Remember when your parents told you to eat your greens…well…there are plenty of benefits, but one of them might bear fruit if you would like to long long and prosper. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis have demonstrated increased longevity in mice fed a compound known as NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide. This substance is found naturally in broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, avocado and other foods.
They suggest that its mode of action may be to compensate for a loss of energy production, and so reduce typical signs of aging such as gradual weight gain, loss of insulin sensitivity and decline in physical activity. NMN is the metabolic compound one step back from the molecular key to energy-production, NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide biochemical production of which falls with age in mice. Given that human cells carry almost identical processes as mouse cells, it is likely that NMN supplementation could reinvigorate elderly people too and allow them to be more physical active, avoid middle-age spread and the like. The compound shows no toxicity even in long-term supplementation, in the laboratory mice, the team reports in the journal Cell Metabolism.
The effects of NMN highlight the preventive and therapeutic potential of NAD intermediates as effective anti-aging interventions in humans.
There is a Phase 1 clinical trial of NMN currently underway in Japan (product from Oriental Yeast Co., same NMN as used in the mouse studies. However, you cannot yet by high-grade NMN fit for human consumption as a supplement. So, keep eating those greens…broccoli, cucumber and avocado, in particular!