Extracellular NAD+ Declines with Age

Current enthusiasm for the development of means to boost levels of NAD+ in older people is driven in part by research such as the open access paper noted here, in which the authors show a clear decline with age in NAD+ outside cells. Inside cells, NAD+ is an important component in the machinery that allows mitochondria to generate chemical energy store molecules to power all cellular functions. Importantly, there is evidence that comparatively straightforward approaches to increase NAD+ levels can produce beneficial effects, such as improved mitochondrial function leading to lowered blood pressure via reduced dysfunction of smooth muscle cells in blood vessels, reducing blood vessel stiffness. None of this is damage repair, rather a matter of putting damaged cells back to work, overriding one of the less helpful evolved responses to rising levels of molecular damage present in old tissues. The size of benefits is thus necessarily limited in comparison to approaches that can successfully repair the underlying damage that leads to reduced NAD+ levels and many other consequences. If the costs are low enough, then even limited benefits are worth chasing, however. It remains to be seen whether the cost-benefit considerations work out favorably in this case. In the last decade, there has been growing interest in the role of redox active nucleotides in the metabolism. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) represents one of the most important coenzymes in the hydri...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs