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In the next few months, the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command will begin human trials on its own soldiers of oxidized nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+).
NAD occurs naturally in the body but declines with age. It’s essential in generating energy and taking it as a supplement can improve athletic performance and speed recovery from physical injuries.
No wonder the U.S. Army is interested.
It also can improve alertness, mental focus, memory, and concentration and is used to treat conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s Disease to chronic fatigue syndrome.
In addition, there are reports, but no clinical evidence, that NAD+ can reduce blood pressure and cholesterol, defend the liver against damage from alcohol, ease the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, and even counter jet lag.
Mice engineered to show symptoms of Parkinson’s were fed nicotinamide riboside, the main ingredient the body uses to make NAD+. They showed less inflammation and their neurons degenerated more slowly than a control group of similarly sick mice.
In other words, NAD+ can mute many of the conditions that afflict us as we age.
The Army has completed safety and dosing trials and emphasizes that it’s introducing a substance into soldiers that’s already in their bodies naturally – the Army is just boosting the supply – and is not engaged in any form of genetic engineering.
TRENDPOST: NAD+ isn’t the only candidate for an anti-aging pill. Metformin, a treatment for type 2 diabetes will be tested as a defense against the degradations of aging in a six-year trial of 3,000 people to be conducted by the American Federation for Aging Research, a 40-year-old nonprofit.
Also, Rapamycin is being tested as an antidote to aging in a UCLA trial of 1,000 older adults. (See “Rapalog Drugs May Extend Healthy Life,” Trends Journal, 12 January, 2021.)
TREND FORECAST: Within 20 years, effective, non-invasive treatments to slow the degeneration that comes with age will be FDA-approved and commercially available, first to the wealthy, then, as the market grows and product prices fall, to those of middle-class incomes.
Eventually, health insurance companies will cover the treatments, finding them cheaper than paying ongoing charges for chronic conditions that untreated aging brings.