Thread by @CharlesMBrenner

Your monthly reminder that your body contains thousands of enzymes and scores of coenzymes that keep everything running. In general, vitamins are dietary components that allow cells to make coenzymes. Coenzymes are essential to the health of every organ system in your body. /1

Recommended daily allowances (RDAs) were developed to avoid deficiencies and do not speak to potential benefits of higher levels. Additionally, the fact that coenzymes keep everything running doesn't necessarily mean that you would benefit from the corresponding vitamin. /2

For example, riboflavin and pantothenate are the vitamin precursors of FAD and coenzyme A and you'd be sick if your diet somehow had no riboflavin or pantothenate but there's limited value of megadosing with these vitamins. /3

NAD & its breakdown products including B3 vitamins (NA, NAM & NR) are in our diet. The NAD deficiency, pellagra, is uncommon because NA & NAM are supplemented into processed foods and because most of us don't have the corn rations & lard diet that produced pellagra 100 yrs ago./4

There is a use case for B3s however. Research shows lower cancer incidence in people taking higher levels of NAM and improved cholesterol in people taking higher levels of NA. Most of the NR research is still in animals but it shows that NAD comes under attack in multiple... /5

conditions of metabolic stress (overeating, alcohol use, noise-induced hearing loss, heart failure, nerve and brain damage) and is typically accompanied by increased expression of the NR gene pathway. In these conditions, NR restores NAD and helps a tissue repair itself. /6

More research is needed but people should be assured that those of us who developed NR provide material (NIAGEN) to ~200 preclinical & clinical research groups worldwide for investigation. By better understanding NAD-dependent mechanisms and biomarkers, it is our hope that ... /7

we can add to the peer-reviewed safety dossier and establish efficacy in inflammatory, fatty liver, heart, kidney and neuro and other indications. Thanks for your support of #NADtwitter