The global supplement market has reached to new highs with people who are after healthy life and longevity. The antioxidants (Natural & Synthetic) soared to more than $ 4 Billion as of now.
The bottom line reality is that none of these can protect you from ageing... Only hide somethings that are visible. No drug yet can do this at the cellular level.
Recently there was longevity promoted in a capsule in the form of something called Nicotinamide Riboside (NR). This is a recently discovered form of Vitamin B3. It was noted that our bodies can convert NR into something called Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD+).
NAD+ is a coenzyme found in all living cells, and it plays a vital role in energy metabolism and maintaining proper cell functioning. Levels of NAD+ also happen to decline significantly as we get older, and these declining levels apparently drive the aging process. This was as nearest we had come across to extend longevity and taking NR upto a 1000 mg was considered to be safe.
Trace amounts of NR is found in Milk - about 4.8 micromoles of NR per liter. So supplements with NR were marketed promoting longevity, improve memory, arrest cognitive decline, improve muscle strength etc.
Now, an International team of researchers led by Elena Goun, an Associate Professor of chemistry at Missouri University, has discovered high levels of NR could not only increase someone's risk of developing triple-negative breast cancer, but also could cause the cancer to metastasize or spread to the brain. Once the cancer reaches the brain, the results are deadly because no viable treatment options exist at this time.
"Some people take them [vitamins and supplements] because they automatically assume that vitamins and supplements only have positive health benefits, but very little is known about how they actually work. Because of this lack of knowledge, we were inspired to study the basic questions surrounding how vitamins and supplements work in the body."
"Nicotinamide riboside (NR) is a form of vitamin B3 and is one of the most studied compounds for the restoration of cellular NAD+ levels demonstrating clinical potential in many metabolic and age-related disorders. Despite its wide commercial availability as a powerful nutraceutical, our understanding of NR uptake by different cells and tissues is greatly limited by the lack of noninvasive in vivo imaging tools limiting its clinical translation. Here, we report the development and validation of a bioluminescent NR uptake probe (BiNR) for non-invasive longitudinal imaging of NR uptake both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, we optimized an assay that allows monitoring of NR flux without the need to transfect cells with the luciferase gene, enabling the use of the BiNR probe in clinical samples, as demonstrated with human T cells. Lastly, we used BiNR to investigate the role of NR uptake in cancer prevalence and metastases formation in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) animal model. Our results demonstrate that NR supplementation results in a significant increase in cancer prevalence and metastases of TNBC to the brain. These results outline the important role of powerful nutraceuticals like NR in cancer metabolism and the need to personalize their use in certain patient populations."
Elena Goun, Associate Professor of Chemistry at MU
The bottom line reality is that none of these can protect you from ageing... Only hide somethings that are visible. No drug yet can do this at the cellular level.
Recently there was longevity promoted in a capsule in the form of something called Nicotinamide Riboside (NR). This is a recently discovered form of Vitamin B3. It was noted that our bodies can convert NR into something called Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD+).
NAD+ is a coenzyme found in all living cells, and it plays a vital role in energy metabolism and maintaining proper cell functioning. Levels of NAD+ also happen to decline significantly as we get older, and these declining levels apparently drive the aging process. This was as nearest we had come across to extend longevity and taking NR upto a 1000 mg was considered to be safe.
Trace amounts of NR is found in Milk - about 4.8 micromoles of NR per liter. So supplements with NR were marketed promoting longevity, improve memory, arrest cognitive decline, improve muscle strength etc.
Now, an International team of researchers led by Elena Goun, an Associate Professor of chemistry at Missouri University, has discovered high levels of NR could not only increase someone's risk of developing triple-negative breast cancer, but also could cause the cancer to metastasize or spread to the brain. Once the cancer reaches the brain, the results are deadly because no viable treatment options exist at this time.
"Some people take them [vitamins and supplements] because they automatically assume that vitamins and supplements only have positive health benefits, but very little is known about how they actually work. Because of this lack of knowledge, we were inspired to study the basic questions surrounding how vitamins and supplements work in the body."
"Nicotinamide riboside (NR) is a form of vitamin B3 and is one of the most studied compounds for the restoration of cellular NAD+ levels demonstrating clinical potential in many metabolic and age-related disorders. Despite its wide commercial availability as a powerful nutraceutical, our understanding of NR uptake by different cells and tissues is greatly limited by the lack of noninvasive in vivo imaging tools limiting its clinical translation. Here, we report the development and validation of a bioluminescent NR uptake probe (BiNR) for non-invasive longitudinal imaging of NR uptake both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, we optimized an assay that allows monitoring of NR flux without the need to transfect cells with the luciferase gene, enabling the use of the BiNR probe in clinical samples, as demonstrated with human T cells. Lastly, we used BiNR to investigate the role of NR uptake in cancer prevalence and metastases formation in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) animal model. Our results demonstrate that NR supplementation results in a significant increase in cancer prevalence and metastases of TNBC to the brain. These results outline the important role of powerful nutraceuticals like NR in cancer metabolism and the need to personalize their use in certain patient populations."
Elena Goun, Associate Professor of Chemistry at MU
