Christopher W. Shade, PhD, is president of Quicksilver Scientific, LLC, in Lafayette, Colorado.
Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal (IMCJ): Thank you for taking time to talk to me. Today we are going to discuss a new product that Quicksilver has created based on Nicotinamide Mononucleotide. In reviewing research, it appears that it has been around for a while but that you are putting a little spin on the product.
Dr Shade: Yes, Nicotinamide mononucleotide or NMN as it is commonly referred to is an NAD precursor. NAD is has become all the rage in anti-aging medicine. In addition we have found that it’s a huge thing in fixing chronically-ill people. You can’t really take NAD straight. You have to take a precursor, and there’s two of them. One of them is nicotinamide riboside a patented ingredient, the other precursor is the NMN, the nicotinamide mononucleotide, which is not owned by anybody.
IMCJ: Is your product based on NMN?
Dr Shade: That’s what ours is. Then we take that up to a higher level by putting it into a liposomal delivery. On their own, if you’re just taking the two straight, nicotinamide riboside edges out nicotinamide mononucleotide, presumably because it’s got a higher absorption, but the liposome bridges that gap and beyond and gets to a very rapid and efficient absorption of this molecule. One of the functions of our product is mitochondrial maintenance. Many other products lose their functionality by the time they get to your mitochondria, they’ve already dissipated.
The liposomal version provides faster absorption, more efficient absorption, and it’s not breaking down in your gut; with normal capsules, you’re trying to absorb it, but rather you’re breaking it down as it’s going down through your GI tract. The absorption into the system is a really big deal.
Recently it has been found that nicotinamide mononucleotide is traded cell to cell in these small vesicles that look like liposomes and are in a certain size range, and so we created our liposomes to be mimics of the ways that your cell trades nicotinamide mononucleotide. so the liposome doesn’t just help the initial absorption; some of the liposomes will break down as they’re absorbed, and and as a result the NMN gets into the system, but some will be intact as these little nano liposomes of NMN, and the body knows how to work with those little packages—even better than the NMN released directly into the blood.
IMCJ: I see that one of the areas that you expect this to be successful is in blood sugar maintenance for diabetics.
Dr Shade: Not just diabetes, rather more broadly, cardiometabolic health. When cardiometabolic health goes down, blood sugar control is a big part of what goes down there, so insulin sensitivity, metabolic syndrome leading up to type 2 diabetes, some of the vascular problems that come from high blood sugar - all those are in this realm of cardiometabolic health, and NAD supplementation through these precursors is very, very good for that aspect. Then, as we get onto talking about this, we’ll talk about aspects of it towards keeping your genes clean. NAD is used to clean mutations out of the gene pool. It’s also used to activates Sirtuins (a family of genes that play a role in aging by regulating cellular health) which are our longevity genes.
This signaling is happening on a cellular level. Some of the signals are transported on cell membrane level, but then the cells release compounds that work on an organ level, like you’ll hit some triggers in the liver that then release compounds that help control that. For instance, they will activate the burning of peripheral fat. Some of those signals originate in the liver and then spread out into the rest of the system. The signals for increasing insulin sensitivity, which will result in blood sugar control, some of those happen on an organ level and then are transcribed or passed out to the rest of the system, and some are happening on a target cellular level. There’s a combination of organ level and cellular level.
NMN could be be a treatment for those already being treated for type II diabetes but would definitely be a good source for treating pre-diabetes. One of the things when you’re doing diabetes medications like metformin, metformin turns on signals that create metabolic efficiency and create insulin sensitivity. Now, in the cascade of reactions from there, it should also activate sirtuins, which are bringing a number of other genes with them in that activate longevity aspects, but the longevity side cannot be activated unless there’s enough NAD. There’s a lot of things, like resveratrol, that are supposed to make us live longer by activating these things called sirtuins, but if the NAD levels are too low, then resveratrol isn’t able to do that aspect of what you associate it with like making mice live longer. That can only happen when NAD levels are high enough.
NAD is being sucked down all the time because it has different responsibilities. Its biggest responsibility is in cleaning up damage to genes. When there’s a lot of damage to genes from toxins or radiation or electromagnetic stress, poor nutrition, then the NAD is sucked into that role, and there’s not enough to work on the cardiometabolic aspect. There’s also not enough then to work on the mitochondrial aspect, which I’ll talk about it more in a second, and there’s certainly not enough to work on activating longevity genes.
When we’re trying to use these things like resveratrol and berberine or if you’re using Metformin, you’re not getting the full realm of their beneficial effects unless you keep your NAD levels high. That’s where the supplementing of these NAD precursors come in. On one level, they will activate things on their own, but they’ll also potentiate other supplements that you’re taking that are supposed to be leading to these health benefits, but they can’t get there if you’re NAD pool is low. That pool goes down with age, so you’re old, you have a low NAD pool, and you’re trying to take resveratrol to activate longevity genes, it’s not going to work.
IMCJ: Is there any natural way how people would build NAD level, or is it just naturally that it gets less as you get older?
Dr Shade: Well, NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is made from nicotinamide ort nicotinic acid, vitamin B3. Just driving up your B3 levels will also then drive up your NAD levels, but those enzymes that take it from B3 all the way to NAD are wearing down with time, and so taking away a number of those transformations and just leaving the final transformation from NMN to NAD makes the system much more effective or ends up with a much higher NAD level than just feeding in B3.
B3, you’ll get a lot of that in meats. Liver is probably the highest level. Those are ways to get niacin as well as just supplementing vitamin B3. Then you’re getting to where there’s a balance between all of the B3 derivatives and the final activated B3 and levels of methylation groups. You know that whole story around MTHFR and methylfolate versus folic acid?
All right. When people got into that and they would talk about methylation, they would say, “Well, niacin is a methyl drainer,” and so when people would overdose on methylfolate, they’d give them niacin to bring them down. One of the problems there is people started to think about niacin as this sort of bad vitamin, but it’s because it’s driving up NAD, and NAD starts using the methyl groups in its work on keeping the genes clean and the right one’s turned on and the right ones turned off. There’s a balance between them, and when you supplement NAD precursors, you generally need to supplement methyl groups as well, so that just has to be brought into the mix, but when you get those balanced, you do things really well.
NAD becomes a rate-limiting substrate for a lot of the functions of the cell, like detoxification. In some of the studies that were done on NAD for detoxification, there was one in particular that was looking at methylmercury toxicity. In this study, they could build up the glutathione levels in the cell and the glutathione enzyme activities and protect against the methylmercury toxicity, or they could just give NAD, and that protected completely.
NAD we’re finding, in inflammatory situations, it’s drawn down. In toxin situations, it’s drawn down. Mold exposure blocks the synthesis of NAD. NAD is talked about now for longevity, but I think we’re going to see that it’s one of the missing links for getting sick people well. That’s one of the biggest things that we do in integrative and functional medicine is to restore people’s health through detoxification and restoring the immune system. We’ll find that NAD is an essential part to rapidly getting people better.
IMCJ: Does the format of being liposomal as opposed to capsules impact the effectiveness?
Dr Shade: NAD is very expensive, specifically the NAD precursors, whether it’s NR or NMN, are very expensive, and they’re very poorly absorbed, and so people have to take very high doses to get sometimes, a fairly weak effect. Now smaller doses will yield a much stronger and much more rapid effect, and you could pair them together with other things you’re doing. If you’re taking detoxification supplements, you’re taking liposomal glutathione, you take the liposomal NMN at the same time. They can work together because they’re both absorbed so rapidly, and you get that really high dose, really rapid high dose.
A lot of the supplements we’re taking, their activities through activating receptors or a gene activation through nuclear transcription factors, and those respond to transient pulses of high concentration. When you don’t absorb something well, you get the absorption over a long period of time, and you get low blood levels. These rapid absorptions are much more powerful on shifting the biochemistry, and so with the liposome, we see people shift very quickly. If they have adrenal fatigue, it very rapidly changes it. You’ll see these effects in a couple of minutes instead of happening over days.
IMCJ: And what about the mitochondrial impact?
Dr Shade: That part is really interesting. NAD does work directly in the mitochondria where it’s part of the citric acid cycle, and it’s helping you oxidize carbohydrates and also oxidize fats into energy, so it’s driving that forward momentum of creating energy.
More important is that it increases intracellular communication. There’s a coupling between the nucleus and the mitochondria that keep the mitochondria very active and keep the mitochondria regenerating, including the signals for mitochondrial biogenesis, which is making new mitochondria. NAD is like a bridge between the nucleus and the mitochondria to keep that efficiency up and keep mitochondrial density up, which is the number of mitochondria per cell.
IMCJ: Who will you be focusing on as far as potential customers for this? What types of patients and practitioners?
Dr Shade: In the practitioner world, we’re going to release this at A4M, which means we’ll be focusing more on anti-aging medicine, but then we’re going to introduce this into the chronic disease world where they’re trying to get people’s mitochondria back working. We’ll bring it into the autism world, into the Lyme world, the mold world. We’re going to be releasing a mold detoxification protocol with Jill Carnahan, and this product will be an essential part of it. Everybody knows that mold blocks mitochondrial health, and now they’re finding that NAD is often at the core of that block, and so it’s essential thing to bring up when you’re getting people better from mold exposures.
People who have mycotoxin exposure will be benefitted and they’ll be able to detoxify the mycotoxins faster because, when the mitochondria are down, you can’t drive the reactions of detoxification. They’re not passive reactions. They take energy.
For those who have Lyme I think we’re going to see a similar thing that the mitochondrial dysfunction is a huge part of Lyme too. I think we’ll find, maybe in the acute stages that’s not when you use it, but when you’re trying to get them better from what they call chronic Lyme where you’re trying to rehab the mitochondria, the adrenals, the immune system altogether, you’ll see that it’ll fit into that really nicely.
In our experience so far, we’re seeing that this. There is this interplay between the adrenals, the mitochondria, and the immune system, so energy generation and immune balance where, as the mitochondria and adrenals are worn down, the immune system gets off-kilter and starts you into food allergies while, at the same time, ignoring infections. I call it the immune psychosis. Using the NMN has been able to bring that axis back online so that the immune system is having a more appropriate response, that the adrenals are more filled, and that the mitochondria is creating more energy. It’s like zipping that whole axis together.
That’s really the essence of chronic disease. When people get sick with some combination of chronic infections and toxins, whether it’s mold and fungal infections or viral infections or Lyme and the toxins that build up around that, getting the energy generation and the immune poise back together is the hardest thing, and it takes the longest period of time. The early feedback is that the NMN is speeding up that repair of the system.
IMCJ: How would a practitioner know that they should recommend their patient to be taking this? What would be some telltale signs?
Dr Shade: Like we said, we’re going to start with the anti-aging world. Pretty much anybody who’s on an anti-aging protocol, you’ve got them on some of some sort of hormones, on a supplements like resveratrol, they got to be on NAD. There’s just no way around it. I mean that’s part of that fast aging that happens at the end.
Now, early on if, say, they’re younger and they’ve got different issues where you need the NAD to help… Say they’ve got some degree of blood sugar, loss of control of blood sugar, maybe their A1C is going up. Certainly, if they’re starting to have fatty liver and that kind of metabolic disease that’s a precursor to type 2 diabetes, they should be on NAD along with some of these supplements like the berberine and the resveratrol, the product we have called Keto Before 6 to help drive that system back to cardiometabolic efficiency.
Then the toxic people, your mold-toxic, your mercury-toxic and they’ve lost energy, the NAD will supercharge the detoxification regimens to get them back to health. If they’re young enough, maybe they don’t have to keep going with the NMN supplementation for the NAD. They just have to do it until they get better and then, if they feel they’re losing energy, they can use that to get back. Anybody who’s got adrenal fatigue or thyroid issues, this will be a huge tool for getting back on top of your energy metabolism, your ability to make energy and have energy through the day.
IMCJ: What are the final takeaways from this product:
Dr Shade: We’ve looked at a lot of things over the years in the anti-aging market that go down with age. Glutathione goes down with age. DHEA goes down with age. You try supplementing any one of those, and it doesn’t really fix the whole system. It does parts of it. It certainly helps with things. They’re looking at NAD now as a core to all of those others. It’s like NAD is being used as the currency to pay bills throughout the system, throughout the body system. When NAD is short, you’ve got to decide who is not going to get paid.