Table of Contents
introduction
I wrote this video script just over a year after starting to take NMN and to a lesser degree Resveratrol, Trimethylglycine (TMG) etc. What have I learned in that time and what advice would I give a 54-year-old me on how to take NMN and how to start My NMN Experiment?
Let’s look at the things I would and would not have changed, and how to take NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide).
consult a health practitioner on how to take NMN
I know that this will not be easy, many doctors don’t know about all the benefits of a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet, let alone how to take NMN, and still say things like LDL is your bad cholesterol, with little if any addressing of VLDL, non-HDL etc., so seek out one that is open to what you are doing. Just be aware, they may not have any idea on how to take NMN.
how to take NMN; quicker to 1 gram of NMN a day?
Yes, I would go to 1 gram a day much quicker, but I only know this now because I did it slowly, there is no official dosage protocol, so we are all still guessing; hindsight is a great thing and it may be different for you, so start small and work up at a pace you, and more importantly, your body can handle.
blood tests as a baseline
Get as many blood markers checked as you can afford (you know, this is not a bad thing to do anyway), I waited until I was increasing my dose to 1 gram a day; if I were starting again I would do it before day one of starting my longevity protocol.
check your biometric markers
If you can, buy a quality biometric scale, my first gym almost doubling their prices overnight and COVID-19 shutting down my second gym certainly wasn’t something I, or anyone, could have envisaged at the start of the experiment. Having your own scale takes away the worry of gyms closing, changing their prices, changing their policies on equipment usage etc.
If you can afford it, have a DEXA scan, possibly the most effective way to measure your bio-metric markers, although be aware you will be exposed to minor levels of radiation during the procedure.
find out your biological age
Use an Epi-genetic/DNA marker test, a blood or saliva test. Biometric scales that can calculate this use BMI as part of the formula to estimate the biological age, as you may know I do not hold any store in that antiquated formula.
trimethylglycine (TMG)
I would have taken TMG (Trimethylglycine) with NMN from the start, although not proven, methylation or depleting our methyl groups is something that we need to avoid.
The Big 3, Renue by Science, DoNotAge and ProHealth all sell TMG. One key point to consider on how to take NMN is what else to take with it.
protocol – how to take NMN
So, how to take NMN? I would have added equal amounts of Resveratrol as I upped my dose of NMN, maybe 1 month, if there were no NMN side effects, something like this:
- 22 April: 125 mg NMN*
- 22 May: add 125mg of Resveratrol
- 22 June: up to 250mg NMN*
- 22 July: up to 250mg of Resveratrol, and so on
So, essentially staggering the increase in dosage to see if there were any side effects. The asterisk denotes that the NMN would be taken with at least the same dose of TMG.
research how to take NMN
A little more research on how to take NMN may have made my journey a little less fraught; but then you don’t know what you don’t know.
It wasn’t until I had been taking NMN for a few months that people, far more ‘in the know’ than I, alerted me to methylation and the possible need to take TMG.
Resveratrol v trans-resveratrol, again it wasn’t until someone mentioned it in the comments section and then David Sinclair confirmed (during an interview) that it must be trans and not cis resveratrol. I took cis resveratrol for a few months before I knew this (this will have affected my results, to what extent I will never know).
Berberine dose; purely by luck I started to take one gram of Berberine in lieu of 1 gram of Metformin (as David Sinclair does), before I found out, again from a subscriber that 1 gram of Berberine is roughly equal to 1 gram of Metformin; information they had gleaned from a Valter Longo video.
suppliers
By the end of the first year, I had used 4 different suppliers, time spent on research will seldom if ever be wasted, look for at least 2 suppliers that you trust (so you don’t run out if their NMN is on back-order), also that they:
- Do post 3rd party test certificates, and that they
- Do ship to your country
keeping records on how to take NMN
Think seriously about recording all your results, as I did, things that you think may be affected by NMN, but make sure you actually record them – i.e., sleep, exercise, energy levels, injuries, hunger and other supplements as they are added to your stack.
Also record things such as headaches, upset stomach etc. also record if they didn’t happen; remember negative data is still data.
no other changes
Don’t start your NMN experiment with another big change; you may use taking NMN as part of a big life change, such as:
- Taking NMN and going carnivore or Vegan
- Taking NMN and starting to exercise, or starting to exercise more regularly
- Taking NMN and giving up sugar
I am glad I was happy with my diet and exercise regimen; big changes may have altered my Stat’s i.e., doing extra exercise, changing fasting protocols etc. could have shown non-NMN triggered changes, and may have muddied the waters.
Be aware of potential side effects, sleep issues, upset stomach, extra energy (you may not want to take NMN at night), just be aware that these things may happen.
no such thing as pharmaceutical grade NMN
There is no such thing as pharmaceutical grade NMN, there is just NMN, these labels are all unofficial and do not meet any official standard.
NMN has a CAS number (1094-61-7), this number will tell you all you need to know about NMN.
I was told by a reliable source that, if there were more than 1 type of NMN, it would have a separate CAS number.
the purity of your NMN
The percentage of purity is the percentage of the desired material which is actually in the sample. It is not a standard, there is no standard that allows a company to call its NMN Pure, ultra-pure, mega pure etc. these are labels made up by supplement companies, mainly to entice you, but also to mislead you (but within the law).
The decision is up to you, are you happy with 95% purity or must you have 99%+ NMN? Pharma grade, food grade, pure, super pure, ultra-pure are just labels, ignore them, just look at the purity percentage.
What is the difference between 99.5% and 95.5%, will the extra 4% actually make a difference at the molecular level, who knows? I’m sure the NMN companies, if asked, will certainly tell you ‘There is strong evidence to say it could or it may, and it would be safer to take as pure a product as is possible; they don’t know, they don’t care, they just want your orders, they just want your money.
Be sure you know what you are paying for, and that’s the purity level and not the unofficial label. So basically, it is all down to cost, what can you afford?
conclusion
When I started my experiment, there was very little information about NMN and how to take NMN, basically just the first Joe Rogan interview with David Sinclair.
I hope that my Blog and my YouTube channel are now useful sources of information on how to take NMN as a daily supplement.
Unfortunately, I had to close the comments’ section on the Blog because of spammers, more than fifty a day!
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section of this video.