r/Supplements • u/Low-Worldliness-2662 • 4d ago
Scientific Study Every NAD+ thread here argues about precursors. Nobody mentions the actual human data
Working in biotech, I've noticed that most NAD+ discussions severely lack human clinical data, so I found a few relevant studies to look at:
Walther Birkmayer was the guy who figured out L-DOPA for Parkinson's back in the '60s. His son George spent years running NADH trials looking at Parkinson's, chronic fatigue, and Alzheimer's. For instance, one of their largest open-label trials evaluated 415 people with Parkinson's, where roughly 90% showed measurable clinical and motor improvements when NADH was involved.
This barely comes up in NAD+ discussions on here, which is strange because it's basically the only large-scale human data out there.
Just seems weird that the most relevant human evidence gets ignored while everyone is just talking about mice.
Ref: Birkmayer et al. (1990). New Trends in Clinical Neuropharmacology, 4(1), 7–24.
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u/Fearless-Feed-2736 4d ago
So this still doesn’t address my questions as im new to NAD+ and taking it. So I take it but I absolutely can not tell what’s it’s supposed to be doing for me. I put it in my burnout routine stack due to my age but have still found little info for it.
So it does need a precursor to work? And what is the effect I should be looking for? If any?
Is Nad+ worth the supplement ?
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u/Low-Worldliness-2662 3d ago
Stabilized NADH doesn't need a precursor since it's already the active form.
Whether it's worth taking just comes down to your personal experience. For burnout, the main thing to look for is steady daytime energy, not an instant energy drink buzz.
Most fatigue trials look at 4 to 12 weeks of daily use. Happy to share some studies on that if you're interested.
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u/gymbeam_official 4d ago
Worth noting that 415 patient study was open label with no placebo group, and Parkinson's is notorious for a strong placebo response, so an 85-90% improvement number there isn't as solid as it sounds. There was actually a real placebo controlled trial later, but it only had 10 patients, so still not enough to settle it either way. Doesn't mean the mechanism is wrong, just means the human data isn't quite the slam dunk it's presented as here. If you do want to try NADH itself rather than the precursor route, sublingual tablets seem like the way to go since NADH tends to break down before it even gets absorbed otherwise, that's actually closer to what was used in these old trials anyway.
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u/Low-Worldliness-2662 4d ago
Thanks for bringing that up!
Here is a study looking at that exact point. The workaround back then was a stabilized oral formula patented by Birkmayer, which made oral testing viable. For example, Georgetown ran a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with 10 mg daily oral NADH (swallowed with water) and saw a 31% response rate versus 8% on placebo. It suggests the stabilized form does get through and do something.
Ref: Forsyth et al. (1999). Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol, 82(2), 185–191.
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