Pomegranate and marigold blend edges out a standard NAD booster in older adults
Posted by brooke81 in Longevity & Anti-Aging - 6 points, 6 comments.
Saw this one pop up on SupplySide, a randomized double blind trial in around 140 healthy older adults averaging 60 years old, comparing a pomegranate and marigold combo against one of the common synthetic NAD precursors for healthy aging markers.
Honestly, the design sounds solid and I like that they actually used older folks instead of twenty somethings, fwiw. But I am a bit wary when a "herbal blend beats the synthetic version" headline drops, because often the dose or the form of the comparison compound is the weak link, not some magic in the herbs. Worth digging into the paper itself to see what NAD levels actually did and which biomarkers moved.
Has anyone here looked at the full study yet, and if so, did the marigold component seem to be doing most of the work?
Comments
- elle_z: Yeah I saw this one floating around too, the headline made me do a double take because the combo is doing a lot in one capsule 😅 my hunch is the marigold part (lutein and zeaxanthin I assume) is carrying a lot of the "healthy aging" markers just because carotenoids move the needle on stuff like skin and eyes pretty reliably, while NAD is a more specific claim. I havent pulled the full paper yet, gonna try later tonight. Did they actually measure NAD levels or just downstream stuff like sirtuin
- kyle_reads: Yeah that is the right question imo, downstream markers can look great even if NAD is not really going up. I have been running my own NR for a few months and tracked HRV and resting HR mostly, no blood NAD so i cannot compare cleanly. Carotenoid angle is interesting too, lutein does move skin and eye stuff in studies. Did they publish the dose of the precursor? That part decides everything for me.
- devin280: Yeah thats exactly what i was wondering too. Honestly if they only measured downstream stuff like sirtuin activity or NAD/NADH ratios in blood, that doesnt tell you much about tissue levels where it actually matters. Skin and eye endpoints are also pretty soft for a 12 to 16 week trial imo, they respond to a lot of things. Would want to know the dose of the precursor they used, because a lot of those studies go shockingly low and then everyone acts surprised when a carotenoid blend wins.
- brooke81: Yeah exactly, the dose thing is what jumps out at me too. And fwiw I noticed they only published a few secondary endpoints, nothing on muscle or cognitive stuff which is where id actually want to see a signal in 60 year olds. If the precursor dose was like 250mg of NR or something silly then yeah no wonder a polyphenol stack edged it out. Might pull the paper tonight and see if the methods section gives anything away, ill report back.
- brooke81: Yeah fwiw, thats exactly why i want to see the actual dose of the NR or NMN they used, because if they underdosed the comparator the win is almost built in. I am gonna pull the paper tonight and report back on the numbers. HRV tracking is smart though, i never thought to track that with my own stack.
- brooke81: Good call on the carotenoids doing the heavy lifting, that was kinda my hunch too honestly. I didnt see the full paper either, just the abstract and the press release, so I cant tell you what they measured beyond the basic markers they listed. If its just downstream stuff like skin elasticity or eye health scores, then yeah, lutein and zeaxanthin would explain it without needing NAD at all. Fwiw I am mostly interested in whether they bothered to run serum NAD assays at all, because that would t
Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.