteoporosis and hunch over and lose all my hair and turn gray and get all wrinkled and lose my muscle and get disease, that's fine with me. Listen, if that's your jam, aging by all means, but us, we all want to age slowly and slow down the process and really experience that optimized state with each passing decade. So what is a person actually going to experience? Like what are they going to feel? What sensations will they have? Or is it detectable that our NAD levels are declining?
- [19:51]
A
So I would say, like in an extreme sense, yes. So Nad, the N part goes back to vitamin B3 and acid is the flushing form, nicotinamide or niacinamide is the non flushing B3 that have been around forever. And those vitamins, like we, I know I tend to think like, oh, vitamins have been known about forever. But a lot of the science on vitamins dates to the 1930s and 40s. So not recent recent, but not like crazy long time ago either. And with all of the vitamins, they all have their deficiency symptoms. And the deficiency of the B3 would cause our body not to be able to make enough NAD or the other NAD containing molecules. And I learned about them as the four Ds way back in naturopathic school. And it stood for one dementia, but not dementia in the modern sense of like Alzheimer's. What dementia meant, think more like brain fog and problems managing our emotions and things along those lines. But like, for sure it affected the brain and mood. Another D was dermatitis. And like the B3 deficiency, it's a really red scaly type of rash breakout. But skin health would be super prominent of what starts to show up if you don't have enough nad. And then a third area, third D was diarrhea. So think of like anything with, you know, like GI issues can start to potentially benefit. Like all these NAD precursor molecules, NMN, nicotinamide, riboside, even the old B3s all have impact on the gut microbiome because they can't make them either and rely on us to get that. So that's why the diarrhea, the GI one plugs in. And then the fourth D was death. Right? So, but think of those three main buckets. So cognition, mood, energy, as one skin Area is another, and GI health being the third.
- [21:51]
B
Wow. Now that's interesting because a lot of people who get diarrhea, they immediately jump to some kind of gut healing protocol or throw on probiotics. And it might be that, but that's an interesting component to look at. Is it your declining NAD levels if you have this, you know, sudden onset of diarrhea that you can't really pinpoint as to the why? That's very interesting.
- [22:13]
A
Like another study. So with nicotinamide riboside, one of the human studies was on twins and they looked at the gut microbiome and they also looked at things that had much more to do with barrier function. And both in that study and in animal studies, nicotinamide riboside as one way to boost nad, has done things to help intestinal stem cells and gut barrier function. And gut barrier issues are super common and drive a lot of autoimmunity.
- [22:43]
B
Okay, so it really could be the decline in NAD that lowers our. Well, there's such thing as leaky gut. You know, we're always hearing about leaky gut. And that essentially is that gut barrier function declining and then lipopolysaccharides, or for the listener, just toxins, stuff that shouldn't get into your bloodstream start to pass through that broken down barrier. So would you put NAD as part of a gut healing protocol?
- [23:10]
A
It definitely could be like, I think of it personally as a really great thing to stack on a lot of healing protocols, whether, like stem cells are something that also decline with age. And you mentioned that, just the twin study and intestinal stem cells. But there was another interesting recent study where it was actually Nestle's, the, the big company. They, they have an entire nutrition arm. They do a lot of research. But in the study they were looking at muscle stem cells, which are called satellite cells. And what they found is that actually niacinamide, that form of B3, was more effective at boosting muscle stem cells than one of the newer forms, the nicotinamide riboside. And, and it did it in a way completely unrelated to making more nad. So all of these things, like niacinamide flushing, niacin, nr, nmn, often have other roles in addition to making the NAD that are important for staying healthy as we get older.
- [24:15]
B
So we can't just take nad. It really is about the precursors that help our body to produce more. Is that correct? I have so many other questions surrounding that. But. But answer that one first.
- [24:27]
A
Yeah, so NAD would be considered a big molecule in the sense of like being absorbed in one piece or being able to get into cells easily. ATP would be another molecule. These are super important molecules, but on a cellular scale they're big. And so if we were to take a NAD orally as an example, or in a, say, a supplement, the expectation would be none of that whole molecule will make it to our cells in one piece. We have enzymes in saliva and in our digestive system that are going to break it into smaller pieces and then those smaller pieces will get absorbed and reassembled somewhere, you know, remotely in our body. But that would be a really expensive and inefficient way to go about it because you're wasting this big molecule that costs a lot more to buy as a raw material. And so instead the classic way is like, you know, the flushing niacin, niacinamide. For many, many decades it's been known that these are things that help increase NAD levels. The newer forms like nicotinamide, riboside, NMN are also other ways to build it. And they each kind of go in to making NAD that molecule or the NAD plus molecule in slightly different ways. So I know at Qualia we tend to think it's good to have a blend of these things to support the redundancy in making this important molecule. But to get to your question, yeah, like if we want to get our cellular levels of NAD plus higher, the least efficient way is to do the whole molecule. And these building blocks are the most efficient way and really well established to boost it. I call you NAD. We'll get probably get to this, but we've done two placebo studies and on average increased NAD levels. 67% in one study and 72% in another. So we know our approach works to make the numbers go up inside your cells.
- [26:28]
B
Oh, that is amazing. Thank you for answering that. Because the follow up to that question was you see a lot of people doing NAD IVs and I've always heard that could be just a huge waste of money because the molecule is so big. You're not really getting NAD just by doing an iv. Am I, Am I right on that? Did I hear correctly on that topic?
- [26:52]
A
Yeah. What's really interesting is there's been so little studied about IV nad. So think of like in your bloodstream you have like your red blood cells and inside those is where we would want NAD go up and then you have everything outside your blood cells, right, the plasma. So that would be intracellular, extracellular in a sciency way. And there's really not much evidence that an IV NAD plus causes the NAD levels inside cells to go up. For that same reason I just mentioned, it's a big molecule. And even if now we bypass digestion and put it in the bloodstream, it's still a big molecule. And there's not a lot of capacity to break it down into smaller bits in cells in the bloodstream. So, that said, without question, NAD does amazing things for some people as an iv. But my guess is it's not doing those because it's causing the NAD levels inside cells to go a lot higher. It's just doing something. And it's been used in, you know, functional medicine going back decades, especially addictions and some mood disorders. So it really can be a powerful modality to make improvements, but it's not the best way to cause your NAD levels to go up inside your cells.
- [28:12]
B
Okay, that makes sense. Now, is there a point at which you can take in too much NAD or even too many precursors, or does the body have a governing system that says, you know, listen, we just made a gallon of NAD today. This is our cutoff. It doesn't matter how many precursors you keep putting in.
- [28:32]
A
Yep. My bias is most things have a Goldilocks principle approach. Right. Where we should always think of rather than more is better. Like, what would be a just right.
- [28:43]
B
Yeah.
- [28:44]
A
Amount of something even for, you know, like, let's take sleep. Right. We need the right amount of sleep, but bed rest is really stressful on our system. Right. So that would be almost the too much. We, you know, obviously need exercise, but if you and I decided to run a marathon every weekend for the next couple months, we'd be in a world of hurt. I know I would be anyways. And so I think that same thing with dietary supplements is a great principle to fall back on. So what would be like, an example? Flushing niacin's been used in high amounts for many, many decades for lowering cholesterol.
- [29:22]
B
Yeah.
- [29:22]
A
And can be really unpleasant. And for that use case, it's probably somewhere between a gram and a half to 3 grams on average. So a lot of flushing niacin. And I'm surprisingly not seen a lot on this. But, you know, since thyroid is a passion of yours, there are case reports of that amount of flushing niacin causing disruptions to different thyroid hormones. Typically not a lot. So it wouldn't happen to everyone, but enough case reports that you'd expect, at least in some people, total T4 would go down. Thyroid binding globule may go down as well. So usually you wouldn't Feel different from a thyroid function, but it definitely can muck with those. And the other thing there's built in always checks and balances in physiology. So like one of the ways that we would get rid of an excess of the building blocks is to methylate them, which I'm sure you know about methylation. But so what you would classically see in a study, if they said okay, we'll give 300 milligrams of nicotinamide riboside and we'll also give a thousand, what you would see is a lot bigger increase in the methylated nicotinamide, like the excretion form of it with the a thousand. So you'd get, you know, more increased in the NAD as well, but you'd be getting rid of a lot of the excess too. So it's, it's not a more is better. I think that lab I mentioned, Ginfinity, has a, an idea of like an optimal amount of NAD you want. Which he came about from looking at what the lab tests he did on healthy, you know, like college age people were and levels above that he would tend to think of now you're past your optimal, like you're too much. So anyways I, I would say for me it wouldn't be more is better. Like the amount that I know we've, like for me when we were doing qualia nad, my levels went from you know, in his lab suboptimal to like in the high optimal range in a month of taking quiet nad. At the time another biohacker volunteered to join me in that and his also volunteer moved into the optimal range. So I know ours tends to move people into that sweet spot.
- [31:45]
B
Do you ever feel like your energy is just off? Like you're not fully alive during the day and then you're restless at night? Chances are your circadian rhythm, your body's natural clock, has been disrupted by a lack of sunlight. So what's the solution? This is where I bring in the Mitolux sun lamp. It is designed to mimic the best of the sun, helping restore your body's rhythm. UVB for vitamin D that helps our energy. Red and infrared light for mitochondrial support. Let's not forget our skin and collagen formation. It's amazing. It's like a reset button for your health that you just turn on and then sit in front of and enjoy. And during those long gloomy winters, those long days, it's a lifesaver. No more winter blues, by the way, improves your mood. No more low energy improves your energy. So you need to get yourself a mito luxe lamp. It's so portable, it's so easy. I sit it on my desk, I take it with me to my bathroom, I stick my face in front of it. After I wash my face, put on my serum. It is amazing for your skin, but amazing for your energy, Amazing for your mood. You want to go to mitolux.com/doctor Amy. So that's M-I T-O L-U X.com/D R A M I E. You're going to use the code. Dr. Amy they are giving me the code to give to you for 10 off. You will not regret it. This is the best, best, best red light, hands down. I have many of them in my house. This is the only one that I use. It is so easy, portable and it works. The most important thing is it works. So mitoluxe.com forward/doctor Amy don't forget to use the code. Dr. Amy but this isn't something that we have to test because I know my listeners are going to listen. They're going to go, well, wait, can I test for this so I can see my numbers move into the optimal range? And then they're going to want to download on what the optimal range is. So we don't have test. We literally can. This is one supplement that boosts our. And we'll get into talking about quality nad, which you helped formulate. This is a supplement that we can take to boost our own levels, but we don't have to test for it. Like if, if you're getting older and you're not supporting your nad, just take it. Right?
- [34:18]
A
Yeah, it would be one expensive to do. And yeah, yeah, the test. And it's not like you could go into a lab core request or your doctor's office and say, hey, I want to do an NAD test. Like we would usually use a finger stick kit and use, you know, there's only two labs I know of that do it. They're fairly expensive to do and it's one of the reasons I think it's important to use a product like Quiet nad that's, you know, done the research and been shown to increase levels we use. I set a mix of precursors, including one called Niagen. True. Niagen is how it's often sold as a brand. So we buy Niagen from that company and use it with other things in our formula. But that company recently bought 39 NR nicotinamide riboside products off Amazon, I think it was, and then had Them all tested to see if they even contained NR. And I want to say 85% of them didn't meet label claims. So they were, you know, somewhere less than they claimed. And something like 60% of them had essentially no detectable NR. When that's the case, obviously it's not going to boost your levels. And having it is the first step, but then, you know, knowing that the product increases your levels is the more important thing. And it's very buyer beware. And I want to say they tested five or six gummy forms of NR and none of them had really any detectable. It's because, like, I know this because I'm in the weeds and, you know, help Qualia make products, but there's certain things that are just molecules that aren't really stable, like creatine. I'm a big creatine fan. Many biohackers are. And over the last six months, a few different, like, influencers and doctors have reached out to me and just said, oh, like, what do you think about creatine gummies? My response has been like, I'd be surprised if there's any really amount of creatine in them.
- [36:16]
B
Yeah.
- [36:17]
A
And they're like, why? And I'm like, well, because creatine is super unstable. It degrades. If you had creatine in a, like, you put it in your smoothie and waited three hours to drink it, there'd be probably 90% of the creatine would have been degraded in that short amount of time. So gummies aren't quite as bad, but they're moist. Right. So anyways, like, I. I saw a recent lab report of six different gummy brands for creatine, and only one of them had the label claim amount. The others were pretty much in the undetectable range, which would be my expectation. So things like creat, nicotinamide, riboside, these are not molecules that are stable unless you take good care of them. And so it's really important whether it's from Qualia or you. You get the Tru, Niagen or some other product that's using nr. If nrr, NMN are your boosters, you really need to make sure you're buying them from a reputable company that's done good testing on their products.
- [37:19]
B
I'm so happy you said that, because I say that all the time. And that's very interesting. I've seen that happen with there. There have been other stories of products being pulled from Amazon and tested, and literally there's none of the claimed Levels of ingredients or even the ingredients themselves are actually in the product. So this is why, I mean, in just in general, the blanket message is you have to buy from a trusted company. I always talk about my supplement line. It has my name behind it. There is no way I'm putting out crap because it's coming back on me. Qualia is just, I love all of the products that you make and it's integrity. You have integrity, you have high standards and your name is behind this. I'm not sure how many products you formulated for Qualia, but I know you did the NAD plus. And people don't understand that when you have that level of integrity as a company and then you have your name behind a product, you're going to make sure that this product works, that it does what it claims to do, that the product has what it says that it has on the bottle because you don't want that coming back. And I think that's an important message for the listeners because too many of us go to Walmart and Sam's Club or even Amazon from non trusted sources and we buy something because it's 10 or 15 cheaper and we're just trying to save that money. And what I end up telling people is you didn't just save $15, you wasted whatever XYZ the amount that that product was, you wasted $20 because you thought, oh, I'm saving 15. No, you just bought something that doesn't even work. You might as well just light that 20 bucks on fire. So I'm really happy that you said that because I know quality has integrity. I know the, the science that goes behind it. And like you even mentioned, you actually have results from clinical studies. And specifically we can talk about quality nad. I know you have clinical studies for many of the products, but with coli nad, we say it's a clinically proven formula. What does that actually mean for the listener, for the consumer, when they're looking at where to source their NAD precursors? Because now they know from you, Dr. Greg, that NAD is pretty darn important as we age.
- [39:35]
A
Yeah. So just know for our company, our legal requires us to have two studies that showed the same benefit. Before we could say clinically proven, both would have to have sufficient people have a placebo group. The products, the quality product would have had to outperform placebo and be statistically significant. So there would be how the requirements that are put on me to use it. And the FTC kind of views things similarly. Like now to make what I would think of as strong claims, they Want two placebo controlled studies. You know, for our brand to be able to do that, it doesn't mean that's the case industry wide, but that would be how we think about it at Qualia.
- [40:17]
B
Yeah, and I love that. I think that that's so important because when you have, when you have those clinical studies backing it and actually showing that it does X, Y, Z in a human base, the consumer can rely on that and know that, okay, this is what has been shown, this is what has been proven, this is what I can expect to experience now. Every single person, person is unique and different. We know that some people will experience results right away, some will experience results down the road. So that is my next question is what can people actually experience or look for? I know you have a great personal result from using NAD plus by Qualia. I want to hear your N equals one result. But what can people start to look for shifting and changing in their body when they start the supplement?
- [41:03]
A
Yeah, so the main, like we, you always in a study have to decide like, what's your primary thing that you're going to measure. And in our studies it was changes in NED levels. But we also used aging male and female symptom questionnaires and both of those bucket symptoms into three broad categories. One would be think of like mental, psychological. One would be more physical and then one would be sexual because all those areas tend to be things that get affected with aging. And what we've seen in both our pilot study and then in our pilot study means this was our first one without a placebo before we even launched the product. And then the two placebo is we've seen consistently improvements in the cognition and psychological bucket and then in the physical bucket. And so, you know, things like energy, thinking better. Right. Managing our moods, like feeling less anxious, less stressed, things like that. For physical, then you have more like, you know, discomfort, mobility, you know, ability to bounce back from exercise, those types of things. We've not really seen anything stick out in that, like that sexual bucket category, at least in our studies. And then what we've seen kind of maps to what I've heard customers and biohackers say, like energy by far is the number one thing that I hear. People just feeling like they have more energy to, you know, get to important things and bounce back quicker. The second thing I hear the most commonly would be a recovery from exercise story, like just feeling like you can get back to it. You've got a little bit more in the tank to get to your workouts. And then the Third area that I hear has to do with sleep, and not necessarily sleep showing up on your oura ring, but feeling like maybe you don't need quite as much sleep or, you know, for the sleep you're getting. You're not as fatigued during the day, so not like kind of touching into that energy, but in a different sense, right? Like just feeling like somehow sleep is working a bit better for you. So those would be the main things I've seen. And then, you know, a lot of it, I think, is going on underneath the hood, so to speak. So, like, those are the tip of the iceberg things. And then 90% of the benefits are things we're not going to see or feel. Right? They're things that are happening on a cellular level that maybe protect stem cells so that they're there for us, you know, years down the road when we need them, you know, to fuel, like these repair mechanisms so that our cells stay younger and fitter and resist, you know, aging better. So I know for me, when I take it, I think of it more as insurance than I do, like, oh, I should feel all these things. And that said, like I said, you know, we routinely do hear about people feeling really a number of broad things. You know, my expectation would be going back to those, you know, the four Ds, right. You know, some people would notice things also with skin or digestion over time. We just haven't measured those in our studies.
- [44:02]
B
Okay, now I, I noticed the energy one. So in general, I always say I live in optimization land. Like, I wake up, I could have coffee, I have it because I like it. And I usually drink the mushroom coffee, so it's lower in caffeine anyways. I don't need to caffeinate myself to get through my day. But we all have bad days, we all have bad sleep for whatever reason. Maybe I drank a glass of wine the night before, whatever. So when I have woken up and I'm like, oh, no, I cannot. And not even a hungover feeling, just that, like low energy. Oh my gosh, I cannot get going this morning when I take quality nad, that is what I notice. That it's like I come out of that low energy slump, that fog again, kind of going back to the first D of dementia, that brain fog. And it's like a light turns on. I'm like, all right, I'm good to go now. And it's really, I mean, for me it's within hours. Is that normal?
- [44:59]
A
Yeah, I think. And qualia nad isn't just NAD precursors it's got magnesium, it's got the whole B complex, it's got some resveratrol, it's got a really like a microdose of a coffee fruit extract. So there's a tiny amount of caffeine. So I think our product is more than just like your common NAD boosters. And I think it's why we see consistently some of the subjective benefits in the areas like you're experienced, like the energy.
- [45:28]
B
Right, Exactly. And, and then the other thing I want to know is about the timing. I'm going to assume that if I experience that pretty quickly, and like you said, there's just that little tiny bit of caffeine in it, you're going to want to take NAD boosters, like quality nad, earlier in the day, not later in the day, Right?
- [45:46]
A
Yeah. Like, in a general sense, the NAD levels in our blood would generally peak somewhere, say, like early afternoon. We'll just say two in the afternoon. But for NAD levels in the blood to peak, then we had to orally take the NAD booster hours and hours before that. Right. So that it could make its way through digestion, get to the liver, then be sent into circulation and then taken in by cells and turned into nad. And that process takes four to five hours. So to match to when our NAD in our blood would normally be its highest in a circadian sense, to me, it makes sense to take it early in our day. And I've only seen one study that monitored timing of nad, either like as an infusion, like an IV of nad, or in this case, they also gave an NAD booster. And one of the things that got scientists super excited about boosting nad back around 2013 was when they did that, animals became much more metabolically healthy as they got got older. And by metabolic health, they meant blood sugar and insulin and lipids and all of those things that go with a healthy metabolism. So what they did in this study is they measured those things and they gave the first. They did the NAD IV equivalent, an infusion to animals at the beginning of when they're starting to be active or at the beginning of the more, you know, like what would be our. Our nighttime. Right. The inactive phase. And NAD at the beginning improved metabolic health and markers in the liver. But when it was given 12 hours later, it actually made some of those things worse. And then they said, okay, well, let's see what happens if we just give an NAD booster instead. And they saw it not quite as. As extreme, but also that same trend emerged that when it was at the beginning of the day good things happened and it was at the end of the day, not so good things. So that's not a lot to go on. But I tend to think most things probably have an ideal timing to them. And with what I currently know, to me, no doubt the ideal time to take any NAD booster is at the beginning of your day.
- [48:02]
B
Okay, done. That's easy because I want that energy through the day anyways, so. And when I do all the cell repair in our waking hours. Now, you guys at quality, you're always digging into anti aging, things like that, the whole aging science. And recently my second favorite product at Qualia is the Senolytic. Recently I had some health things come up and actually my colleague is like, make sure you are taking Qualiathenolytic. I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. I haven't taken it in like a month or so. But I love quality analytic for all things anti aging. I love the fact that you only take it basically two days out of the month. But with my situation, I might kick it up and do like two packs in a. In a month. Do two days and two days. But what else are you working on that is going to help us anti age or age like Benjamin Button?
- [48:53]
A
Yeah. We at the beginning of April launched a product called all your joint health that is all about support for ligaments, tendons and joints as we get older. Which is crazy important because, you know, we all know how important movement and exercise is. And Even by late 30s, there's a not small amount of people that one of the big impediments to moving as much is comfort in tendons, ligaments and joints. So that one we were super excited about and I was thrilled personally just to be able to have it to take. So. And for listeners, I get to take all of our prototypes, but often there's a lag between when that part is done and then we have a finished product that I can take again. So this one I'd been looking forward to. We had in February completed a beta study on a stem cell protocol product that right now it looks like we'll launch with a Qualia stem cell product in September.
- [49:53]
B
That'll be.
- [49:53]
A
And that would be somewhat like Qualia Senolytic, where it wouldn't be an everyday thing. You would do it for where in our study we did four day cycles. Okay. And the idea is that just think in terms of sleep and waking. Our stem cells most of the time are sleeping. Right. Which is important. And then when we need them, they wake up and go and do their magical things and repair and heal us. And I've seen stem cell supplements, you know, for years on the market that are recommended to take every day. And it's never made sense to me. Like, why would you be wanting to keep these things awake all the time? So, not to say they can't help. A lot of the times, things work for reasons different than we think. But somewhere last fall, fall of 2024, I was at a longevity conference and listening to some stem cell experts talk about what they did. And it just struck me like. Oh, like the best way to approach this would actually be like quite a senolytic where we did these intermittently in a really targeted way and kind of wake up some stem cells so they can do their healing and then leave them alone the rest of the month so they can not get exhausted and recover and be there when we need them.
- [51:04]
B
Oh, that is so exciting, though, because stem cells are everything. And we've been hearing more and more about stem cell treatments. I know my dad's getting direct stem cell treatments into his ankle, but it's five, six grand per pop. I mean, it's. It's sometimes out of people's price range, but we absolutely want more stem cell activity in our body for sure.
- [51:25]
A
Yeah, yeah. So those are. Like I said, the joint health is now available and the stem cell still months away. But I know I'm super excited for that.
- [51:34]
B
I'm dad, the joint supplement, because he'll be a really good N equals one kind of experiment. So even with the stem cells, he's still hobbling around. It's just too much stuff going on in his ankle for him to get a surgery because he'd be out for, you know, off his feet for, I don't know, six weeks or eight weeks or something like that. And he just won't do that. So I'm going to send him. I'm going to send him the quality joint and I'll get back to you with the results of that, because if it works on him, it's going to work on anybody.
- [52:01]
A
So I love it. And I know you talked to JJ Virgin a couple of weeks back because we had given her some in advance to take before it was available, and she had had a really good benefit from it over the three weeks she. She'd taken it. So there's a saying in the nootropic community, your mileage may vary. Right. We're all n of ones. We're all unique for many reasons, biochemically and genetically. My experience is nothing Works the same for everyone. But Qualia joint I think is a really innovative product that both helps dampen down inflammation but does a lot of things that repair tendons and joints.
- [52:39]
B
Amazing. Thank you so much for, for the breakdown. Well, thank you for explaining the other products too because I'm really excited. But definitely the breakdown of nad, I really wanted to learn more about what this little molecule does in our body and how important it is because I want to stack myself for longevity and anti aging as I move along. So we'll put the link in the show notes but you guys are giving my listeners 15% off with the code Thyroid. So they're going to go to qualia life.com q a l I a l I f e.com thyroid use the code thyroid. That's going to give you 15% off whether you want to try the NAD. Plus if you want to try the joint support, if you want to try the senolytic, it's all on there. And Qualia, I would not be bringing Dr. Greg on if I didn't believe in this company. Like I said at some point in our conversation, integrity is everything. Science is everything. That's who you want to trust when you are going to put something in your body to shift your health. So Dr. Greg, I appreciate you so much for coming on and just diving into the science with us and yet keeping it light and understandable with this wrinkle of science. I love it.
- [53:53]
A
Oh my pleasure. And thank you for saying such kind things about Qualia and about me.
- [53:58]
B
So listen, it's real, it's real. I pound this into my listeners heads that you have to buy from trusted integrity based companies and you know the best way is to look for someone who is tried it like myself, like J.J. you know we've all we try it before we bring it to our audience so that we can say oh my gosh, this made a difference. This absolutely made a difference. So like I, I told you with the NAD it I noticed the difference in my energy. It's my saving grace on those days where my energy's in the toilet right out of the gate. So I appreciate you and all the work that you're doing as well.
- [54:32]
A
Oh well, thank you. I know Koi NAD has been interesting. Like a fair amount of us at Qualia are biohackers and would do a lot of our products but there's a few that that's not their thing. Right. They're like athletic or do other things but maybe not, you know, as into supplements. But Qualia NAD seems like the one product that has broken through with even all of those employees at Qualia where they just can't imagine not taking it.
- [54:57]
B
Right. Exactly. Exactly. Like we said earlier, I've heard about other products on the market and just not cutting it. And the IV is just not cutting it. You know, people buying peptide vials and thinking they're really getting nad. No, no, no. You're better off taking something ongoing that's going to support your NAD levels and that precursor that's going to boost it over time like you saw in your studies and when you were able to measure it. So once again, we'll put the link in the show notes for y' all to get your discount. Dr. Greg, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure.
- [55:27]
A
Oh my pleasure. Thank you. Foreign.
- [55:35]
B
The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthc care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthcare professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not been evaluated by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast may include sponsorships or affiliate links. The host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service does not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.