Episode 9
NAD, Precision Health & the Science of Living Better for Longer with Dr Jin-Xiong She
In this episode, Dr Jin-Xiong She, a scientist with more than 400 publications, over 20,000 citations, and more than $100 million in research funding, explains why he left the top tier of academic medicine to pursue something more urgent: finding better ways to detect decline early and protect healthspan before disease takes hold. He shares what nearly 100,000 NAD tests have uncovered and why he believes biomarker baselines could change the way we think about prevention.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfJinShe
In this episode:
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
01:47 From Genomics to Longevity
04:18 T1D TEDDY Study Breakthroughs
06:07 Leaving Academia for Impact
07:37 Healthspan Over Lifespan
10:09 TAO Test Act Optimise
13:20 Choosing Actionable Biomarkers
17:02 Why NAD Tops the List
21:45 NAD Decline and Key Drivers
25:21 Raising NAD Lifestyle vs Supplements
27:51 Athletes' Inflammation and Low NAD
31:54 Optimal NAD Range and Niacin Risks
37:28 SubQ Injections vs Oral NMN Data
41:42 Dosing and Cutting Useless Supplements
43:52 Access Economics and Policy Ideas
46:50 Industry Adoption and Big Names
47:59 Supplement Market Problems
50:17 Rapid Fire and Closing Takeaways
52:04 Final Summary and Goodbye
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Welcome to Beyond Longevity, the podcast that explores not just how we age, but how we can build a longer, healthier future for ourselves.
Speaker B:My guest today on beyond longevity is Dr. Jin Cheongshi.
Speaker B:Before entering the longevity space, he built his career in genomic medicine, immunology and disease risk research research.
Speaker B:He helped lead major international type 1 diabetes research, including the TEDDY study, and he's currently the CEO and CSO of Ginfinity.
Speaker B:Dr. Jin is also credited with more than 400 peer reviewed papers, around 20,000 citations, and more than $100 million in research funding.
Speaker B:So when he talks about precision health, nad biology and longevity, he is bringing decades of biomedical science into the conversation.
Speaker B:In this episode, we explore why Dr. Jin believes knowing your biomarkers and your baseline is so important, why measuring matters more than guessing, and how NAD and precision health fit into the bigger picture of longevity.
Speaker A:Hello Dr. Ajin.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for joining us on Beyond Longevity today.
Speaker A:You are quite the man.
Speaker A:You are have taken quite an unusual route to where you are now.
Speaker A:You have been an academic scientist for over 40 years, worked, studied, researched in many countries.
Speaker A:You've published, I think, over 400 papers and you're widely cited by your peers.
Speaker A:You're a respected figure in the field, I think is the least one can say about you.
Speaker A:Let's start at the beginning.
Speaker A:You started in the field of diabetic research, cancer research, and now you've ended up in the longevity field, healthspan field.
Speaker A:Tell us a little bit about that journey.
Speaker C:It's my distinct pleasure to be with you, Devra and I really look forward to talking to you about longevity and beyond.
Speaker C:And so I'm Chinese, as you can see.
Speaker C:I went to college in China.
Speaker C:I had the opportunity to study my PhD degree in France.
Speaker C:So in college I was actually studying fish biology in France.
Speaker C:For my PhD, I was studying evolutionary biology at that time.
Speaker C:That's when molecular biology just got started and was becoming very popular.
Speaker C: technologies developed in the: Speaker C:And there was a molecular revolution going on right at the time when I started my scientific career with the molecular tools, we had opportunity to really change how we study medicine and how we practice medicine.
Speaker C:So my and research career focus on identification of genetic factors as well as environmental factors that determine how healthy we are and what diseases we are predisposed to and how we can come up with strategies to not only treat diseases, but also prevent many diseases before clinical symptoms actually appear.
Speaker C:So that was an Incredible opportunity in front of scientists.
Speaker C:We feel that we can change medicine for the better and forever.
Speaker C:I started my medical career on type 1 diabetes, which is a childhood disease and autoimmune disease.
Speaker C:And we know genetic factors play an important role.
Speaker C:But there are environmental triggers that determine whether someone who hides the genes actually develop a disease or not.
Speaker C:If we can understand the environmental factors, we can actually delay or prevent type 1 diabetes.
Speaker C:So I was involved in one of the largest and most intensive research project that humankind has ever undertaken.
Speaker C:And the program was called Teddy, just like Teddy Bear.
Speaker C:In that particular study, we screened half a million newborn babies using genetic factors.
Speaker C:And we identified over 20,000 newborns that have the high risk type 1 diabetes genes.
Speaker C:And we monitor this high risk group for over 20 years.
Speaker C:And the goal was to figure out what are the environmental triggers that we can use that we can avoid to prevent the disease.
Speaker C:After 20 years of research and over $500 million spent on the program, and we published over 200 papers by now, and we were able to push multiple scientific fields forward and we now have a few candidates that can actually be used for preventive purposes.
Speaker C:But that was great.
Speaker C:I enjoyed my entire scientific career, but there was always something missing in academia.
Speaker C:What was missing to me was the opportunity that I can have an immediate impact on people's lives in academia.
Speaker C:You perform research, you publish papers, and you train students.
Speaker C:All these courses are very important and I fully enjoy.
Speaker C:But six years ago, I wanted to leave academia and really come to the real world and to have an immediate impact on people's lives.
Speaker C:But more importantly was the selfish reason, because, you know, five years ago I was almost 60 years old, which, you know, by this, my standard now, it was not very old at all.
Speaker C:For most people, 60 years is pretty advanced age, right?
Speaker C:And I did not like the trajectory that my own health was going.
Speaker C:So I wanted to make a change for myself and I want to make a difference to the lives of my friends and the community in general.
Speaker C:That's why I decided to quit academia and start my own company.
Speaker C:It's called Gymfinity Precision Medicine.
Speaker C:So in Giovini, we really wanted to focus on extending health span.
Speaker C:I know, I went to your website.
Speaker C:I know we share very similar views.
Speaker C:I'm not about immortality.
Speaker C:I'm not about living forever.
Speaker C:I'm about closing the gap between lifespan and healthspan.
Speaker C:And this gap is tremendous.
Speaker C:I'm sure.
Speaker C:You know, life expectancy in most industrialized countries is about 80 plus, minus two.
Speaker C:So maybe plus minus four years.
Speaker C:But health span is at best 55.
Speaker C:Maybe you can push it to 60 years.
Speaker C:So that's about 25 to 30 years of gap between lifespan and health span.
Speaker C:Very few people, if any, want to live forever in bed and not being able to do what they want to do, that's not what people want.
Speaker C:What most people really want is be able to do what they want to do or near the peak of their performance for as long as possible.
Speaker C:My personal goal is to be able to live to 100 years and beyond, but more importantly, be able to play tennis, my passion.
Speaker C:And that's what I want to do.
Speaker C:The oldest person who can play Competitive tennis is hanier2.
Speaker C:And this gentleman is called Hanwen Yang with a perfect last name.
Speaker C:So I want to beat him.
Speaker C:That's my personal goal.
Speaker C:And I think we have the tools, we have the knowledge to do it.
Speaker C:It's just about the will to do it and how we can do it better.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I didn't know there was a tennis player who was 102, a professional tennis player.
Speaker C:Wow, professional.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's impressive.
Speaker A:But I totally agree with you that longevity is an overhyped word.
Speaker A:And what we really mean is health span a healthy life, never mind how long.
Speaker A:Ideally very long, but obviously the emphasis is on healthy.
Speaker A:So is it correct to say that your career now is about developing technology to identify those risk factors that cause various diseases that age us because it's the diseases which are aging us?
Speaker A:Is that sort of correct?
Speaker A:Can you say it maybe in a bit more professional terms than I did?
Speaker C:You said it very well.
Speaker C:My number one goal in my entire scientific career is mostly about identifying the, you can call root causes of diseases or you can call them risk factors.
Speaker C:And I very often call them suboptimal health state or sub health if you want.
Speaker C:So we will have some sub health issues every single person and we may or may not know.
Speaker C:And also the types of sub health can be very different from one person to another.
Speaker C:So my goal is to assemble and develop most comprehensive and the most important sub health conditions and develop the tools to identify them in each person.
Speaker C:And we use the data to develop personalized precision and holistic action plan or intervention strategies.
Speaker C:Testing is very important in our whole program, but testing alone is not going to solve the problems.
Speaker C:So you need three elements.
Speaker C:I have a very simple protocol that I have developed in the last few years and the protocol can be described by one word that I called tao.
Speaker C:So tao stands for test, act, optimize.
Speaker C:And this roots deeply in the Chinese ancient philosophy called Taoism which is about finding balance and harmony in life.
Speaker C:And Taoists believe that it governs how the whole universe works and also governs life, governs longevity.
Speaker C:Using this very simple Tao philosophy and process, we know we have the tools and knowledge to extend the health span by minimum of 30 years.
Speaker C:And we have concrete examples that how this process can improve health, can improve performance.
Speaker C:I'm sure that by preventing not only diseases but also injuries, we should be able to not only extend the health span, but also by definition, you extend lifespan because when we are healthier, we are going to live longer.
Speaker C:So my way of extending lifespan is through extending healthspan.
Speaker C:So testing is the first step.
Speaker C:It's a very important one.
Speaker C:There are so many potential biomarkers one can test.
Speaker C:The key is really to zeroing in on the most important ones and also on the actionable biomarkers.
Speaker C:What I mean by actionable biomarkers is that we have to be able to do something to change the biomarkers in the right direction.
Speaker C:That's extremely important.
Speaker C:So I have three parameters that help me to decide whether a biomarker should be tested.
Speaker C:The first criteria is it has to be scientifically and medically sound.
Speaker C:That's the first one as a basis.
Speaker C:The second one is we have to have reproducible test that's affordable for most people and that give us good data, reliable data.
Speaker C:And the third one is actionability.
Speaker C:Can you do something about it when you have the information?
Speaker C:So these are the three basic criteria that I apply to every single possible biomarkers.
Speaker C:If they meet all three criteria, they are the top biomarkers that I want to measure.
Speaker C:If they only meet two of the three biomarkers, then we have to say, well, can we find a way to change the third one?
Speaker C:At the end of the day you really one to test the biomarkers that fulfill all three criteria.
Speaker C:Otherwise they are on the second category.
Speaker A:How many biomarkers fulfill those three categories?
Speaker C:There are many.
Speaker C:There are at least a few hundred biomarkers that can fulfill that category.
Speaker C:And the fourth criterion that I did not mention is you have to prioritize, right?
Speaker C:So they are important biomarkers that are actionable, but they are not very common in the population.
Speaker C:When you develop a program, are you going to test the real DBT biomarkers that are not occurring very often in the population?
Speaker C:It's a cost benefit and ratio that we have to consider.
Speaker C:I'm sure net biomarker is very important for natural those individuals.
Speaker C:But when you design a population based program, you have to consider cost benefit ratio.
Speaker C:That's economics.
Speaker C:Unfortunately, that's what we have to consider.
Speaker C:So after going through these four criteria, we now ended up with about 50 functional biomarkers that we test in our program.
Speaker C:But in this it's going to expand.
Speaker C:We are adding another 20 or so biomarkers into our panel.
Speaker C:That's the most comprehensive panel.
Speaker C:But we also create sub panels.
Speaker C:So based on the individual's health condition and how much money they can or are willing to spend on testing, we can select either than both comprehensive panel we or sub panels based on their health condition.
Speaker C:And you know, we have to have flexible programs to meet where people are.
Speaker C:That's beyond, you know, the scientific or medical judgment, but it's part of what we have to consider when we talk about the population health.
Speaker A:Would I be right in saying that if a person wanting to test their biomarkers would only be able to test a single biomarker and asking you what would you suggest?
Speaker A:Would I be correct in saying they should test for nad?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:You are absolutely right.
Speaker C:NAD would be the number one biomarker that I would recommend.
Speaker C:It's very hard to come up with one single biomarker.
Speaker C:I don't like to tell people this is the number one biomarker to test, or that's the number one biomarker to test or this is number one supplement to take.
Speaker C:Let me tell you why, because I really believe in holistic approach.
Speaker C:If we have to make a decision on one or a few actions we have to take.
Speaker C:The first input of information that I would want to have is their current health condition.
Speaker C:What's the most serious problem that they want to solve or they want to change.
Speaker C:Based on that input of information, I can make a much better recommendation.
Speaker C:Z biomarker that's most important for me may not be as important to you or another person.
Speaker C:So that's why I don't feel good about recommending one thing.
Speaker C:Because if you talk to anyone else, they are going to argue that no, this is not the most important one.
Speaker C:And they are right because we all have different health conditions.
Speaker C:We have different genes, we have different lifestyle, we may or may not be experiencing certain health conditions.
Speaker C:So what's important to one person may not be the most important for another person.
Speaker C:So try to determine based on your own health condition, your own health goals is the right way to decide what to do and what not to do.
Speaker C:I know that's a very difficult decision for a person who does not have the medical background.
Speaker C:But even for doctors, health professionals, it can Be very hard to decide.
Speaker C:I would feel comfortable to come up with the 5 or 10 most important one.
Speaker C:I hesitated to give just one.
Speaker A:As we said, we do agree that NAD is definitely a vital one to check on.
Speaker A:I'm sure most people listening have heard of nad.
Speaker A:Just a very basic sort of sum up.
Speaker A:NAD produces ATP in the mitochondria, which gives the energy to the cell.
Speaker A:And NAD is involved in every single cell in our body.
Speaker A:And it's basically vital for our whole body to function.
Speaker A:No nad, no life.
Speaker A:Is that right?
Speaker C:Yeah, you are absolutely right.
Speaker C:So NAD is a coenzyme, and a coenzyme is a molecule that helps other enzymes to function.
Speaker C:What's unique about NAD is that it's required for the function of over 500 different enzymes.
Speaker C:So without enough NAD, all these enzymes would not work.
Speaker C:And the number one function for NAD is the production of ATP or cellular energy in the mitochondria.
Speaker C:Without NAD, we cannot produce ATP.
Speaker C:Without ATP, cells don't have power and it wouldn't work and we would not be able to survive.
Speaker C:Some people saying that we may not be able to survive for a few seconds.
Speaker C:I don't know whether that's true or not, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker C:Frankly, it's very hard for anyone to survive for more than a few minutes without NAD and ATP.
Speaker C:So that's why we actually can think.
Speaker C:NAD is the cornerstone for all health protocols because you have to optimize energy production, you have to optimize mitochondrial function for the other procedures to maximize their benefits.
Speaker A:And in general, NAD levels drop dramatically as we age.
Speaker A:There are various reasons for it.
Speaker A:I think enzymes like CD38 destroy the NAD and NMPT and NAT, which increase NAD decrease as we age.
Speaker A:What can we do to keep the levels of NAD up and how can we make sure they are where they should be?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Let me comment on the natural levels of NAD in the human population.
Speaker C:You are absolutely correct that NAD levels do decline with age.
Speaker C:So age is one of the three most important factors that determine one's NAD level.
Speaker C:That's widely known.
Speaker C:What is not widely known is how early and how sharp NAD can decline.
Speaker C:Let me just give you the data that we have.
Speaker C:After testing, you know, almost 100,000 people.
Speaker C:So in teenagers, about 25% of them are already sub optimal or deficient in NAD.
Speaker C:In the population between 20 and 30 years, 75% become suboptimal or deficient.
Speaker C:And then beyond the 30 years, almost every single person is suboptimal or deficient.
Speaker C:You know, the first sharp decline is actually around 20, 25 years of age.
Speaker C:That decline is very, very rapid, much more rapidly than I ever expected or anyone else expected.
Speaker C:What is interesting is young children, you know, two, three year old, that's the youngest one we have.
Speaker C:They can also be deficient, usually in young children and also in adults.
Speaker C:The health condition of the person is a major factor that impacts energy level.
Speaker C:So the second factor that determines NAD levels is the health condition.
Speaker C:The third factor that can have a major impact on natural energy levels is actually ethnicity or the country you live in.
Speaker C:In Caucasians, the average levels of nad are around 26 and 27 micromolar.
Speaker C:That's just a unit.
Speaker C:If you look at some of the aging countries like Vietnam, Korea, India, the average level is below 20, about 17, 18 micromolar.
Speaker C:In some other Asian countries, like Malaysia, the average is actually below 15.
Speaker C:The Malaysians seem to have the lowest energy levels.
Speaker C:Now Chinese are a little higher than some of the other Asian countries.
Speaker C:The average is around 20, 22 micromolar, somewhere near.
Speaker C:But if you look at the distribution of energy levels globally, ethnicity or at least the country of the geographic regions have a major, major impact on energy levels.
Speaker C:I hope some theory about why it's not so.
Speaker C:But just from this conversation, let's just remember that we want to consider age, health condition and ethnicity are the three main factors that can impact NAD levels.
Speaker C:Now let me answer your question.
Speaker C:How can we keep our NAD levels up?
Speaker C:Obviously chronologically we are going to age and not much we can do.
Speaker C:But if we stay healthy, especially if we can avoid inflammation and we can keep our nadine levels higher, inflammation increase.
Speaker C:CD38 that you mentioned, CD38 is one of the major proteins that can degrade NAD.
Speaker C:So avoiding inflammation is one way to keep NAD levels relatively higher than otherwise.
Speaker C:There are certain foods and there are other ways that can keep NADINE levels a little higher, like sauna exercise.
Speaker C:They can activate enzymes, nampt, which converts nicotinamide back to NAD through the salvage pathway.
Speaker C:And all this lifestyle actions can improve NAD levels, but the degree of improvement is really minimal.
Speaker C:There's no lifestyle change that can really keep our NAD levels in the optimum range.
Speaker C:I am not aware of any way that you can naturally keep your energy levels high enough.
Speaker C:So the only way that we can really optimize our NAD levels is through supplementation or some other delivery route.
Speaker C:We have tried intravenous infusion of nad.
Speaker C:Now people are trying intravenous infusion of NAD precursors like NR and nmn.
Speaker C:And you know, I can give you world Data as to what works, what doesn't.
Speaker C:And now intramuscular injection, subcutaneous injection for NAD becoming pretty popular.
Speaker C:I can tell you the best, the most efficient way of optimizing NAD levels is actually through oral supplementation of NAD precursors.
Speaker A:There's a few things I want to pick up on.
Speaker A:I do want to go down that NAD subq route because I think that's really interesting at the moment and a lot of people in the field are doing research on it on themselves.
Speaker A:But I just wanted to pick up on something else you said.
Speaker A:You said inflammation raises CD3 and thus decreases NAD levels.
Speaker A:A lot of athletes, young athletes who are very sporty, eat healthily and do all the things that we would think could contribute to a longer life, often suffer from a lot of inflammation.
Speaker A:Does that mean they also have quite low NAD levels?
Speaker C:You are absolutely right.
Speaker C:We have data.
Speaker C:So training, especially intensive training, over training, can increase inflammation levels.
Speaker C:Athletes who are over trained and actually tended to have much lower energy levels than the population.
Speaker C:I'll give you one example.
Speaker C:And he is a middleweight boxing champion living in Tennessee.
Speaker C:I'm not going to say his name, boxing champion.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:His UNITY level was below 20, I believe around 17, much, much lower than the population average.
Speaker C:That's just one example.
Speaker C:And we were able to get his unity to over 60 from 17 to 70 within two weeks using oral led precursors.
Speaker C:And I also have another very young individual.
Speaker C:He actually manages very large gym in Orlando.
Speaker C:He was overtrained, he couldn't train anymore.
Speaker C:We tested his NAD, he was also below 20 and we put him on the NED supplement.
Speaker C:After two weeks, his energy level went up dramatically into the optimum zone and he was able to start the training again.
Speaker C:So anyone who's engaged in intensive training, especially if you worry about over training, you want to get energy testing.
Speaker C:More importantly, you really want to get energy levels optimized.
Speaker C:And we know by optimizing NAD you can reduce inflammation, you can increase endurance, and you can shorten recovery time.
Speaker C:That happens again and again.
Speaker C:And for some athletes, NAD can increase their peak performance.
Speaker C:What NAD can increase peak performance depends on what level you are already performing.
Speaker C:If you are already at the highest level, there's no nowhere to go.
Speaker C:But we have a few athletes that we were able to improve their personal records and that can happen.
Speaker C:But the best benefit is actually endurance and recovery.
Speaker A:Before we move on, I just wanted to speak again about the NAD and how we can increase it.
Speaker A:You mentioned there's no lifestyle changes that dramatically increase NAD levels.
Speaker A:I know you're a big proponent of taking NAD orally as a supplement.
Speaker A:And I know you are a serious research and scientist person so you would not make your assumptions just on a whim.
Speaker A:But while I think the field knows now that intravenous NAD has no real long term effect, I guess because of its short half life, people do believe objectively, because I guess there are no subjective tests as such, except for yours, that sub Q injections of NAD do help and they do feel better.
Speaker A:They do see an increase of energy.
Speaker A:What's your thought on that?
Speaker A:Why do you think that is?
Speaker A:And why do you still think supplements are the way to go?
Speaker C:Okay, I'll give you the data.
Speaker C:We have a lot of data.
Speaker C:Before I tell you the data I want to get 1.3.
Speaker C:That's what level of NAD we want to have.
Speaker C:What's the optimal range based on population distribution in various age groups and also based on the health outcome after NAD treatment and as supplementation or injection.
Speaker C:We now know that the minimum level of NAD you want is around 40 micromolar.
Speaker C:You don't want to below 40.
Speaker C:The maximum level that I don't want people to go over is 100.
Speaker C:I'm less sure as to whether it's 100 or 80.
Speaker C:Net up level is still going to be.
Speaker C:We need more research to determine.
Speaker C:But I definitely, I don't want it to go over 100.
Speaker A:I think that's a really important point and I don't think it's been mentioned before by anyone else or by many people.
Speaker A:Why do we not want it to go above, you know, 80 or 100 is more, not more.
Speaker C:More is not always better.
Speaker C:More is not better for anything.
Speaker C:We understand the net principle now.
Speaker C:Why I don't want people to go over 100, I'm less certain.
Speaker C:But what I do know is you do not want to approach 150.
Speaker C:I will just present the data and let people decide where we should set the limit.
Speaker C:Okay, so we know individuals who take high doses of niacin in the form of nicotinic acid.
Speaker C:Their NAD levels are usually around 150 micromolar.
Speaker C:We also know from publications that if you use niacin and you increase the levels of two terminal metabolites from nicotinamide called 2Py and 4Py.
Speaker C:And these two terminal metabolites can increase vascular inflammation and cardiovascular risk.
Speaker C:The paper was published about one year ago.
Speaker C:They did not know the link between niacin intake and the extreme high levels of NAD through niacin.
Speaker C:So niacin is the most Potent NAD precursor.
Speaker C:But high dose of niacin will increase NAD level way, way too high and can cause vascular inflammation and cardiovascular risk.
Speaker C:Another discovery that we made a year ago, and it's not published, is individuals who take high dose of niacin.
Speaker C:Almost everyone that we studied have insomnia.
Speaker C:Now for anyone who's taking high dose of niacin to reduce cholesterol level and if you have insomnia, please take it away.
Speaker C:You are going to sleep like a baby.
Speaker C:You know, I presented this data in multiple meetings and I have individuals who tried on the same day.
Speaker C:The second morning they come back to me and say I slept so well.
Speaker C:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker C:You know, if I can help anyone to solve the insomnia problem, that would be great.
Speaker C:I have to give a credit to a functional medicine doctor who is part of the founders of A4M, the American association of Anti Aging Medicine.
Speaker C:He was in charge of the A4M biomarker testing program.
Speaker C:So he and I, we work together to figure out the link between high dose niacin and insomnia.
Speaker C:He had insomnia for 30 years, but he was taking niacin and we found extremely high levels of NAD and you know, we found the link and he decreased the dosage of niacin and insomnia improved and he completely eliminated insomnia.
Speaker C:And that piece of advice is hopefully helpful to your listeners.
Speaker C:Yeah, if anyone is taking niacin, hashim, insomnia, get back to us and I want to know how this might help you.
Speaker C:So we know the absolute up limit is 150 micromolar.
Speaker C:I am someone who is very cautious.
Speaker C:My number one priority is to do no harm.
Speaker C:Unfortunately, not everyone has net principle.
Speaker C:So to absolutely do no harm.
Speaker C:I know most people will get a lot of benefits when their level is around 60, 70 micromolar.
Speaker C:So I believe the difference between let's say 70 and 150.
Speaker C:So somewhere around 100 micromolar is probably the up limit of only the levels that you want to have.
Speaker C:Do I have 100% confidence in that?
Speaker C:No, I don't.
Speaker C:But I know you do not necessarily get more benefits at 80 micromolar versus 120 micromolar.
Speaker C:Why take the risk of elevating your NAD that may have potential side effects?
Speaker C:Again, the do no harm principle is applied here in determining where we should aim.
Speaker A:Why is supplementation still superior to even subq injections?
Speaker C:Okay, great.
Speaker C:So now let me give you the data on subq injection.
Speaker C:If you inject two to three times a week at a dose of less than 50 milligrams, you know, 25, 50 milligrams, you increase your nadine levels on average by 20 to 30%.
Speaker C:But in order to get the maximum benefit from NAD, the average increase needs to be about 100% from about 26, 27 micromolar to 50, 55 micromolar.
Speaker C:So the average increase that you need is about 100%.
Speaker C:With three injections a week, you only increase by 20 to 30%.
Speaker C:Now what do you do?
Speaker C:Well, you can increase the dosage or you can increase the frequency of injection to increase by 100%.
Speaker C:You probably need to inject five times a week, maybe more, maybe every day.
Speaker C:If you are willing to do that.
Speaker C:Willing to pay for the high cost.
Speaker C:I'm not against subq injections.
Speaker C:If you are willing to do that.
Speaker C:Me for myself, I don't like to inject myself.
Speaker C:So I would never take the sub Q injection route unless that's the only way that I can do it.
Speaker C:It's a personal preference.
Speaker C:Now let me give you the data on the best supplement happens to be mine.
Speaker C:I'm now trying to sell my stuff.
Speaker C:I have yet to find another product that performs near what we have.
Speaker C:What we have is a good standard to compare other approaches with the formulation we have.
Speaker C:It's primarily NMN with three other ingredients and with thousands milligrams of NMN per day, we can increase nadine levels on average by 110%.
Speaker C:That's a daily oral supplementation.
Speaker C:We actually recommend two doses every day, 500 milligrams each time.
Speaker C:So you have the choice of injecting more often or at a higher dosage or you can have a choice of the oral supplements or you can do a combination of both.
Speaker C:So I presented the data for everyone to consider to try so they can decide what's the best approach that giving them the most convenience, the lower price and more importantly the best outcome.
Speaker C:We know for the vast majority of people the oil supplements deliver great outcome and probably better than this subcutaneous injection unless you have a very high dose and injector frequency.
Speaker C:And oral supplements, much cheaper, much more convenient, easier to do and it can be done by almost everyone.
Speaker C:So it's more widely available, potentially more efficient approach to optimize energy levels then subq injections.
Speaker C:I don't argue against the sub Q injection if they do it right and they get the benefit.
Speaker C:My recommendation is test your current protocol by NAD test to see where you stand.
Speaker C:I know pretty well where we want to get your NAD levels to be for you to maximize the benefits from nad.
Speaker C:I'm not dictating how you get there.
Speaker A:I think a lot of the problem with the subq injections is also if you inject too much at a time, it creates a great fatigue and you become quite exhausted, which is sort of a bit contraindicative of what you really want from nad, which is the energy.
Speaker A:So supplements are definitely the more controlled way, I would say, to.
Speaker A:To take nad.
Speaker C:Yeah, you are right.
Speaker C:So the reason that I recommend two different servings a day is two primary reasons.
Speaker C:The first one is you don't want to have the potential of overdosing if you do it in one dose.
Speaker C:That does not happen very often with the oral supplements we have.
Speaker C:Secondly, I and many other people actually get a immediate boost after taking the NAD supplement for myself.
Speaker C:Five to 10 minutes after I take a dose, my mind becomes more clear, I feel more energetic and I want to have two opportunities to boost my energy and feel better.
Speaker C:So all supplementation with generated dosing, generated product actually works very, very well and gets the job done.
Speaker C:If that's the right approach for someone, I would certainly encourage them to do it.
Speaker C:But again, you want to get testing to find the right product and more importantly, the right dosing.
Speaker C:I cannot emphasize the importance of dosing not only for NAD but for almost all supplements.
Speaker C:Incorrect dosing is the number one reason why supplements don't work.
Speaker C:If we get dosing right, most supplements should deliver benefits.
Speaker C:If your supplements are not giving you the benefits, I would say don't take it.
Speaker C:One of my jobs with people who come to me is I want to know everything they are taking.
Speaker C:I want them to find out what is actually delivering the benefit or not eliminate everything that you cannot demonstrate the benefit.
Speaker C:Many biohackers are just taking too much, too many.
Speaker A:That goes back to your Tao principle that you need to do the testing and then what to act upon and then see a result.
Speaker A:So I guess you then test again to see if you've reached the desired outcome.
Speaker A:So testing really is at the start of any supplementation or health journey, I guess.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Does private testing widen the gap between.
Speaker A:People who can and can't afford private health care?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I am actually working a little bit on that front with a couple foundations.
Speaker C:I'm a small player in a bigger pond and I don't have influence on government policies.
Speaker C:But from a scientific and medical point of view, making basic tests and supplementation available to the population is a wide national policy in multiple fronts.
Speaker C:It's a great Policy from an economical point of view as well.
Speaker C:Because if we just add a few basic supplements into the daily routine of the vast majority of the population, I know we can prevent or at least delay the onset of many diseases and that will reduce the cost of health care.
Speaker C:And because people are less sick and they are more productive as well, there are studies done on health economics.
Speaker C:Prevention does pay off in the long run.
Speaker C:The problem is I have not yet to find a government that's willing to pay the upfront cost and for the long term benefits because of the election cycles of four years or five years, depending on where you live.
Speaker C:I think the solution that is public, private collaboration.
Speaker C:I would love to work with some foundations for Pioneer Project.
Speaker C:Let's say we take a small city or a small county and we conduct the Pioneer program to demonstrate to the policymakers that basic supplementation as a preventive strategy will increase health, will increase productivity, will reduce health benefit.
Speaker C:There's no doubt about to me that this can work.
Speaker C:And there are a few very, very basic things that we can do to change the picture dramatically.
Speaker C:And I actually have a proposal in place if anyone is interested.
Speaker C:I have the proposal ready to go.
Speaker C:And we know it's not going to cost a lot of money and we just need to have the buy in from some foundations or a big company or corporate.
Speaker C:I know we can increase the productivity, we can reduce sick time, we can increase retention of employees.
Speaker C:The benefits are widespread and we just need to convince someone who is willing to try it.
Speaker A:Well, from what I hear through the grapevine, Brian Johnson is using your tests.
Speaker A:So you know, ask him.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Brian Johnson has been working with me from very early on.
Speaker C:About five years ago, he uses our test and he uses our NAD supplement and he recommends the test to the blueprint participants.
Speaker C:Vin has been a proponent of what we do and I'm a proponent of what he does as well.
Speaker C:And we have some other big names like Peter Diamandis.
Speaker C:He uses my test and some of my supplements.
Speaker C: Longevity Summit in Boston in: Speaker C:And so I'm working with some of the biggest names.
Speaker C:Dave Osprey and Tim Cook, Mark Kilberg.
Speaker C:They have a longevity program and I'm working with them as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, what we do is being accepted by some of the leaders in the longevity field.
Speaker A:No, no, absolutely.
Speaker A:If anybody ever had any doubts about genefinity, Precision Med and that cleared it all up, can I just ask you, and I know it's a very wide question, but what do you think is the main problem today in the supplementation market?
Speaker A:I'm sure it's, you know, part of it is overhype, no control.
Speaker A:What do you specifically see as the biggest problem?
Speaker C:There are many problems.
Speaker C:The first problem is that anyone can produce a supplement and sell it.
Speaker C:And many of the companies don't have a scientific team, they don't have a scientific background.
Speaker C:And to solve that problem they may put some big scientist name on their board.
Speaker C:And I served on board, I know what board members do and how much influence they may or may not have.
Speaker C:The problem is there's not enough accountability and wrong perception on the consumer's part.
Speaker C:If I can do one thing here is I want everyone to understand that supplements are supposed to work.
Speaker C:They are not supposed to not work.
Speaker C:If you think the supplements are not supposed to work, then don't take it or find it once do give you a benefit.
Speaker C:That's the first misconception that I want to change.
Speaker C:There's no difference between supplement and the medicine other than medicines are more vigorous testing and supplements can be more effective than many drugs if it's done correctly.
Speaker C:And in for drugs, clinical trials are done to identify generated dosing and sometimes generate indication or who should take them.
Speaker C:And we are actually applying precision medicine that I practice into precision health or precision supplementation.
Speaker C:Again, we come back to becoming more precise, more personalized, more data driven, outcome driven.
Speaker C:If you don't get a health benefit, don't take it.
Speaker A:Wow, what a fantastic way to end this podcast.
Speaker A:I love this, but we're not quite at the end because I always ask my guests five rapid fire questions at the end.
Speaker A:So here they are.
Speaker A:What's the single best piece of advice you would give your younger self?
Speaker C:I will start my longevity program much much earlier and I wish my parents can start my longevity program.
Speaker A:Name one habit everyone should adopt for a longer, healthier life.
Speaker C:Getting moving.
Speaker C:Exercise is one of the most important elements to health and longevity.
Speaker A:And if you weren't in longevity science, what career would you have chosen?
Speaker C:I would combine bioinformatics and benchmark science and find it in intersection.
Speaker A:What microdose habits, sort of five minute routine or small daily action yields outsized longevity benefits.
Speaker C:Drinking enough water, best quality of water.
Speaker A:What's the craziest longevity myth you've encountered and is there any truth to it?
Speaker C:I don't like cold plunging.
Speaker C:I'm not saying it doesn't work for me, I cannot do it.
Speaker A:But do you think there's any truth to it that it helps?
Speaker C:I don't know, some people actually warn against it and others love it and it may be a personal thing.
Speaker A:Listen, Dr. Jin, thank you so so much for being on Beyond Longevity.
Speaker A:It was a joy could have talked to you for much longer.
Speaker A:You are really a fountain of knowledge.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:It's very it has been my pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:That was Dr. Jin Cheongshe on Beyond Longevity.
Speaker B:If there's one thing that really stood out in this conversation, it is that longevity cannot just be about hype, trends or taking things blindly.
Speaker B:It has to start with understanding what is actually going on in our bodies.
Speaker B:So Dr. Jin's principle of tow test act optimize makes a lot of sense.
Speaker B:If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with anyone interested in longevity, precision, health biomarkers and the science of living better for longer.
Speaker B:Thank you for following, rating and reviewing the podcast.
Speaker B:Until next time, thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Sam.
