NAD+, which stands for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is a coenzyme that plays a critical role in many biological processes in the body. The benefits of NAD+ include protecting cells from stress, maintaining healthy sleep cycles and helping the cells repair damaged DNA.
But can it help with Alzheimer’s?
In a podcast by former White House advisor Andy Slavitt entitled “Are We on the Verge of Curing Alzheimer’s?“, Slavitt was joined by world renowned Alzheimer’s experts Dr. Paul Aisen and Dr. Rudy Tanzi to discuss the question.
Toward the end of the podcast, (at the 44:10 mark of the podcast) Dr. Aisen advised those interested in taking measures to prevent Alzheimer’s that taking supplements made no sense.
“One thing I would like to add, Andy, is that each of the suggestions that Rudy (Tanzi) made is much more likely to be beneficial than taking supplements to promote brain health,” he said. “I think taking supplements is useless, and is more likely to hurt than help.”
Although Dr. Tanzi clearly disagrees, he appeared not to respond — but the RaisingNAD organization reached out to Dr. Tanzi and learned that his response to Dr. Aisen (at the 5:30 mark) was, in fact, edited out. Fortunately, the folks at Lemonada were kind enough to provide RaisingNAD with Tanzi’s comments.
The full podcast of “Are We on the Verge of Curing Alzheimer’s” can also be found by clicking here — but here’s the transcript of what Dr. Tanzi actually said in response.
“We’re doing trials on supplements.
So, I think Paul’s right, at the moment. Some of them may hurt. Some of them are completely bogus — they’re just made-up.
I won’t mention any names.
But, we’ve found hits on our screen that merit trials. And, so we are doing the trials to see how they do.
We’re doing trials on Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Life Changing Anecdotes).
We’re planning trials on what are called Senolytics, supplements that help drive the death of zombie neurons that have tangles, that are not contributing to the neural network.
So, I don’t pooh-pooh supplements as much as Paul does. I think, some of them are worthy of trials. And we shouldn’t say anything about them until we do the trials.”
SOURCE:
