Q&A #1 - My background, NAD Boosters (Patreon)

Hey everyone, only had two questions for this Q&A which allowed me to dig into them pretty deep. (I'll leave the questions anonymous, but if y'all would like me to mention your name let me know and I'll edit it in)

(1) My background: "I’m still interested in your background, as I indicated earlier. I’m interested because I’m wondering how you went from being raised in TX to living in Japan and being so well-qualified in the language – both intrigue me. Also, what do you do now as a profession and what got you so interested in making YouTube videos as a hobby?"

[My response]
As for my story... My friend Charlie recently did a podcast with me on his website: https://www.liveworkplayjapan.com/starting-a-successful-youtube-channel-with-joseph-everett/ (My first podcast ever!) So that might be an interesting listen but basically my story goes like this: 

At the end of 2010 I went on a study abroad program to study in Japan for a semester. Japan took some getting used to but after a while I realized it was a lot better than I expected and I began thinking I'd like to work here some day. Then, come March 11, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami happened and my school was pressuring me to come back home with threats of my program being cancelled and receiving no course credits. 
If you're interested in that story, I've attached an article I wrote for a friend's website in 2014 (Battle to stay in Japan.pdf). I talk about a document I came up with to appeal to my University to let me stay in the country, that is attached too (Fukushima Appeal 2011.pdf) 

That was a very stressful period and I invested a lot of energy to be able to stay in Japan. This in turn encouraged me to buckle down and make the most of my time in the country. 

After graduation I worked as a recruiter for four years finding jobs for bilingual Japanese people at foreign capital companies. That was a great job and a great chance to grow as a person, but at the same time I had this idea in the back of my head that I was going to become an entrepreneur and work for myself. So, when the culture and management of the company I was working at drastically changed in a couple different ways, I took that as an opportunity to leave and try and make something work. Ironically, I broke rule #1 of job changing: Don't quit your job until you have the next thing lined up. 

So, while living off of my savings, I started working on a couple different projects. I was bingeing TED talks for a while, watching them on 2x speed and after a while I started to think about how most of the TED talks follow the same pattern: present some issue, emphasize the importance of the issue with facts and numbers, add a personal story then present some solution /hope giving information. So I was thinking "Wouldn't it be great if there was some channel that just presented the key points from TED talks?" So I made a channel called "QuickTalks" - here's the last video I did on that channel. 

I realized that to really make something worthwhile I'd have to add something myself - make content of my own rather than editing other people's videos. So, I started out with a blog: https://lifeforbusypeople.com/

While trying to figure out how to promote the blog, I came across the idea of making a youtube video adaptation of some blog posts, so that's what I did. The videos were pulling much more views than the blog posts and once my "One Meal a Day" video hit 500,000 views I said "OK I guess I'm doing youtube now." 

Actually, youtube is my full time job - I'd actually estimate that I spend more hours on this than when I was working as a consultant. Luckily it doesn't always feel like work because it's very fun digging into all these different topics. 

So, that's my story for now, I hope it was interesting in some way!

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(2) NAD+ Boosters: "Do you know if the NAD+ boosters to come out of Sinclair's lab has an age when they should be taken? Or maybe an age at which they should be avoided?Maybe a teenager is too young, someone in their 20s, etc. Could it stunt the body from being able to produce it's own after continued NAD+ administration?"

[My Response]
Honestly I had to dig into this from scratch as I hadn't heard too much about NAD+ boosters before this. It sounds like you already understand how it works, but some quick background for everyone else: (The abstract from David Sinclair's paper is straight forward enough that I'll just copy paste it)

A decline in capillary density and blood flow with age is a major cause of mortality and morbidity. Understanding why this occurs is key to future gains in human health. NAD precursors reverse aspects of aging, in part, by activating sirtuin deacylases (SIRT1–SIRT7) that mediate the benefits of exercise and dietary restriction (DR). We show that SIRT1 in endothelial cells is a key mediator of pro-angiogenic signals secreted from myocytes. Treatment of mice with the NAD+ booster nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) improves blood flow and increases endurance in elderly mice by promoting SIRT1-dependent increases in capillary density, an effect augmented by exercise or increasing the levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a DR mimetic and regulator of endothelial NAD+ levels. These findings have implications for improving blood flow to organs and tissues, increasing human performance, and reestablishing a virtuous cycle of mobility in the elderly.

Simply put, the ability to form new blood vessels declines with age. "According to the Vascular Theory of Aging (Le Couteur and Lakatta, 2010),vascular decline is one of the major causes of aging and agerelated diseases." SIRT1 in the endothelial cells mediates blood vessel forming signals from muscle cells. Boosting NAD boosts SIRT1, improving blood flow and increasing capillary density. 

This video provides a good easy to understand explanation: https://vimeo.com/261202564

Another paper found that NAD+ precursors can ameliorate age related insulin resistance.

So, at what age should people start taking these? 

Sinclair's paper says "One of the most profound changes to the body as it ages is a decline in the number and function of endothelial cells (ECs) that line the vasculature." But it doesn't say a specific age- if we could find that out that might be the time to consider an NAD booster. According to Dr. Christopher Hertzog (who wrote a very paltry book called "Crazy about NR?), the aging process kicks in at age 26. That seems like a reasonable estimate based on "Strength and muscle mass loss with aging process. Age and strength loss" - they say muscle decline begins somewhere between the 20th and 30th year of life. 
David Sinclair has said on Joe Rogan that by the time you are 50, you have half the NAD you had when you were 20. 

Any harm in taking them earlier than that?
I actually just bought some NiaCel (Nicotinamide Riboside) -125mg from Thorne research thanks to this question. I'll try it out and update y'all if I notice any good or bad changes in particular. I've seen a couple places say NAD boosters are completely safe and it's hard to find material saying otherwise. (Unless you're taking Nicotinic Acid, this can cause a potentially severe flush reaction, but other NAD+ precursors are used for this reason.) However, Chris Masterjohn put out a really interesting video on "Why you should be careful about Niacin and Nicotinamide Riboside" and he says 
・All forms of Niacin (includes Nicotinamide Riboside) in excess consume methyl groups in order to be properly excreted in the urine. You're losing methyl groups.
・Methyl groups are used to create things like creatine (exercise performance) and choline (prevent fatty liver) and controlling neurotransmitters (control anxiety and depression).
Chris talks about a message from someone who used Niagen for 6 weeks. From week 3 she started feeling terrible - depressed and irritable. She stopped taking it and her energy tanked, she started taking it again to get her energy back but felt bad emotionally. Her eyesight apparently worsened and got better when she stopped taking it. 
This person had 

・ He recommends a low dose - 25mg to 30mg. (Most capsules come in 125mg or 250mg doses). If you insist on taking a large dose, he recommends to match that dose with trimethylglycine (TMG) to make up for lost methylgroups. (He recommends Jarrow Formulas') 
Plenty of people commented on the video saying they had no problem with Niagen or high dose Niacin and had many benefits. On the other hand, someone else commented:  "had the same thing happen when taking 250mg ... I got extremely depressed and exhausted. I stopped using the nicotine mode riboside and slowly after a week or so my mental health improved and my energy returned. I started taking it at a much lower dose exactly as he states about 30 mg with the TMG and it works wonders for me. I have MTTR, and rapid methylation issues. If it works for you at a higher dose, great! Not everyone is the same. If it wasn’t for this doctor posting about this I never would have known what had caused my issue."

I'm not an expert on this of course, but while it seems like a very exciting supplement I think it would be better to wait until you're older than 26 to start messing with it. 

David Sinclair looks pretty young for 50. Great genes ...or Resveratrol supplementation and NAD boosting? (Picture from his twitter, March of this year)

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That's it for now! Feel free to respond to this post with questions for the next Q&A.