NMN Nicotinamide Mononucleotide before and after
NMN before and after with biological age
In mid 2020, I set out on a self-experiment with NMN. The purpose of this experiment was three-fold
First - my primary intention was to lay out some suggestions for how you could structure your own self-experiments, and not just for NMN
Second - I of course was quite curious what my own results would be, and wanted to have a well-controlled self-experiment to answer the question: should I continue to invest in NMN as part of my longevity supplement stack?
Third - to raise awareness of NMN, biological age testing and encourage more of you to join in on being a biohacker!
Designing a self-experiment with NMN in mid 2020 was a unique challenge, as at the time, there was no direct way to test intracellular NAD levels.
That has however changed, and in upcoming posts, I am going to show you how to test your NAD levels directly. If that sounds interesting, be sure to subscribe below!
Takeaway: Over 6 months, a combination of 500mg NMN, 500mg TMG and 500mg resveratrol improved my biological age by 3.5 years. Read on to learn more!
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Self-experimenting with NMN
It is not easy to run a self-experiment. To review, all self-experiments are:
Difficult to control
Often hard to measure directly
Prone to bias and placebo effect
Even when well-controlled, don’t necessarily provide clear insights
Let’s take a minute to address each of these, how this particular self-experiment addressed each over the course of the 6-months of NMN supplementation.
Control
Over the course of my 6-month experiment, I made several efforts to control the experiment:
My exercise ‘Load’ as per my Garmin Fenix 6 Pro, which I use to track all of my workouts. At top, near the start, at bottom, near the end of the 6 month period.
I did not change my exercise load or volume
I did not change my diet
I did not start taking any other supplements
I did not make any other major lifestyle changes
It is of course not possible to completely control your life! However this does not mean you should not try.
Of these items, I would suggest that consistency in diet and supplementation are of paramount importance.
You can find many “NMN before and after” testimonials on YouTube, for example, but each of these has many problems with control.
The most common issue is making too many changes, mostly around supplementation protocol, during the ‘before’ and ‘after’ period.
Your chief goal here is to decide: is taking NMN worth my hard earned cash?
You can’t make that call if you’re also introducing many other longevity supplements at the same time! You’d be surprised how often this is the case! Be patient and be consistent.
Measurement
In the absence of a direct NAD test, the decided measurements before & after were set according to the 2x clinical NMN trials which were ongoing at the time, as well as adding biological age:
Lipid profile
Blood pressure
Biological age
Epigenetic age (Saliva Test via Chronomics)
Phenotypic age (Blood Test)
Bias & placebo
I put serious thought into how to conduct a double-blind experiment, but ultimately elected not to.
Given the objective measurements we could draw from the above, and the ‘n of one’ experimental design, this was not practical to implement.
It also reduced the likelihood that everyday folks like yourself would be able to repeat the experiment effectively.
In the effort to minimise placebo effect, I made it my mindful intention to not overhype my personal attitude toward the experiment.
To be quite honest - I adopted quite a sceptical attitude.
Personally, I was unconvinced that NMN would make much of a difference in my day-to-day experience, as there was relatively little science in human subjects & most of these ‘hot trends’ turn out to be over-hyped!
NMN Self-experimentation protocol
The supplement protocol for this self-experiment was designed to match the widely used combination of NMN, Resveratrol and TMG:
NMN at 250mg/day (first two months), 500mg (following four months)
For risk management, 1:1 dosage of Tri-Methyl Glycine (TMG)
Resveratrol at 500mg/day, taken with a high fat meal
Note: this was not a change for me, I’d been taking it for 2+ years, and therefore did not interfere with the need for supplemental control
NMN before & after: Our hypothesis
This experiment was undertaken to test the following hypothesis (all self-experiments should have one!):
NMN supplementation will boost intracellular NAD+ levels
Boosting NAD+ levels with NMN will measurably improve select characteristics of youthfulness
Combining boosted NAD+ with a sirtuin activator (resveratrol) will enhance DNA repair
Combined, these effects are hypothesised to be likely to:
change blood lipid profile (as per clinical trial designs)
change blood pressure (as per clinical trial designs)
slow or reverse biological age (A Longer Life hypothesis)
NMN before & after: Results
The self-experiment was run from 1 August 2020 for 6 months until 31 January 2021.
What follows are the results, including both hard data points and anecdotal observations.
Blood lipid profile:
Blood lipids refer to the commonly assessed HDL, LDL and Total Cholesterol measurements. These are also joined by Triglycerides to form the ‘Blood Lipid Panel’ of tests.
As you can see in the provided image, there was no significant change in any of these parameters over the course of my NMN self-experiment.
Blood pressure
Blood pressure measurements at the start of the experiment were ~125/85.
At the end of the experiment, 126/84.
There was no significant change in blood pressure from the NMN self-experiment.
Biological age: Phenotypic age
Phenotypic age is calculated using 9 blood based biomarkers, to calculate a biological age.
This is based on work led by Yale researcher and longevity thought-leader Dr. Morgan Levine (whom we hope to interview on the blog in the future!).
We’ve previously reviewed this test, including providing information on how you can use it yourself here (its free!).
Pictured: My Phenotypic Age (Biological Age measure #1) over time.
Blood markers in this test include:
White Blood Cell Count (WBC)
Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW)
Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV)
Fasting Blood Glucose
Lymphocyte %
Creatinine
Albumin
Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP)
C-reactive protein (CRP)
If you’d like to learn more about any of these blood markers, checkout Lab Tests Online.
At the start of the self-experiment, my Phenotypic Age was 28 (Chronological Age 34).
At the end of the self-experiment, my Phenotypic Age was 25 (Chronological Age 35).
Given that 6 months passed, this equates to a total change of -3.5 years of Biological Age.
Did I reverse my biological age with NMN?
Now - the key question is, was this change significant? Was it due to the NMN based protocol?
This comes back around to one of my initial opening points about self-experiments: “Even when well-controlled, they don’t necessarily provide clear insights”
For our analysis, we should extrapolate from the baseline measurements a bit further.
Over the preceding 3 years, my Phenotypic Age was an average of 25.7 years old. It was as high as 28 and as low as 23.
More importantly, we need to consider the difference between biological age and chronological age.
My average difference between biological age and chronological age over the preceding 3 years was -7.7 years. This was as high a -10 years and as low as -5 years.
At the start of the NMN self-experiment, this difference was -7 years (below the average), whereas at the end, it was -10 years (at the previous extreme).
There is a degree of subjective interpretation which must occur here, as the data volume does not lend itself to statistical analysis.
Based on the data and trends, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that this NMN based protocol reversed my biological age.
It is however is not conclusive evidence, and as a scientist, I choose to approach that statement conservatively.
There is a bit more to explore however, to let’s continue.
Biological age: Epigenetic age
This one was a real bummer. My follow-up test with Chronomics failed their quality control step, meaning the biological age result was not valid.
This was a crushing blow, as it was the chief data point, in my opinion.
However, I have re-tested it, but it was not in-line within the 6-month period self-experimentation period.
Due to my choice to begin another 6-month self-experiment immediately following this one, the next biological age result will not be valid for this experiment.
I’ve since dramatically increased my exercise routine (I’m now training for triathlons), made major dietary changes and increased my NMN supplementation to 1000mg/day in a separate 6-month self-experiment aimed a direct feedback from Chronomics on how to reverse my biological age.
I will update this post with those results, when they are returned, however they will not be well-controlled for NMN experimental purposes.
I know - major bummer! 😔
Such is self-experimenting life!
NMN before and after: Anecdotal observations
SF-36 Questionnaire
My results from the SF-36 questionnaire before & after did show a slight change in a few key areas.
While I did not experience any changes in general health, physical health problems or limitation of activities, I did have interesting results in the energy & emotions section.
Excerpt from my SF-36 questionnaire, before and after the NMN self-experiment.
At the start of the self-experiment, I think I was feeling many of the things that folks in their mid-30s start to feel. Notably less energy than in their 20s, less upbeat and more likely to feel worn out at the end of a long day.
Over the course of the self-experiment, this changed in notable ways, in a sustained way that continues to today.
You can see for yourself the meaningful parts of the questionnaire that changed for me in the following image.
I have to add - it is completely possible that these results are placebo based. I was taking NMN, most folks who supplement with NMN boast ‘increased energy levels’.
But of course, since NMN is hypothesised to impact intracellular energy, this is what we expect to happen.
When it comes to ‘energy levels’, NMN is a prime placebo influence candidate.
Nicotinamide Mononucleotide before and after conclusions
To summarise, I was able to run a well-controlled self-experiment with NMN supplementation at 500mg/day.
I recorded before and after blood tests, blood pressure and detailed subjective experience related data.
Initial results do indicate improvement in my Biological Age (as per the Phenotypic Age) by approximately 3.5 years.
Subjective data (qualitative data) support this quantitative data, and therefore the conclusion is: NMN left me both feeling younger and perhaps biologically younger.
However, this cannot be placebo controlled, and warrants further testing. In particular, direct testing of NAD levels is now available, and that is what I will be testing next!
Also, we have not been able to test the much more robust and accurate epigenetic age via Chronomics, which was unable to be measured. Ultimately, this was the most powerful data point, and though disappointing - we will revisit it.
Coming soon, I will review the results from testing intracellular NAD levels directly, before and after 1000mg of NMN.
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FDA & TGA DISCLAIMER
This information is intended for educational purposes only and is not meant to substitute for medical care or to prescribe treatment for any specific health condition. These blog posts are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and only may become actionable through consultation with a medical professional.
