Only Time Will Tell
It’s not like turning a light switch on or off. It’s a slow iterative process…aging that is. While it seems like one day you have wrinkles or one day you need reading glasses, there is no specific point at which a person can say, “wrinkles appeared” or “I can’t read a word without glasses.” It’s a gradual process in which the accumulation reaches a point at which something becomes noticeable.
As a runner, it’s an interesting phenomenon in that you spend a portion of your life striving for improvement. Each year you expect to be better than the last. Then you reach the peak without even knowing it. It shows itself in that no matter how hard you train or the adjustments that are made, you just can’t equal your performance from the previous year. You then spend the next segment of your life fighting attrition. You battle each year to hang onto the performances of the previous year.
For me, I track my personal bests by the performances when I was younger than 40 years old and the performances after I turned 40. I suspect that when I cross the 60-year mark that I will add a new point of delineation to my personal records.
Because of our natural inclination to fight against physical and mental decline, the fountain of youth has been a part of human folklore for thousands of years. While people are no longer searching for the fountain of youth in the physical sense, they are seeking it nonetheless. Globally, the anti-aging industry is estimated at $200 billion per year. A February article in TIME discussed the potential of the molecule nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or NAD+ for short. NAD+ is a molecule that is key to most of our body’s biological processes and as you can imagine, the levels in our body decrease as we age. As a result, there are companies that are developing NAD+ supplements with the promise of extending our longevity, improving the quality of life within our lifespan or just outright reversing aging.
While the benefits of NAD+ have been proven in lab mice, the benefits in humans remain unclear. Several companies are performing trials with test groups and control groups, but to date, there is no conclusive evidence to prove that it is effective in humans. Some companies have proven humans who have taken an NAD+ supplement for 30 days or more have increased levels of NAD+ in their blood. However, increased levels do not necessarily translate into a realized benefit.
Despite the lack of direct evidence, the idea of NAD+ supplements as a way to claw back performance is intriguing, to say the least. Biohackerslab.com lists TRU Niagen as the top-rated supplement for NAD+. As a result, I reached out to the company that manufactures TRU Niagen, ChromaDex, with an idea for me to be a one-person test subject and write about the experience. Alex Worsham of Chromadex immediately responded favorably to this idea and arranged for a 30 day supply of TRU Niagen. This article is the first in a multi-part series that will track my experience with an NAD+ supplement and attempt to quantitatively and qualitatively estimate the potential benefits.
I’m currently training for two fall track meets to wind down my 2019 season. The first meet is in San Marco, TX on October 12th and the second is in Covington, LA on October 19th. My goal is to take the TRU Niagen supplement for 30 days culminating on October 19th. Between September 20th and October 19th, I will track progress based on the following factors:
- Day to day energy levels
- Quality of sleep
- Short-term memory improvement
Since each of these factors has been heralded as a benefit of NAD+ supplements, I thought that it would be the appropriate starting point. In addition, I expect to monitor other qualitative factors such as caffeine consumption, concentration levels, recovery after workout and improvements to overall mobility. Finally, I have race performances from earlier in the year in which to compare.
While this may not prove the benefits of an NAD+ supplement, it is a first-person experience to attempt to gauge if for me personally, NAD+ is worth adding to my inventory of supplements that I pump into my aging body in an attempt to stave off the effects of aging. To this question…only time will tell.
