Nampt Overexpression Reduces Age-Related Loss of Exercise Capacity in Mice

NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, plays a central role in energy metabolism, and of late has attracted more attention from researchers who aim to modestly slow aging by adjusting the operation of metabolism. Tinkering with NAD levels though any number of different ways appears to produce some benefits in mice, but these are not sizable outcomes. Essentially this looks only incrementally better for normal animals than the marginal results produced for many forms of dietary supplementation in mouse studies. Researchers examined the role of NAD precursor molecules on mitochondria by specifically disrupting the "NAD salvage pathway," in mouse skeletal muscle. This pathway consists of a series of enzymes that recycles building block molecules to make fresh NAD to power reactions throughout the cell, and especially within the mitochondria, the cell component that makes energy for the body from ingested food. Chemical reactions involving NAD are fundamental to metabolizing all fats and carbohydrates, yet NAD is degraded in response to such physiological stresses as DNA damage, and its concentration declines in several tissues over the natural course of aging. The team generated mice in which they could restrict the amount of NAD in specific tissues in order to simulate this aspect of normal aging in otherwise healthy mice. Surprisingly, young knockout mice were found to tolerate an 85 percent decline in intramuscular NAD content without losing spontaneous activ...
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