Episode 133
Dr. Greg Kelly:The Power of NAD in Detoxification and Protection
Dr. Greg Kelly:
The Power of NAD in Detoxification and Protection
We're joined by Dr. Gregory Kelly, a naturopathic physician, senior director of product development at NeuroHacker Collective, and an author, who shares his extensive knowledge on boosting our body's NAD levels to improve cellular health, energy production, and overall resilience.
First Aired on: Apr 1, 2024
Episode 133
Dr. Greg Kelly:The Power of NAD in Detoxification and Protection
Dr. Greg Kelly:
The Power of NAD in Detoxification and Protection
We're joined by Dr. Gregory Kelly, a naturopathic physician, senior director of product development at NeuroHacker Collective, and an author, who shares his extensive knowledge on boosting our body's NAD levels to improve cellular health, energy production, and overall resilience.
First Aired on: Apr 1, 2024
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Episode Highlights
- The Significance of NAD: The episode dives deep into the importance of NAD for cellular health and energy production. Dr. Kelly uses an analogy of the airport system to explain NAD’s central role in our cellular network, emphasizing its importance in various cellular processes.
- Aging and NAD Levels: Discussion on how aging affects NAD levels in the body and the implications for cellular function and overall health. The conversation includes how boosting NAD levels can counteract these age-related declines.
- Qualia NAD’s Preliminary Trials: Dr. Kelly shares insights into NeuroHacker Collective’s preliminary trials of Qualia NAD, revealing impressive results such as improved energy and better sleep among participants.
- Understanding Cellular Energy: The episode explores the relationship between NAD and ATP, detailing how NAD is crucial for ATP production and, consequently, for maintaining energy levels within cells.
- Role of NAD in Detoxification and DNA Repair: Dr. Kelly explains NAD’s involvement in critical cellular defense mechanisms, including detoxification processes and DNA repair, showcasing the molecule’s multifaceted importance.
- Impact of Stress on NAD Levels: The conversation covers how various forms of stress affect NAD levels and the importance of managing stress to maintain optimal cellular health.
- NAD and Autoimmune Health: Special emphasis is placed on the significance of NAD for individuals with autoimmune disorders, discussing how boosting NAD levels can support their journey towards recovery and wellness.
- Personal Experiences with NAD Supplementation: Julie shares her own experiences with different forms of NAD supplementation, highlighting the tangible benefits she has observed and how it has impacted her health journey.
- Innovations in NAD Boosting: The discussion touches upon the various methods of increasing NAD levels, including IV therapy and oral supplements, and introduces Qualia NAD as a novel and effective oral solution.
- The Science Behind Qualia NAD: Dr. Kelly elaborates on the science and rationale behind the formulation of Qualia NAD, including the selection of specific ingredients and their synergistic effects to support NAD production and cellular health.
- Practical Advice for Listeners: The episode concludes with actionable advice for listeners interested in improving their cellular health through NAD supplementation, emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach to health and wellness.
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Dr. Greg Kelly
Connect with Dr. Greg Kelly
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Dr. Greg Kelly has a gift for you!
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Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson:[00:00:00] Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson, but today we're joined by Dr. Gregory Kelly, senior director of product development at neurohacker collective, naturopathic physician, and author of the book shape shift. Dr. Kelly has published hundreds of articles on natural medicine and nutrition and has more than 30 journal articles indexed on PubMed.
Julie Michelson: His areas of [00:01:00] expertise include nootropics, anti aging and regenerative medicine, weight management, sleep, and the chronobiology of performance and health. In today's conversation, we're talking about the importance of supporting the aging molecule NAD and how the unique product Qualia NAD can help boost your body's NAD levels.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Gregg explains to us the importance of NAD on cellular health and energy production, and shows us how we can improve resilience by increasing our NAD levels by providing the precursors and cofactors our bodies need. As always, NeuroHacker Collective has impressive study results from its preliminary trials of Qualia NAD with results including improved energy and better sleep.
Julie Michelson: Listen in and learn why NAD plus is considered an anti aging must and [00:02:00] often essential component of recovering health.
Julie Michelson: Greg, welcome to the podcast.
Greg Kelly: Thanks for having me. It's exciting to be with you today.
Julie Michelson: I am really excited. As listeners know, I'm a huge Neurohacker Collective fan and have been for several years. Um, and I already asked you to try to keep things simple for us. I got into functional medicine via biohacking. Um, so, so much of what I think you're going to say is familiar to me, but maybe not quite so much to listeners.
Julie Michelson: Um, so I want to talk about NAD and, um, you know, I want you to educate us by starting literally like what is NAD and why should listeners lean in and even care,
Greg Kelly: Right. So the way I think of NAD and maybe this analogy will or won't work. I don't know. But, um, it's one of a network of really important molecules and cells. So when you think of networks, just think [00:03:00] of like the airline airport system in the U. S. Right. So NAD plus would be like Chicago or here, right?
Greg Kelly: It's just one of the biggest with the most traffic flowing through it. So, um, What we want to always do in, you know, in any basically function is we want to make sure just like Traveling through airports in the country that things are flowing through that they're not getting stuck in places, right? And what tends to happen with NAD is that as we get older there's less passengers getting to Chicago So we'll get into why that is, but where that then translates into why it's important is on a cellular level, NAD really can be thought of as doing four main jobs.
Greg Kelly: One is it's needed to make ATP. So energy is the currency of ourselves. Without energy they just can't do any of their work. And so we need NAD to do that. A second role of NAD you could think of as [00:04:00] cellular defense or detoxification. So NAD is needed to make molecules like glutathione, which, uh, Um, is kind of like maybe the archetypical antioxidant and detox molecule in ourselves.
Greg Kelly: And then a third thing is it's needed to repair DNA. So that's, that wasn't in biochemistry books when I went to naturopathic school,
Julie Michelson: Two years ago, right? You just graduated.
Greg Kelly: Well, I started 31 years ago. And um, and then a fourth one would be to do with a group of enzymes called sirtuins. And sirtuins are somewhat debated, but they're clearly important for how cells respond to stress.
Greg Kelly: So those are the really the four different things. And then NAD does probably hundreds of more minor roles, but those are the key things. And When you think of it, you know, those are just essential, right? That the, um, old nature pathic core philosophy was like, our health [00:05:00] is dependent on the health of our tissues and organs.
Greg Kelly: And at the end of the day, their health is dependent on the health of ourselves. So the more we can do to keep ourselves in good shape and doing their jobs, it tends to just have a ripple. Like, you know, I think there's this saying, like, as above, so below. But in this case, it would be as below, so above.
Julie Michelson: Sure, sure. And that makes perfect sense. And so for people out there listening that are hopefully, you know, everybody's already kind of leaning in if they're not familiar with NAD, because even just if they've listened to the podcast and they're on the beginning of their autoimmune healing journey, you know, they know how important detox is and, you know, That probably toxic burden is a factor in, in their illness.
Julie Michelson: They know if they, even if they don't know, they, you know, about ATP, they know they're lacking energy. Um, and that is, it's from the cellular level. So I love that you said that it's these things that we feel, the fatigue, the brain [00:06:00] fog, the pain. This is cellular health, mitochondrial health. And this is an area that especially those of us with chronic illness, Really need to be addressing to get back to wellness and those of us now in that place of wellness need to be paying attention for health span and longevity.
Julie Michelson: Um, so I, I, I love, thank you. I, I wasn't sure if you were going to be able to really bring it down to, okay. So now hopefully listeners are in, um, and, and NAD is obviously not new on the scene. And again, it's hard for me to separate, you know, yeah, we, we, we use it in functional medicine. I think it's really popular in biohacking circles and longevity wellness circles.
Julie Michelson: Personally, I have, I've had NAD IVs. I am definitely in that camp of, I need all of the cellular mitochondrial [00:07:00] support, ATP, all of it. Detox, I'm a collector. So, I've done it, I have used NAD in every way, and as we talk about some of the components of this amazing supplement, I've used a lot of them too, separately, um, again, without the synergy, but NAD IVs are, they're expensive.
Julie Michelson: They're, they take a lot of time, um, unless you really want to tough it out and then they're really uncomfortable if you're going to run them fast. So, um, I've done that. I've done subcutaneous and I was shocked to hear like, come on, we could, we can boost NAD orally. So tell me, like, how did you come up with something that actually works?
Greg Kelly: so, um, Like, to me, I would go back to, um, David Sinclair is a fairly famous [00:08:00] name in the longevity space. But I think it was around 2013, his lab did a study in mice. But bottom line is, they found that giving, um, NAD boosting supplements to old mice made their mitochondria perform like, uh, better. youthful mice, and that that had ripple effects for their health.
Greg Kelly: So that was what I think really catalyzed the interest in like, Oh, are there other ways we can boost that? And at the time, there had been research done by Charles Brenner. He's a, um, at the time he was at, I think it was Harvard, um, but it might've been Dartmouth on nr, which is like what I think of as a, a new way to boost NAD in the early two thousands.
Greg Kelly: And because of that, people were like, oh, well, um, NMN was what was actually used in Sinclair study, but no one was selling NMN at that point in N-M-N-R-R was on
Julie Michelson: selling it again, but we'll talk about that.
Greg Kelly: And, um, so anyways, that really jump started [00:09:00] the interest, um, so a little more than 10 years ago, but it wasn't probably until around 2018 that the first study in humans, and it was small, but found that giving NR, nicotinamide riboside, um, the brand name of that is Niagen, that's the, how they brand it, um, increased NAD in humans.
Greg Kelly: So it was like super cool. It does what we hoped it did. would do. And since then, there's been, you know, like literally dozens of studies that have shown that that building block molecule can do that. Um, but what was often forgotten in the exuberance of this, you know, the two new ones, NR and NMN, the new kids on the block, is that the old ones, what I think of as the OG niacins, that, that's the definition of, of a vitamin B3 is something that can make NAD molecules.
Greg Kelly: So that, um, you know, seemed to have been, forgotten. And the way it works, and I don't want to overcomplicate it, but if you think of like, you know, the airport we want to get to is NAD, and we'll just say that Chicago, you know, you can [00:10:00] get there from Santa Barbara, from San Diego, from LA, from Orange County, like I have a lot of choices within driving distance of how I can fly to LAX.
Greg Kelly: And our body for important hub molecules like NAD, it likes lots of choice, right? Like redundancy
Julie Michelson: Thank goodness.
Greg Kelly: It's a, uh, just a theme in any complex systems, right? They build in redundancy. And so I know for us from the get go, we were like, oh, well, it would, if our cells are trying to make it from these different, you know, molecules from, you know, why don't we give it more choice?
Greg Kelly: Right, so, so that's, that was our approach from the get go. Let's give, you know, you know, Niagen, because that's a great, um, NR, well established, but let's give some of these other ones as well, because they're just all used slightly differently, both, you know, in ourselves, but believe it or not, in our gut microbiome.
Greg Kelly: They kind of feed different organisms, so, because their structure is slightly different.
Julie Michelson: I love that and and that makes so [00:11:00] much sense. So as somebody who's played with lots of Only legal good healthy things to clarify. Um, I actually, I had a really pretty substantial head injury in 2020, um, that knocked me literally off my feet, but I wasn't even able to work for a few months. And one of the things I was taking at that time was NMN intentionally.
Julie Michelson: Um, I was doing a lot of other things. I was doing hyperbaric. I mean, you name it. I was doing all the things. But I noticed, sometimes it's rare that you can take something and feel something. And with the NMN, I, I could, and I did. Um, with NR, the, the nicosinamide, the riboside, I, I take it because I see the studies, I know, you know, and I know what I need.
Julie Michelson: I know what my body needs. I don't feel a thing. Um, and I'm wondering [00:12:00] if it's because maybe the different, like, maybe I needed more help in the one pathway than I do in another. This is obviously, you can tell, I did not study this process in school. So, but I'm just curious because I can't feel it.
Greg Kelly: so, um, sticking to our airport
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Kelly: And NMN to NAD is a direct flight.
Julie Michelson: Okay.
Greg Kelly: NR to NAD is a, there's a stop and the stop is NMN. Um, the same N, NA, um, NAM, Niacinamide, one of the OG ones, that's, that's, Not direct flight either. That goes through the NMN shuttle. And then Niacin is coming in its completely own way.
Greg Kelly: It never touches on NMN. Um, and so because of that, yeah, there can be, um, obstacles that different people have. The, the company that's. that I'm aware of, that's by far done the most NAD [00:13:00] testing, is called Ginfinity Precision Medicine.
Julie Michelson: Okay.
Greg Kelly: I've used them to test my own several times, and we've used them for one of our studies.
Greg Kelly: But what he said, the owner, is that sometimes even boosting NAD, they'll see, you know, NMN may work for someone, and that's someone else as well. The same, like flip flop it with NR. So there tends to be a lot of individuality. And then NMN and NR are pretty big molecules. And by that I mean, when, NAD is an even bigger one.
Greg Kelly: So when we, if we were to consume NAD orally instead of doing the IV like you, it would all be broken down into little pieces during digestion. And then we absorb the little pieces. But some of those big pieces during that process, you know, are broken down and used by gut microbi, bacteria. And because that's such an individual.
Greg Kelly: fingerprint, right? Yours is if you had an identical twin, their gut microbiome would still be different than yours, right? And so because of that, [00:14:00] there's just, um, you know, a lot of variants. And so one of the things that even in our, like, whether it's NR or NMN studies, when they show individual NAD results or our own studies, you just see big variants in, um, some people.
Greg Kelly: And at NeuroHacker, we tend to think of Responders and super responders, and then often non responders, right? Like it just doesn't work for them and what you'll often see. So like my me as an example, when I took quiet any D plus before it was on the market, right to make sure it did what it was supposed to do.
Greg Kelly: I was a super responder. My any D went up. 156 percent. Um, one of our other science team members, his went up about 50 percent. So he was just kind of a good responder, right?
Julie Michelson: Right. But the, and you're, but you're talking, just to clarify, how long were you taking it?
Greg Kelly: So he only took it 10 days. I took mine 20. So that plays into it
Julie Michelson: But that's. That's fast. I mean, that's really fast. So to me, it's [00:15:00] amazing. And I think one of the reasons I'm so excited is a I already know all, you know, maybe not the science, but I know how important it is for us to be supporting these pathways on like I shared, you know, I've already gone the expensive, uncomfortable and and, you know, Um, you know, the routes that I'm not still going in for the IBS because I'm like, I'm over it.
Julie Michelson: I'm not doing that anymore. Um, so, but also it comes from my familiarity with Neurohacker Collective. I know the just incredible detail that you guys pay attention to. And I think that's what you guys, what you do that's so special compared to all the other supplement companies out there is you, you are always creating these synergistic blends, right?
Julie Michelson: So instead of, you know, picking one of those pathways. You are giving us an opportunity, which to me just logically makes [00:16:00] sense, then hopefully, like, I'm excited because I want to be an over responder. I'll take just being, you know, or a super responder. I'll take being a responder. Um, you know, I just, Kudos to you guys for this.
Julie Michelson: I was really excited, um, to have you on because I know the, the time and energy and the fact that you guys do double blind studies and, um, you're the only website. I literally was just talking about your website yesterday. Because somebody was making a claim about a product and I'm like, where, show me the studies, show me the data and you guys take the time to do that.
Julie Michelson: And, and, but I love that. You're not waiting 5 years to let the rest of us have access. You're, you're fast tracking so we can all benefit. Um, so it's amazing. It really is. I know I want to. Continue a little bit with the airport analogy. Um, because [00:17:00] 1st of all, because I love it. And I was hoping you were I've heard I have heard you talk about it.
Julie Michelson: I was hoping you were going to go with that 1 because even I can understand it. But what are some things that aside from aging, as we know, you know, and I deproduction will decline with age. Um, but what are some things that impact some of those airports and runways? Like, why, you know, why do I feel like people with autoimmunity especially really need to be listening in and paying attention?
Greg Kelly: Well, with, I haven't seen much on rheumatoid arthritis, um, that I'm aware of, but one study did look at, um, NAD in levels and the different airports, so to speak, in white blood cells, in immune cells. And what they basically found is the whole system was chaotic. You know, people, you know, there wasn't enough in Chicago.
Greg Kelly: You know, there was too much other places, not an, it was just, the whole thing was a mess. And in this [00:18:00] particular study, they didn't give any deboosters. They, you know, did a regular medical, um, medication. I think it was anti TNF,
Julie Michelson: Sure. Some kind of inhibitor. Yeah.
Greg Kelly: it, even what that did to the white blood cells, it tended to rebalance the system, right?
Greg Kelly: Just because, um, what it was doing. And so, I would think that, like, um, Charles Brenner, the person I met that, um, really, um, famous for NR and how that's made into NAD, he fundamentally believes the key thing to think of is metabolic stress. When our cells are under any type of metabolic stress, they try to make more NAD.
Greg Kelly: They'll, they'll increase the enzymes, they'll try to get more tryptophan, which is an amino acid, and shuttle that all the way. It's like 11 steps to get to NAD even. So, um, You know, we just think of, you know, most chronically ill people, right? They've been under, um, many [00:19:00] different metabolic stresses, and the illness itself is a metabolic stress often, right?
Greg Kelly: Um, mentally, emotionally, physically, you name it. And so, because of that, it's one of the reasons that NADs, you know, peaked everyone's interest. It just sits at such a central place for getting cells to be more resilient and, you know, have a much healthier response to stress. And, you know, usually you would think of inflammation, right?
Greg Kelly: Like that low level, you know, like active immune system, but not immune system really doing its job to its fullest potential.
Julie Michelson: Right. And, and, and I love that. That's my favorite word. Do you know who coined it? I always, I always want to like give somebody credit for inflammation, um,
Greg Kelly: I have it, um, written down
Julie Michelson: somewhere.
Greg Kelly: Um, yeah, and, and what he, like one of the things I wrote, I heard someone else say this, so I've never read the paper. But, um, the gist of it, like one of his things is like, oh, if you see a young person's liver, [00:20:00] And you see an old person's lip or like a pathologist, you don't have to be told which is which, right?
Greg Kelly: They're just like, you know, evidently so different and it's because of that inflammation, right? Like macrophages and other immune cells have invaded the older and that that's what gave birth to it was that recognition.
Julie Michelson: But I, I love the, the, the concept because I think of inflammation as a spectrum. And, and I think of it as inflammation is, is, you know, that beginning part of the spectrum, all that stuff that we tell ourselves is just age related when it's really inflammation and age related. And the other end of the spectrum is the chronic illness side, whether it's autoimmunity, cancer, you know, you diabetes, you name it.
Julie Michelson: And any chronic illness, you, you've had that inflammatory process going on for some time, at least if, you know, behind the scenes. Um, and so I think of the components of, and I, and I know you're, [00:21:00] you're, and I, this is what I appreciate your science base. So you're trying to pull it back to, to science, but I want people to understand, you know, the, if you don't have cellular energy, you don't have physical energy, right.
Julie Michelson: You don't, and you don't have the energy for those processes like detox and, um, you know, and name a pro any of it, digest all of it. We need, we need energy. for that. Um, and what I love is that people like myself who I've already said, you know, I collect every toxin. I've got nameless, you know, name a snip.
Julie Michelson: You don't want, I have it, all the things. It doesn't matter. Like this is like a gift to those of us that need extra help. Um, so I, I really do love that part. Um, tell us a little bit about, you know, I, I kind of already, I mentioned some of it, um, you know, how this product is so different than I think any, anything, at least I'm aware of on the [00:22:00] market.
Greg Kelly: Yeah, so I mean, we've touched on energy a few different times, and at least in a cellular sense that's ATP is the key molecule. And um, you know, I said at the beginning, one of NAD's main jobs is helping to make ATP. What I've almost never heard anyone say is that one of the important jobs among many of ATP, because we literally, for the audience, we make and use about our body weight of ATP.
Greg Kelly: every day.
Julie Michelson: Say that again, because that is, it always makes me just, I don't know, gives me goosebumps every time I hear that.
Greg Kelly: We, we make and use and remake about our body weight of ATP every day, which is just crazy when you think about it, right? It's like it was just, um, being made and consumed so fast, it's mind boggling. Um, but one of the jobs of the many it does is actually move people from the airports, you know, [00:23:00] before NAD to NAD.
Greg Kelly: So if you, like, if you said, oh, like, um, how does niacin get to NAD? Well, that's, I mentioned, right, there's a couple stops on the way, but two of the three require ATP. If you said, how does NR Yeah, did that. I said there's, you know, one stop and then both, you know, um, flights, so to speak, need ATP and whether it's and a man needs ATP to get there.
Greg Kelly: Um, niacinamide, um, since it gets to and a man also needs that next step. So ATP and you. NAD, really their stories are interwoven, right? Like, you can't optimize one without paying attention to the other. And when you think of ATP for the listeners, always think of ATP, magnesium complex. In humans, a lot of other animals as well, ATP only can do its job when it's complexed with magnesium.[00:24:00]
Julie Michelson: And so many are magnesium deficient.
Greg Kelly: correct. Yeah. And then in lots of things that are stressful, you know, like lack of sleep, like whether that's neglect and you're not scheduling enough or poor sleep quality, those things often make it so that magnesium has more difficulty getting inside ourselves. Like you almost become magnesium resistant in a sense.
Julie Michelson: Wow.
Greg Kelly: and then there's something called the magnesium stress vicious cycle. But what that translates to is when, you know, they're, we're stressed, you know, like, so think stress at the high level, right, then our cells tend to like pushed magnesium out of them. And then if cells are then, you know, low in magnesium, they actually get stressed easier.
Greg Kelly: Right. So it's
Julie Michelson: Right.
Greg Kelly: vicious loop
Julie Michelson: they're not resilient. Yeah. I love that.
Greg Kelly: so magnesium just has a really important role with ATP. And it's one of the reasons you'll see Aquaman [00:25:00] magnesium in our product. And, um, and we chose Aquaman as magnesium because it's, it's a seawater derived. It's from, um, the oceans off Ireland. And what they do after they take the salt out of it, they, you know, concentrate the magnesium, but leave all the trace minerals and our cells and mitochondria that are in them Um, we're born way back in time in the ocean and evolved there.
Greg Kelly: Um, you know, and so trace minerals are often super neglected. And, um, you know, if you think like I, it's called the, um, hydrosphere sometimes, but the most bioavailable source of magnesium on the planet is water. Right. So,
Julie Michelson: Well, and I'm thinking of even just, just thinking of energy and cellular energy. I know just starting somebody with trace minerals, like what that can do for energy. Right. And I was listening to something the other day about, um, [00:26:00] uh, it was about workouts, you know, fueling workouts and people are using caffeine and all these different kinds of supplements, you know, but they're forgetting the hydrates.
Julie Michelson: So, um, you know, again, this is where you guys, you get so detailed and like, yeah, you know, we know we need the magnesium, but like, let's, let's do it even better. And, and have the minerals. Um, and that is why I'm, I'm such a big fan of NeuroHECA Collective, because of this level of, you know, good enough is never good enough for, for your crew.
Greg Kelly: well, we're always looking for things that are complimentary that like Daniel, um, you've had James on, but his brother, Daniel Smokinberger, um, when he was more or less my direct boss when I first was hired and, you know, He would, there's a couple of things that he would say, but one was like, Oh, at Neurohacker, we want things that do more than one thing.
Greg Kelly: And we want more than one thing that does the same, right? We [00:27:00] want redundancy.
Julie Michelson: Right. But, and I, I love the, the, just to circle back to redundancy and underscore the things that are that important in our body do have redundancy, right? So, so the, you know, there, there's always another way and the body is resilient and, and that's what we're going for. Um, So let's talk a little bit about some of the other complimentary things in the supplement.
Greg Kelly: So, um, we've mentioned NMN and that it's a direct flight from NMN to NAD and that there's an enzyme, uh, it's called NMNAT, um, for the people that care about that. But just think there's, there's one plane that's taking people there. you know, the magnesium ATP complex. Um, but there's three, three variants of it.
Greg Kelly: And one specific one in the brain is tagged with number two. So just think of like, you know, there's three different flights that [00:28:00] leave that airport and, and the brain flight, um, it turns out that the activity, um, of that enzyme. So basically the ease of getting passages from one place to is upregulated by caffeine.
Greg Kelly: Um, and And I, it's, I think, fairly unknown. There's only one study on it, but, um, what they, Like, there's studies that have found that caffeine activates that enzyme, but this one particular study looked in, um, brain cells and skin cells and found that, oh, like if you put NR, um, in the, the cell culture with those types of cells, NAD levels go up.
Greg Kelly: If you put caffeine in, NAD levels go up because it's activating the enzyme, but if you put both together, it goes up even more than
Julie Michelson: We like that.
Greg Kelly: right? And that, you know, at the end of the day, often the, and it's why NeuroHacker is the name and, you know, um, part, [00:29:00] um, our CEO, James Journey, right? Was, um, you know, um, his brain was his, you know, thing that he, um, you know, kind of through it.
Julie Michelson: him?
Greg Kelly: Yeah. So. We just always love when something can be done to support the brain. And if, if the brain's making enough NAD and making enough energy and doing the other things that NAD allows it to do, that has the biggest ripple effect on how we feel subjectively, right? And so that's why we, and we didn't put a lot, there's only 28 milligrams of caffeine in, but we wanted to have some to support that since we're all, like the last thing we would want to do at Neurohacker is.
Greg Kelly: Give so many building blocks that we're stranding people at an airport along the way
Julie Michelson: right. Well, and, and we'll, we'll dig in a little bit too, because I do think it's exciting. I want to talk about the preliminary study results, but I know [00:30:00] just for people listening, thinking, oh, well, no wonder I feel more energized if there's caffeine in it. A, there's not that much. B, some of the results people are getting is that their, their sleep is better.
Julie Michelson: So this is not a stimulant level of caffeine. This is just for efficacy, correct?
Greg Kelly: Yeah, it would be somewhere about like, you know, maybe four times the amount you get in a decaf coffee. Something, you know,
Julie Michelson: decaf. Right.
Greg Kelly: you know, so yeah, it's slow. Um, and one of the other things just as a takeaway, whether you, you know, the listeners decide to take quality NAD or some other NAD boosting product, there is, I would say, is like kindergarten level of, of science on this, meaning there's not like a lot of studies.
Greg Kelly: But what there are is NAD has a circadian rhythm, which means it changes across the day. And it, uh, based at least on an animal study where they did either infusions or gave precursor building blocks, it [00:31:00] made a huge difference when they gave it. So bottom line is when they gave the NAD boosters at the beginning of their active cycle, so for me that would be like seven in the morning ish, then that improved, you know, blood sugar, insulin, metabolic health, weight.
Greg Kelly: If they instead gave it at the beginning of their inactive cycle, so you know, after sunset for us, then it actually made most of those things worse. And what
Julie Michelson: is essential for people to understand.
Greg Kelly: yeah, because what you often see in studies and this it just goes to like convention, right? Oh, well, we'll just give you know, half the dose in the morning half in the evening But that would be less than optimal for potentially based off, you know that study and so, you know with YNAD one of the reasons we weren't concerned with the small amount of caffeine is because we really want people to take it in their morning
Julie Michelson: Which is important and and to me makes perfect sense again without my science background. Um, [00:32:00] because we operate on a circadian rhythm, our hormone cycle, our like all of it and and the things that are going on when we're sleeping, which are really important. Um, and we need cellular energy for, you know, Are different than what we're using our cellular energy for during the day.
Julie Michelson: So I love that you clarified that it is definitely recommended to take in the morning. Um, but not because again, not because it has caffeine in it, but just because that's how it's going to work best for your body.
Greg Kelly: Yeah. And one of the, um, in what we would call like our beta study, like the original one we did before, we would never sell a product before we study it.
Julie Michelson: Of course.
Greg Kelly: a new record thing. And, um, and one of the questions was about, um, like the need for sleep. Like how much are you feeling like you need more or less sleep?
Greg Kelly: Are you feeling more or less fatigued? And the product did really well in improving that for was something like 75 to [00:33:00] 80 percent of the participants, but pretty much everyone that that was a problem for improved quite a bit because some of the people
Julie Michelson: And that's again, that fatigue is something that until we tip back into, you know, wellness, I think every autoimmune diagnosis is, is preceded by fatigue. That's usually probably ignored. And, you know, you have X amount of years of, Um, and so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm in a hospital with doctor saying, Oh, no, your labs are fine.
Julie Michelson: Your labs are fine. Um, so I'm, Oh, I mean, my sleep is great. And then I'm dedicated to my sleep and thank God. You know, I've been well for years, but any thing that can make it better. Cause I want my body doing, again, I'm not a great detoxer. I want my body doing all the things it needs to be doing in, in the sleep.
Julie Michelson: So I'm really excited to, you know, for another week or two to, to see how I'm feeling and maybe I'll circle [00:34:00] back and add it into the show notes.
Greg Kelly: that by far the most common thing I've seen, so I don't, I don't track all the, you
Julie Michelson: Sure.
Greg Kelly: we get on social media, but the things that I've, you know, either in our studies or You know, that people like Scott Barry Kaufman, kind of a good friend of neural hacker. I got him on our product around the holidays and within a few days, I think it was a super short email, like energy, something
Julie Michelson: Right, right.
Greg Kelly: like one word
Julie Michelson: You don't need a lot of words. Right.
Greg Kelly: So it's like, Oh, good. It's working for you.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Which is amazing. And, and again, but knowing it, this it's true, it's coming from a cellular level and it's, it's not as Stimulant energy and not, I'm not knocking stimulant energy either. Um, I'm a huge fan, uh, you know, of nootropics and mind was the first product that, that kind of got me in the qualia door.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and so, and that [00:35:00] was like well before my head injury. So, um, I'm always looking for things that can help, but when you know that, that what's helping you feel good is actually like you said, you know, from, from the bottom up. Supporting your body is amazing.
Greg Kelly: yeah, and then just a couple other ingredients quick. So we, um, so this would be, you know, I'm sure many people know, like the whole B complex is often given together for a reason. And it's because, you know, some of them are needed to turn sugars into energy, some fats into energy, some do both. Um, and so again, getting back to that idea that you want to support the production of ATP if you're actually care about, you know, sustainably good NAD levels is how I think about it.
Greg Kelly: So we put a, um, a fermented B complex in that's, um, you know, made from a fermented yeast and then the yeast is inactivated so it's not, um, you know, problematic for people
Julie Michelson: You [00:36:00] totally like, you knew I was going to go there. What about people who are sensitive to yeast? So it's not something that's going to, to cause an issue.
Greg Kelly: Yeah, the, um, like inactivated yeast has, you know, like really specific type of beta glucan that's actually very immune balancing. Interesting. So,
Julie Michelson: And that's, I think even for people who had never heard of beta glucan, maybe three years ago, I think it's, it's become more, more popular. So here again, where you're picking, like you guys are, are selecting these top level. ingredients. Now, NMN, is it in it? Is it not in it? Are you allowed to even play in that sandbox anymore?
Greg Kelly: so the original plan was to have it in, um, and then what happened, um, before we made it, so it was before we did even our, like, our first, like, product, or our, like, test batch, the FDA decided that NMN was no longer a dietary supplement. And long [00:37:00] story short is, um, a pharmaceutical company had put in what would be like a new drug application for that molecule, but they had named it like MB 120 or some weird thing.
Greg Kelly: So the FDA didn't make the connection that this was NMN. We'll just wait until NMN was already now being sold as dietary supplements, and but once they made that connection, the way, unfortunately, it is within the FDA, is that once something's in that pipeline, it can't get from there into the dietary supplement one.
Julie Michelson: No, it only goes in one direction, unfortunately.
Greg Kelly: And so because of that, there's just, you know, there are companies still selling NMN, I'm sure you could find it on Amazon and it's a good ingredient. Like you said, there's some people that are super respondents to that. And like an NR just doesn't quite do the same thing for them. Um, But it's a risk selling it and not one that we would comfortably take.
Greg Kelly: So,
Julie Michelson: No, [00:38:00] no. And you don't need to because you're, you're hitting all these other pathways,
Greg Kelly: yeah. And, and what we've said, so I always think, so whenever a new, I'm the one that gets, like my job is, um, VP of product development. So, you know, at the end of the day, when it comes to creating a new product, that's me. And so I always step back, like, all right, who's it for? What's it supposed to do? And then at the end of the day Like after we build it did it do that thing that it was supposed to do in this case the main thing is boosting nad and we've you know in our First cohort of people the different people like me Montefi Bob, dr.
Greg Kelly: Nick that have done it It's increased NAD in everyone. It's just to varying degrees, somewhere between, you know, Dr. Nick's level and my level, but what, on average, it's about 85 percent is what we're seeing so far. So it's,
Julie Michelson: that's amazing though, really.
Greg Kelly: yeah, so it's doing what it's supposed to do, right? And it's, it's doing it, you know, for everyone we've measured so far.
Julie Michelson: Which is a miss. [00:39:00] So even what you would consider kind of like a non responder, isn't really a not like they're still getting some kind of a bump,
Greg Kelly: Yeah, so what I would say, like, usually I would think of a non responder, you know, so if it was a subjective thing, like you, um, for energy, like, there's some people, they do this, and like, wow, I have, like, infinite energy. There's other people, like, oh, my energy's better. And there's often a subset, oh, my energy didn't change at all.
Greg Kelly: And then, not unusual, there would also be negative responders. Oh, like, I did that, and my energy's actually worse. Right. So, um, so what we've seen so far is only the super responders and responders. We haven't seen the, the non or
Julie Michelson: it reminds me, yeah, it just reminds me of, I guess the trouble is that you guys expect those kinds of results now when you go in, because it's just, Every product you've made, you know, people real. And again, I do think, I think it's because you take this like, okay, where's the [00:40:00] synergy?
Julie Michelson: How can we hit more than, you know, if somebody, you know, one thing isn't going to work for somebody, what are the other four things that will, um, which I think is amazing. Are there any other, as far as components, essential components that we want to talk about? I'm curious. Uh, your opinion on, uh, if someone's taking, I don't know, we'll pick on the B vitamins.
Julie Michelson: Um, someone's already taking a, uh, methylated. So I'm going to give them credit. They're going to take a good methylated B complex. Uh, and then, you know, now they're incorporating the NAD plus, are they still, they should still stay on their B complex. I'm assuming there's not that much in there that
Greg Kelly: Yeah. So the B complex in the fermented bees that we're using are, um, vary from about 20 to 50%. Um, and what would happen, cause I get asked this question once in a while, what form are they in, right? Is it the methyl form? But what, [00:41:00] if you would think of like the folate cycle, that's crazy. Folate exists in a dozen different forms in our cells, in yeast, in animals.
Greg Kelly: Um, you know, the, um, The methyl bolate is one of them and the most dominant one by far, right? But what yeast would have, they'd have the most of that and they would have the other ones because just like our cells, like they have the whole pathway, right? They have all the airports. So that would be the same for NAD.
Greg Kelly: They would have You know, um, the whole airport system would be there, which is one of the other reasons we wanted to give it. So it's why, you know, it's a what I would think of as a food form of the B complex and in amounts that, you know, um, it could like be six, you know, there's. I don't know, 500 milligrams, you start to run into issues, right?
Greg Kelly: But, you know, like, the amount we have in there is, I don't know, half a milligram,
Julie Michelson: Right,
Greg Kelly: you know, and most people's B complex aren't going to be that ridiculously [00:42:00] high, so.
Julie Michelson: No. And it's a water soluble vitamin. I mean, it's not. Yeah. I just, I wanted to touch on that because you do have lots of goodies in there. Um, and as somebody who, you know, I, I could look forward to the day where I can back off of some of the supplements that helped me is still at this point feel really amazing.
Julie Michelson: Um, but I would rather take my giant one. But I don't even know how to describe it mixture of supplements and feel like this than take the 10 prescriptions I used to be on and feel the way I used to feel. So, um, you know, my body will catch up eventually, but for right now I'm, I'm happy to have the, the support for sure.
Julie Michelson: Is there anybody, I mean, I, could you think of anybody who wouldn't want to boost their NAD?
Greg Kelly: So, um, Cancer would be an area that there's definitely concerns in the [00:43:00] functional medicine community. And the reason is that cancer distorts the whole playing field, right? It wants to survive. So it wants, you know, energy and it wants to repair its DNA and it, you know, so all the good things that NAD is doing for healthy cells, it's possible cancer cells may, um, misappropriate them, right?
Greg Kelly: To keep itself. going. So that would be the only, um, thing that, um, that I wouldn't be comfortable with. And I know that would be the case with a lot of functional medicine
Julie Michelson: Sure. And like you said, it's, it's a lot. This isn't like NAD specific, a lot of, I mean, any kind of growth hormone. I, you know, I had, I have a medical grade laser I use on my horses and my dogs and myself when I need it. Um, and you know, when my one dog got cancer, I didn't use that laser on her anymore. You know, we don't want to promote
Greg Kelly: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: and we can't direct it that way.
Greg Kelly: Yeah. And the, the way I tend to think about things like [00:44:00] we want, um, so cells are going to get stressed all the time, right? It's just partly like some of it's inflicted by themselves, just doing, running their own metabolism. Um, you know, some of the external world and our lifestyles and you name it.
Greg Kelly: But when cells get stressed, for the audience. Just think of like the response runs along like a continuum. So the first thing they'll try to do is protect themselves. You know, that's where you think of like antioxidant defenses, glutathione, which we mentioned, right? They'll just try to make more of these things that protect themselves, detoxify themselves.
Greg Kelly: If stress is more than that, they'll usually take on some damage. And I was in the Navy, right, way before at naturopathic school. But, like, we always would do damage control drills, right? Because a ship, if you're in a wartime setting, could take damage, right? So, you know, the key thing is then can you repair that, right?
Greg Kelly: So that's where, like, a term like autophagy, if that's ever come up for your listeners, that's like, oh, a cell was really stressed, [00:45:00] it got damaged somewhat, but it can still repair itself through
Julie Michelson: James, James taught us all about autophagy. When senolytic hit the market, we, we dug into it and it's important. And that's where the cancer piece falls in. Right. Is when we're not cleaning out and we're not,
Greg Kelly: yeah, like cancer really means in a sense like the stress was even more severe right now that like the cells running a completely different software program, the same with cellular senescence right that's happens because a cell couldn't repair itself anymore. And so one of the. I guess a final point for the audience is one of the most important things to remember about NAD is it's one of the things that allows cells to be resilient in those early stages so that they're responding to stress in healthier ways and don't get to these more damaged states.
Julie Michelson: I love that because it's all about prevention. So, you know, and that's where the good stuff is going to, yes, help you come back [00:46:00] to that wellness. It's a place where, you know, however long ago you left it and, and also prevent, um, and that's where it's this amazing, you know, longevity supplement as well. And so, you know, I feel great, but I'm going to take it and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to stop.
Julie Michelson: Um, and like I said, I'm excited to, to feel what I feel, um, cause I know it's coming. I, I know because I've had the head injuries, because I've had the. toxin issues and, um, and because I'm experimental, like I, I know when things shift and, and I can feel it. And, and so I have high expectations.
Greg Kelly: Good. Well, thank you for your support and for taking quality NAD.
Julie Michelson: I, I thank you. So always listeners are leaning in at the end because I always ask, you know, what is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve [00:47:00] their health?
Greg Kelly: So when I was a naturopath in practice, I worked with, um, Peter D'Adamo. He was the famed for blood type diet if, um, people know of him. But my passion was always mind body things and neuro linguistic programming was something and actually taught some NLP basics to naturopaths at one point. But fundamentally, I think One of the most important things for health is the stories we tell ourselves.
Julie Michelson: I love
Greg Kelly: Right? So, like, I used to view part of my job when I worked with patients is that they were coming in and saying, Dr. Greg, I've got these things going on in my body. I'm confused. They're scary. I don't know what they mean. And I'm stressed out about them. And it's causing me distress in a simple sense, right?
Greg Kelly: And that part of my job was to help be, like, tell a better story. And so, the You know, whatever the [00:48:00] story happens to be for us, like we can all be better storytellers in some area of our lives, often many. And so that would be it. Just listen to the stories that you tell yourself, question them because often they're not true. And
Julie Michelson: even if they were at one point, they're usually no longer true.
Greg Kelly: right? And so, um, that would, and one of the stories that I tell myself is that my body's amazing, that it's going to sometimes do things I don't understand, like that may be, you know, like a symptom or, you know, you name it, but that's not because it's letting me down. It's because maybe it didn't have what it needed to do that, right?
Greg Kelly: Or, or
Julie Michelson: it's information.
Greg Kelly: It's doing the best it knows under the circumstances, but maybe it just doesn't know any better. Right? So rather than blame it, you know, the goal is to try to like, almost like I would think of if I had [00:49:00] a symptom, like I would, in my mind's eye, just, Oh, I'm going to be like, you know, a mom or dad that just holds that symptom and says everything's okay.
Greg Kelly: So anyways,
Julie Michelson: It's, it's so essential with, with my coaching clients. We literally, you know, everyone's expecting me to say, you know, eat this, don't eat that. And it's like, no, we're. Starting with stories and I love that you covered both so succinctly of the, the noticing and challenging, but also we, I call it tipping the scales, you know, we can we plant the stories.
Julie Michelson: That we, we need our, our, to hear. And so I love that. I'm always surprised that that was not what I thought your one thing was going to be. So I'm, I'm excited. Um, I would say maybe part B would be also try the honey D plus supplement. It's,
Greg Kelly: Yeah, no,
Julie Michelson: it's pretty amazing.
Greg Kelly: there's um, I think it's a Sufi saying, like, trust in Allah, but hitch [00:50:00] your camel to a post, right? So I believe both, right? You want to make sure that you're covering the basics and the mind is just so
Julie Michelson: Well, I, if you don't address the, and don't, I hope I get the feeling you won't take offense to this. I hope you won't. Um, if you're not going to address the mind piece and the mind body connection, it's really not going to matter what supplements you're taking. So, you know, there, there is the synergy, um, and, and so I am a hit it from all angles.
Julie Michelson: Obviously that's your approach. That's why you guys have so many good ingredients. in your, in your, in your blends. So, which is amazing. And for listeners that are curious and want to try the NAD Plus, um, you can use Code J M coach for 15 percent off. And I really recommend you give it a try. And for those that listen loyally, you know, I don't get on here and talk about products very often.
Julie Michelson: Um, [00:51:00] but I only support what I believe in. And I believe in the neuro hacker collective products. So, um, I'm grateful for your time. And I'm glad you were just as much fun to have on as James was.
Greg Kelly: No, thank
Julie Michelson: You'll have to tell him he's going to need to up his game. So I really, really appreciate your, your knowledge and your time you've given us today
Greg Kelly: Well, it's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you.
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired, living. show. I hope you had a great time. I'm sure you'll learned as much as I did. I'll see you next week. [00:52:00]
Julie Michelson: His areas of [00:01:00] expertise include nootropics, anti aging and regenerative medicine, weight management, sleep, and the chronobiology of performance and health. In today's conversation, we're talking about the importance of supporting the aging molecule NAD and how the unique product Qualia NAD can help boost your body's NAD levels.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Gregg explains to us the importance of NAD on cellular health and energy production, and shows us how we can improve resilience by increasing our NAD levels by providing the precursors and cofactors our bodies need. As always, NeuroHacker Collective has impressive study results from its preliminary trials of Qualia NAD with results including improved energy and better sleep.
Julie Michelson: Listen in and learn why NAD plus is considered an anti aging must and [00:02:00] often essential component of recovering health.
Julie Michelson: Greg, welcome to the podcast.
Greg Kelly: Thanks for having me. It's exciting to be with you today.
Julie Michelson: I am really excited. As listeners know, I'm a huge Neurohacker Collective fan and have been for several years. Um, and I already asked you to try to keep things simple for us. I got into functional medicine via biohacking. Um, so, so much of what I think you're going to say is familiar to me, but maybe not quite so much to listeners.
Julie Michelson: Um, so I want to talk about NAD and, um, you know, I want you to educate us by starting literally like what is NAD and why should listeners lean in and even care,
Greg Kelly: Right. So the way I think of NAD and maybe this analogy will or won't work. I don't know. But, um, it's one of a network of really important molecules and cells. So when you think of networks, just think [00:03:00] of like the airline airport system in the U. S. Right. So NAD plus would be like Chicago or here, right?
Greg Kelly: It's just one of the biggest with the most traffic flowing through it. So, um, What we want to always do in, you know, in any basically function is we want to make sure just like Traveling through airports in the country that things are flowing through that they're not getting stuck in places, right? And what tends to happen with NAD is that as we get older there's less passengers getting to Chicago So we'll get into why that is, but where that then translates into why it's important is on a cellular level, NAD really can be thought of as doing four main jobs.
Greg Kelly: One is it's needed to make ATP. So energy is the currency of ourselves. Without energy they just can't do any of their work. And so we need NAD to do that. A second role of NAD you could think of as [00:04:00] cellular defense or detoxification. So NAD is needed to make molecules like glutathione, which, uh, Um, is kind of like maybe the archetypical antioxidant and detox molecule in ourselves.
Greg Kelly: And then a third thing is it's needed to repair DNA. So that's, that wasn't in biochemistry books when I went to naturopathic school,
Julie Michelson: Two years ago, right? You just graduated.
Greg Kelly: Well, I started 31 years ago. And um, and then a fourth one would be to do with a group of enzymes called sirtuins. And sirtuins are somewhat debated, but they're clearly important for how cells respond to stress.
Greg Kelly: So those are the really the four different things. And then NAD does probably hundreds of more minor roles, but those are the key things. And When you think of it, you know, those are just essential, right? That the, um, old nature pathic core philosophy was like, our health [00:05:00] is dependent on the health of our tissues and organs.
Greg Kelly: And at the end of the day, their health is dependent on the health of ourselves. So the more we can do to keep ourselves in good shape and doing their jobs, it tends to just have a ripple. Like, you know, I think there's this saying, like, as above, so below. But in this case, it would be as below, so above.
Julie Michelson: Sure, sure. And that makes perfect sense. And so for people out there listening that are hopefully, you know, everybody's already kind of leaning in if they're not familiar with NAD, because even just if they've listened to the podcast and they're on the beginning of their autoimmune healing journey, you know, they know how important detox is and, you know, That probably toxic burden is a factor in, in their illness.
Julie Michelson: They know if they, even if they don't know, they, you know, about ATP, they know they're lacking energy. Um, and that is, it's from the cellular level. So I love that you said that it's these things that we feel, the fatigue, the brain [00:06:00] fog, the pain. This is cellular health, mitochondrial health. And this is an area that especially those of us with chronic illness, Really need to be addressing to get back to wellness and those of us now in that place of wellness need to be paying attention for health span and longevity.
Julie Michelson: Um, so I, I, I love, thank you. I, I wasn't sure if you were going to be able to really bring it down to, okay. So now hopefully listeners are in, um, and, and NAD is obviously not new on the scene. And again, it's hard for me to separate, you know, yeah, we, we, we use it in functional medicine. I think it's really popular in biohacking circles and longevity wellness circles.
Julie Michelson: Personally, I have, I've had NAD IVs. I am definitely in that camp of, I need all of the cellular mitochondrial [00:07:00] support, ATP, all of it. Detox, I'm a collector. So, I've done it, I have used NAD in every way, and as we talk about some of the components of this amazing supplement, I've used a lot of them too, separately, um, again, without the synergy, but NAD IVs are, they're expensive.
Julie Michelson: They're, they take a lot of time, um, unless you really want to tough it out and then they're really uncomfortable if you're going to run them fast. So, um, I've done that. I've done subcutaneous and I was shocked to hear like, come on, we could, we can boost NAD orally. So tell me, like, how did you come up with something that actually works?
Greg Kelly: so, um, Like, to me, I would go back to, um, David Sinclair is a fairly famous [00:08:00] name in the longevity space. But I think it was around 2013, his lab did a study in mice. But bottom line is, they found that giving, um, NAD boosting supplements to old mice made their mitochondria perform like, uh, better. youthful mice, and that that had ripple effects for their health.
Greg Kelly: So that was what I think really catalyzed the interest in like, Oh, are there other ways we can boost that? And at the time, there had been research done by Charles Brenner. He's a, um, at the time he was at, I think it was Harvard, um, but it might've been Dartmouth on nr, which is like what I think of as a, a new way to boost NAD in the early two thousands.
Greg Kelly: And because of that, people were like, oh, well, um, NMN was what was actually used in Sinclair study, but no one was selling NMN at that point in N-M-N-R-R was on
Julie Michelson: selling it again, but we'll talk about that.
Greg Kelly: And, um, so anyways, that really jump started [00:09:00] the interest, um, so a little more than 10 years ago, but it wasn't probably until around 2018 that the first study in humans, and it was small, but found that giving NR, nicotinamide riboside, um, the brand name of that is Niagen, that's the, how they brand it, um, increased NAD in humans.
Greg Kelly: So it was like super cool. It does what we hoped it did. would do. And since then, there's been, you know, like literally dozens of studies that have shown that that building block molecule can do that. Um, but what was often forgotten in the exuberance of this, you know, the two new ones, NR and NMN, the new kids on the block, is that the old ones, what I think of as the OG niacins, that, that's the definition of, of a vitamin B3 is something that can make NAD molecules.
Greg Kelly: So that, um, you know, seemed to have been, forgotten. And the way it works, and I don't want to overcomplicate it, but if you think of like, you know, the airport we want to get to is NAD, and we'll just say that Chicago, you know, you can [00:10:00] get there from Santa Barbara, from San Diego, from LA, from Orange County, like I have a lot of choices within driving distance of how I can fly to LAX.
Greg Kelly: And our body for important hub molecules like NAD, it likes lots of choice, right? Like redundancy
Julie Michelson: Thank goodness.
Greg Kelly: It's a, uh, just a theme in any complex systems, right? They build in redundancy. And so I know for us from the get go, we were like, oh, well, it would, if our cells are trying to make it from these different, you know, molecules from, you know, why don't we give it more choice?
Greg Kelly: Right, so, so that's, that was our approach from the get go. Let's give, you know, you know, Niagen, because that's a great, um, NR, well established, but let's give some of these other ones as well, because they're just all used slightly differently, both, you know, in ourselves, but believe it or not, in our gut microbiome.
Greg Kelly: They kind of feed different organisms, so, because their structure is slightly different.
Julie Michelson: I love that and and that makes so [00:11:00] much sense. So as somebody who's played with lots of Only legal good healthy things to clarify. Um, I actually, I had a really pretty substantial head injury in 2020, um, that knocked me literally off my feet, but I wasn't even able to work for a few months. And one of the things I was taking at that time was NMN intentionally.
Julie Michelson: Um, I was doing a lot of other things. I was doing hyperbaric. I mean, you name it. I was doing all the things. But I noticed, sometimes it's rare that you can take something and feel something. And with the NMN, I, I could, and I did. Um, with NR, the, the nicosinamide, the riboside, I, I take it because I see the studies, I know, you know, and I know what I need.
Julie Michelson: I know what my body needs. I don't feel a thing. Um, and I'm wondering [00:12:00] if it's because maybe the different, like, maybe I needed more help in the one pathway than I do in another. This is obviously, you can tell, I did not study this process in school. So, but I'm just curious because I can't feel it.
Greg Kelly: so, um, sticking to our airport
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Kelly: And NMN to NAD is a direct flight.
Julie Michelson: Okay.
Greg Kelly: NR to NAD is a, there's a stop and the stop is NMN. Um, the same N, NA, um, NAM, Niacinamide, one of the OG ones, that's, that's, Not direct flight either. That goes through the NMN shuttle. And then Niacin is coming in its completely own way.
Greg Kelly: It never touches on NMN. Um, and so because of that, yeah, there can be, um, obstacles that different people have. The, the company that's. that I'm aware of, that's by far done the most NAD [00:13:00] testing, is called Ginfinity Precision Medicine.
Julie Michelson: Okay.
Greg Kelly: I've used them to test my own several times, and we've used them for one of our studies.
Greg Kelly: But what he said, the owner, is that sometimes even boosting NAD, they'll see, you know, NMN may work for someone, and that's someone else as well. The same, like flip flop it with NR. So there tends to be a lot of individuality. And then NMN and NR are pretty big molecules. And by that I mean, when, NAD is an even bigger one.
Greg Kelly: So when we, if we were to consume NAD orally instead of doing the IV like you, it would all be broken down into little pieces during digestion. And then we absorb the little pieces. But some of those big pieces during that process, you know, are broken down and used by gut microbi, bacteria. And because that's such an individual.
Greg Kelly: fingerprint, right? Yours is if you had an identical twin, their gut microbiome would still be different than yours, right? And so because of that, [00:14:00] there's just, um, you know, a lot of variants. And so one of the things that even in our, like, whether it's NR or NMN studies, when they show individual NAD results or our own studies, you just see big variants in, um, some people.
Greg Kelly: And at NeuroHacker, we tend to think of Responders and super responders, and then often non responders, right? Like it just doesn't work for them and what you'll often see. So like my me as an example, when I took quiet any D plus before it was on the market, right to make sure it did what it was supposed to do.
Greg Kelly: I was a super responder. My any D went up. 156 percent. Um, one of our other science team members, his went up about 50 percent. So he was just kind of a good responder, right?
Julie Michelson: Right. But the, and you're, but you're talking, just to clarify, how long were you taking it?
Greg Kelly: So he only took it 10 days. I took mine 20. So that plays into it
Julie Michelson: But that's. That's fast. I mean, that's really fast. So to me, it's [00:15:00] amazing. And I think one of the reasons I'm so excited is a I already know all, you know, maybe not the science, but I know how important it is for us to be supporting these pathways on like I shared, you know, I've already gone the expensive, uncomfortable and and, you know, Um, you know, the routes that I'm not still going in for the IBS because I'm like, I'm over it.
Julie Michelson: I'm not doing that anymore. Um, so, but also it comes from my familiarity with Neurohacker Collective. I know the just incredible detail that you guys pay attention to. And I think that's what you guys, what you do that's so special compared to all the other supplement companies out there is you, you are always creating these synergistic blends, right?
Julie Michelson: So instead of, you know, picking one of those pathways. You are giving us an opportunity, which to me just logically makes [00:16:00] sense, then hopefully, like, I'm excited because I want to be an over responder. I'll take just being, you know, or a super responder. I'll take being a responder. Um, you know, I just, Kudos to you guys for this.
Julie Michelson: I was really excited, um, to have you on because I know the, the time and energy and the fact that you guys do double blind studies and, um, you're the only website. I literally was just talking about your website yesterday. Because somebody was making a claim about a product and I'm like, where, show me the studies, show me the data and you guys take the time to do that.
Julie Michelson: And, and, but I love that. You're not waiting 5 years to let the rest of us have access. You're, you're fast tracking so we can all benefit. Um, so it's amazing. It really is. I know I want to. Continue a little bit with the airport analogy. Um, because [00:17:00] 1st of all, because I love it. And I was hoping you were I've heard I have heard you talk about it.
Julie Michelson: I was hoping you were going to go with that 1 because even I can understand it. But what are some things that aside from aging, as we know, you know, and I deproduction will decline with age. Um, but what are some things that impact some of those airports and runways? Like, why, you know, why do I feel like people with autoimmunity especially really need to be listening in and paying attention?
Greg Kelly: Well, with, I haven't seen much on rheumatoid arthritis, um, that I'm aware of, but one study did look at, um, NAD in levels and the different airports, so to speak, in white blood cells, in immune cells. And what they basically found is the whole system was chaotic. You know, people, you know, there wasn't enough in Chicago.
Greg Kelly: You know, there was too much other places, not an, it was just, the whole thing was a mess. And in this [00:18:00] particular study, they didn't give any deboosters. They, you know, did a regular medical, um, medication. I think it was anti TNF,
Julie Michelson: Sure. Some kind of inhibitor. Yeah.
Greg Kelly: it, even what that did to the white blood cells, it tended to rebalance the system, right?
Greg Kelly: Just because, um, what it was doing. And so, I would think that, like, um, Charles Brenner, the person I met that, um, really, um, famous for NR and how that's made into NAD, he fundamentally believes the key thing to think of is metabolic stress. When our cells are under any type of metabolic stress, they try to make more NAD.
Greg Kelly: They'll, they'll increase the enzymes, they'll try to get more tryptophan, which is an amino acid, and shuttle that all the way. It's like 11 steps to get to NAD even. So, um, You know, we just think of, you know, most chronically ill people, right? They've been under, um, many [00:19:00] different metabolic stresses, and the illness itself is a metabolic stress often, right?
Greg Kelly: Um, mentally, emotionally, physically, you name it. And so, because of that, it's one of the reasons that NADs, you know, peaked everyone's interest. It just sits at such a central place for getting cells to be more resilient and, you know, have a much healthier response to stress. And, you know, usually you would think of inflammation, right?
Greg Kelly: Like that low level, you know, like active immune system, but not immune system really doing its job to its fullest potential.
Julie Michelson: Right. And, and, and I love that. That's my favorite word. Do you know who coined it? I always, I always want to like give somebody credit for inflammation, um,
Greg Kelly: I have it, um, written down
Julie Michelson: somewhere.
Greg Kelly: Um, yeah, and, and what he, like one of the things I wrote, I heard someone else say this, so I've never read the paper. But, um, the gist of it, like one of his things is like, oh, if you see a young person's liver, [00:20:00] And you see an old person's lip or like a pathologist, you don't have to be told which is which, right?
Greg Kelly: They're just like, you know, evidently so different and it's because of that inflammation, right? Like macrophages and other immune cells have invaded the older and that that's what gave birth to it was that recognition.
Julie Michelson: But I, I love the, the, the concept because I think of inflammation as a spectrum. And, and I think of it as inflammation is, is, you know, that beginning part of the spectrum, all that stuff that we tell ourselves is just age related when it's really inflammation and age related. And the other end of the spectrum is the chronic illness side, whether it's autoimmunity, cancer, you know, you diabetes, you name it.
Julie Michelson: And any chronic illness, you, you've had that inflammatory process going on for some time, at least if, you know, behind the scenes. Um, and so I think of the components of, and I, and I know you're, [00:21:00] you're, and I, this is what I appreciate your science base. So you're trying to pull it back to, to science, but I want people to understand, you know, the, if you don't have cellular energy, you don't have physical energy, right.
Julie Michelson: You don't, and you don't have the energy for those processes like detox and, um, you know, and name a pro any of it, digest all of it. We need, we need energy. for that. Um, and what I love is that people like myself who I've already said, you know, I collect every toxin. I've got nameless, you know, name a snip.
Julie Michelson: You don't want, I have it, all the things. It doesn't matter. Like this is like a gift to those of us that need extra help. Um, so I, I really do love that part. Um, tell us a little bit about, you know, I, I kind of already, I mentioned some of it, um, you know, how this product is so different than I think any, anything, at least I'm aware of on the [00:22:00] market.
Greg Kelly: Yeah, so I mean, we've touched on energy a few different times, and at least in a cellular sense that's ATP is the key molecule. And um, you know, I said at the beginning, one of NAD's main jobs is helping to make ATP. What I've almost never heard anyone say is that one of the important jobs among many of ATP, because we literally, for the audience, we make and use about our body weight of ATP.
Greg Kelly: every day.
Julie Michelson: Say that again, because that is, it always makes me just, I don't know, gives me goosebumps every time I hear that.
Greg Kelly: We, we make and use and remake about our body weight of ATP every day, which is just crazy when you think about it, right? It's like it was just, um, being made and consumed so fast, it's mind boggling. Um, but one of the jobs of the many it does is actually move people from the airports, you know, [00:23:00] before NAD to NAD.
Greg Kelly: So if you, like, if you said, oh, like, um, how does niacin get to NAD? Well, that's, I mentioned, right, there's a couple stops on the way, but two of the three require ATP. If you said, how does NR Yeah, did that. I said there's, you know, one stop and then both, you know, um, flights, so to speak, need ATP and whether it's and a man needs ATP to get there.
Greg Kelly: Um, niacinamide, um, since it gets to and a man also needs that next step. So ATP and you. NAD, really their stories are interwoven, right? Like, you can't optimize one without paying attention to the other. And when you think of ATP for the listeners, always think of ATP, magnesium complex. In humans, a lot of other animals as well, ATP only can do its job when it's complexed with magnesium.[00:24:00]
Julie Michelson: And so many are magnesium deficient.
Greg Kelly: correct. Yeah. And then in lots of things that are stressful, you know, like lack of sleep, like whether that's neglect and you're not scheduling enough or poor sleep quality, those things often make it so that magnesium has more difficulty getting inside ourselves. Like you almost become magnesium resistant in a sense.
Julie Michelson: Wow.
Greg Kelly: and then there's something called the magnesium stress vicious cycle. But what that translates to is when, you know, they're, we're stressed, you know, like, so think stress at the high level, right, then our cells tend to like pushed magnesium out of them. And then if cells are then, you know, low in magnesium, they actually get stressed easier.
Greg Kelly: Right. So it's
Julie Michelson: Right.
Greg Kelly: vicious loop
Julie Michelson: they're not resilient. Yeah. I love that.
Greg Kelly: so magnesium just has a really important role with ATP. And it's one of the reasons you'll see Aquaman [00:25:00] magnesium in our product. And, um, and we chose Aquaman as magnesium because it's, it's a seawater derived. It's from, um, the oceans off Ireland. And what they do after they take the salt out of it, they, you know, concentrate the magnesium, but leave all the trace minerals and our cells and mitochondria that are in them Um, we're born way back in time in the ocean and evolved there.
Greg Kelly: Um, you know, and so trace minerals are often super neglected. And, um, you know, if you think like I, it's called the, um, hydrosphere sometimes, but the most bioavailable source of magnesium on the planet is water. Right. So,
Julie Michelson: Well, and I'm thinking of even just, just thinking of energy and cellular energy. I know just starting somebody with trace minerals, like what that can do for energy. Right. And I was listening to something the other day about, um, [00:26:00] uh, it was about workouts, you know, fueling workouts and people are using caffeine and all these different kinds of supplements, you know, but they're forgetting the hydrates.
Julie Michelson: So, um, you know, again, this is where you guys, you get so detailed and like, yeah, you know, we know we need the magnesium, but like, let's, let's do it even better. And, and have the minerals. Um, and that is why I'm, I'm such a big fan of NeuroHECA Collective, because of this level of, you know, good enough is never good enough for, for your crew.
Greg Kelly: well, we're always looking for things that are complimentary that like Daniel, um, you've had James on, but his brother, Daniel Smokinberger, um, when he was more or less my direct boss when I first was hired and, you know, He would, there's a couple of things that he would say, but one was like, Oh, at Neurohacker, we want things that do more than one thing.
Greg Kelly: And we want more than one thing that does the same, right? We [00:27:00] want redundancy.
Julie Michelson: Right. But, and I, I love the, the, just to circle back to redundancy and underscore the things that are that important in our body do have redundancy, right? So, so the, you know, there, there's always another way and the body is resilient and, and that's what we're going for. Um, So let's talk a little bit about some of the other complimentary things in the supplement.
Greg Kelly: So, um, we've mentioned NMN and that it's a direct flight from NMN to NAD and that there's an enzyme, uh, it's called NMNAT, um, for the people that care about that. But just think there's, there's one plane that's taking people there. you know, the magnesium ATP complex. Um, but there's three, three variants of it.
Greg Kelly: And one specific one in the brain is tagged with number two. So just think of like, you know, there's three different flights that [00:28:00] leave that airport and, and the brain flight, um, it turns out that the activity, um, of that enzyme. So basically the ease of getting passages from one place to is upregulated by caffeine.
Greg Kelly: Um, and And I, it's, I think, fairly unknown. There's only one study on it, but, um, what they, Like, there's studies that have found that caffeine activates that enzyme, but this one particular study looked in, um, brain cells and skin cells and found that, oh, like if you put NR, um, in the, the cell culture with those types of cells, NAD levels go up.
Greg Kelly: If you put caffeine in, NAD levels go up because it's activating the enzyme, but if you put both together, it goes up even more than
Julie Michelson: We like that.
Greg Kelly: right? And that, you know, at the end of the day, often the, and it's why NeuroHacker is the name and, you know, um, part, [00:29:00] um, our CEO, James Journey, right? Was, um, you know, um, his brain was his, you know, thing that he, um, you know, kind of through it.
Julie Michelson: him?
Greg Kelly: Yeah. So. We just always love when something can be done to support the brain. And if, if the brain's making enough NAD and making enough energy and doing the other things that NAD allows it to do, that has the biggest ripple effect on how we feel subjectively, right? And so that's why we, and we didn't put a lot, there's only 28 milligrams of caffeine in, but we wanted to have some to support that since we're all, like the last thing we would want to do at Neurohacker is.
Greg Kelly: Give so many building blocks that we're stranding people at an airport along the way
Julie Michelson: right. Well, and, and we'll, we'll dig in a little bit too, because I do think it's exciting. I want to talk about the preliminary study results, but I know [00:30:00] just for people listening, thinking, oh, well, no wonder I feel more energized if there's caffeine in it. A, there's not that much. B, some of the results people are getting is that their, their sleep is better.
Julie Michelson: So this is not a stimulant level of caffeine. This is just for efficacy, correct?
Greg Kelly: Yeah, it would be somewhere about like, you know, maybe four times the amount you get in a decaf coffee. Something, you know,
Julie Michelson: decaf. Right.
Greg Kelly: you know, so yeah, it's slow. Um, and one of the other things just as a takeaway, whether you, you know, the listeners decide to take quality NAD or some other NAD boosting product, there is, I would say, is like kindergarten level of, of science on this, meaning there's not like a lot of studies.
Greg Kelly: But what there are is NAD has a circadian rhythm, which means it changes across the day. And it, uh, based at least on an animal study where they did either infusions or gave precursor building blocks, it [00:31:00] made a huge difference when they gave it. So bottom line is when they gave the NAD boosters at the beginning of their active cycle, so for me that would be like seven in the morning ish, then that improved, you know, blood sugar, insulin, metabolic health, weight.
Greg Kelly: If they instead gave it at the beginning of their inactive cycle, so you know, after sunset for us, then it actually made most of those things worse. And what
Julie Michelson: is essential for people to understand.
Greg Kelly: yeah, because what you often see in studies and this it just goes to like convention, right? Oh, well, we'll just give you know, half the dose in the morning half in the evening But that would be less than optimal for potentially based off, you know that study and so, you know with YNAD one of the reasons we weren't concerned with the small amount of caffeine is because we really want people to take it in their morning
Julie Michelson: Which is important and and to me makes perfect sense again without my science background. Um, [00:32:00] because we operate on a circadian rhythm, our hormone cycle, our like all of it and and the things that are going on when we're sleeping, which are really important. Um, and we need cellular energy for, you know, Are different than what we're using our cellular energy for during the day.
Julie Michelson: So I love that you clarified that it is definitely recommended to take in the morning. Um, but not because again, not because it has caffeine in it, but just because that's how it's going to work best for your body.
Greg Kelly: Yeah. And one of the, um, in what we would call like our beta study, like the original one we did before, we would never sell a product before we study it.
Julie Michelson: Of course.
Greg Kelly: a new record thing. And, um, and one of the questions was about, um, like the need for sleep. Like how much are you feeling like you need more or less sleep?
Greg Kelly: Are you feeling more or less fatigued? And the product did really well in improving that for was something like 75 to [00:33:00] 80 percent of the participants, but pretty much everyone that that was a problem for improved quite a bit because some of the people
Julie Michelson: And that's again, that fatigue is something that until we tip back into, you know, wellness, I think every autoimmune diagnosis is, is preceded by fatigue. That's usually probably ignored. And, you know, you have X amount of years of, Um, and so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm in a hospital with doctor saying, Oh, no, your labs are fine.
Julie Michelson: Your labs are fine. Um, so I'm, Oh, I mean, my sleep is great. And then I'm dedicated to my sleep and thank God. You know, I've been well for years, but any thing that can make it better. Cause I want my body doing, again, I'm not a great detoxer. I want my body doing all the things it needs to be doing in, in the sleep.
Julie Michelson: So I'm really excited to, you know, for another week or two to, to see how I'm feeling and maybe I'll circle [00:34:00] back and add it into the show notes.
Greg Kelly: that by far the most common thing I've seen, so I don't, I don't track all the, you
Julie Michelson: Sure.
Greg Kelly: we get on social media, but the things that I've, you know, either in our studies or You know, that people like Scott Barry Kaufman, kind of a good friend of neural hacker. I got him on our product around the holidays and within a few days, I think it was a super short email, like energy, something
Julie Michelson: Right, right.
Greg Kelly: like one word
Julie Michelson: You don't need a lot of words. Right.
Greg Kelly: So it's like, Oh, good. It's working for you.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Which is amazing. And, and again, but knowing it, this it's true, it's coming from a cellular level and it's, it's not as Stimulant energy and not, I'm not knocking stimulant energy either. Um, I'm a huge fan, uh, you know, of nootropics and mind was the first product that, that kind of got me in the qualia door.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and so, and that [00:35:00] was like well before my head injury. So, um, I'm always looking for things that can help, but when you know that, that what's helping you feel good is actually like you said, you know, from, from the bottom up. Supporting your body is amazing.
Greg Kelly: yeah, and then just a couple other ingredients quick. So we, um, so this would be, you know, I'm sure many people know, like the whole B complex is often given together for a reason. And it's because, you know, some of them are needed to turn sugars into energy, some fats into energy, some do both. Um, and so again, getting back to that idea that you want to support the production of ATP if you're actually care about, you know, sustainably good NAD levels is how I think about it.
Greg Kelly: So we put a, um, a fermented B complex in that's, um, you know, made from a fermented yeast and then the yeast is inactivated so it's not, um, you know, problematic for people
Julie Michelson: You [00:36:00] totally like, you knew I was going to go there. What about people who are sensitive to yeast? So it's not something that's going to, to cause an issue.
Greg Kelly: Yeah, the, um, like inactivated yeast has, you know, like really specific type of beta glucan that's actually very immune balancing. Interesting. So,
Julie Michelson: And that's, I think even for people who had never heard of beta glucan, maybe three years ago, I think it's, it's become more, more popular. So here again, where you're picking, like you guys are, are selecting these top level. ingredients. Now, NMN, is it in it? Is it not in it? Are you allowed to even play in that sandbox anymore?
Greg Kelly: so the original plan was to have it in, um, and then what happened, um, before we made it, so it was before we did even our, like, our first, like, product, or our, like, test batch, the FDA decided that NMN was no longer a dietary supplement. And long [00:37:00] story short is, um, a pharmaceutical company had put in what would be like a new drug application for that molecule, but they had named it like MB 120 or some weird thing.
Greg Kelly: So the FDA didn't make the connection that this was NMN. We'll just wait until NMN was already now being sold as dietary supplements, and but once they made that connection, the way, unfortunately, it is within the FDA, is that once something's in that pipeline, it can't get from there into the dietary supplement one.
Julie Michelson: No, it only goes in one direction, unfortunately.
Greg Kelly: And so because of that, there's just, you know, there are companies still selling NMN, I'm sure you could find it on Amazon and it's a good ingredient. Like you said, there's some people that are super respondents to that. And like an NR just doesn't quite do the same thing for them. Um, But it's a risk selling it and not one that we would comfortably take.
Greg Kelly: So,
Julie Michelson: No, [00:38:00] no. And you don't need to because you're, you're hitting all these other pathways,
Greg Kelly: yeah. And, and what we've said, so I always think, so whenever a new, I'm the one that gets, like my job is, um, VP of product development. So, you know, at the end of the day, when it comes to creating a new product, that's me. And so I always step back, like, all right, who's it for? What's it supposed to do? And then at the end of the day Like after we build it did it do that thing that it was supposed to do in this case the main thing is boosting nad and we've you know in our First cohort of people the different people like me Montefi Bob, dr.
Greg Kelly: Nick that have done it It's increased NAD in everyone. It's just to varying degrees, somewhere between, you know, Dr. Nick's level and my level, but what, on average, it's about 85 percent is what we're seeing so far. So it's,
Julie Michelson: that's amazing though, really.
Greg Kelly: yeah, so it's doing what it's supposed to do, right? And it's, it's doing it, you know, for everyone we've measured so far.
Julie Michelson: Which is a miss. [00:39:00] So even what you would consider kind of like a non responder, isn't really a not like they're still getting some kind of a bump,
Greg Kelly: Yeah, so what I would say, like, usually I would think of a non responder, you know, so if it was a subjective thing, like you, um, for energy, like, there's some people, they do this, and like, wow, I have, like, infinite energy. There's other people, like, oh, my energy's better. And there's often a subset, oh, my energy didn't change at all.
Greg Kelly: And then, not unusual, there would also be negative responders. Oh, like, I did that, and my energy's actually worse. Right. So, um, so what we've seen so far is only the super responders and responders. We haven't seen the, the non or
Julie Michelson: it reminds me, yeah, it just reminds me of, I guess the trouble is that you guys expect those kinds of results now when you go in, because it's just, Every product you've made, you know, people real. And again, I do think, I think it's because you take this like, okay, where's the [00:40:00] synergy?
Julie Michelson: How can we hit more than, you know, if somebody, you know, one thing isn't going to work for somebody, what are the other four things that will, um, which I think is amazing. Are there any other, as far as components, essential components that we want to talk about? I'm curious. Uh, your opinion on, uh, if someone's taking, I don't know, we'll pick on the B vitamins.
Julie Michelson: Um, someone's already taking a, uh, methylated. So I'm going to give them credit. They're going to take a good methylated B complex. Uh, and then, you know, now they're incorporating the NAD plus, are they still, they should still stay on their B complex. I'm assuming there's not that much in there that
Greg Kelly: Yeah. So the B complex in the fermented bees that we're using are, um, vary from about 20 to 50%. Um, and what would happen, cause I get asked this question once in a while, what form are they in, right? Is it the methyl form? But what, [00:41:00] if you would think of like the folate cycle, that's crazy. Folate exists in a dozen different forms in our cells, in yeast, in animals.
Greg Kelly: Um, you know, the, um, The methyl bolate is one of them and the most dominant one by far, right? But what yeast would have, they'd have the most of that and they would have the other ones because just like our cells, like they have the whole pathway, right? They have all the airports. So that would be the same for NAD.
Greg Kelly: They would have You know, um, the whole airport system would be there, which is one of the other reasons we wanted to give it. So it's why, you know, it's a what I would think of as a food form of the B complex and in amounts that, you know, um, it could like be six, you know, there's. I don't know, 500 milligrams, you start to run into issues, right?
Greg Kelly: But, you know, like, the amount we have in there is, I don't know, half a milligram,
Julie Michelson: Right,
Greg Kelly: you know, and most people's B complex aren't going to be that ridiculously [00:42:00] high, so.
Julie Michelson: No. And it's a water soluble vitamin. I mean, it's not. Yeah. I just, I wanted to touch on that because you do have lots of goodies in there. Um, and as somebody who, you know, I, I could look forward to the day where I can back off of some of the supplements that helped me is still at this point feel really amazing.
Julie Michelson: Um, but I would rather take my giant one. But I don't even know how to describe it mixture of supplements and feel like this than take the 10 prescriptions I used to be on and feel the way I used to feel. So, um, you know, my body will catch up eventually, but for right now I'm, I'm happy to have the, the support for sure.
Julie Michelson: Is there anybody, I mean, I, could you think of anybody who wouldn't want to boost their NAD?
Greg Kelly: So, um, Cancer would be an area that there's definitely concerns in the [00:43:00] functional medicine community. And the reason is that cancer distorts the whole playing field, right? It wants to survive. So it wants, you know, energy and it wants to repair its DNA and it, you know, so all the good things that NAD is doing for healthy cells, it's possible cancer cells may, um, misappropriate them, right?
Greg Kelly: To keep itself. going. So that would be the only, um, thing that, um, that I wouldn't be comfortable with. And I know that would be the case with a lot of functional medicine
Julie Michelson: Sure. And like you said, it's, it's a lot. This isn't like NAD specific, a lot of, I mean, any kind of growth hormone. I, you know, I had, I have a medical grade laser I use on my horses and my dogs and myself when I need it. Um, and you know, when my one dog got cancer, I didn't use that laser on her anymore. You know, we don't want to promote
Greg Kelly: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: and we can't direct it that way.
Greg Kelly: Yeah. And the, the way I tend to think about things like [00:44:00] we want, um, so cells are going to get stressed all the time, right? It's just partly like some of it's inflicted by themselves, just doing, running their own metabolism. Um, you know, some of the external world and our lifestyles and you name it.
Greg Kelly: But when cells get stressed, for the audience. Just think of like the response runs along like a continuum. So the first thing they'll try to do is protect themselves. You know, that's where you think of like antioxidant defenses, glutathione, which we mentioned, right? They'll just try to make more of these things that protect themselves, detoxify themselves.
Greg Kelly: If stress is more than that, they'll usually take on some damage. And I was in the Navy, right, way before at naturopathic school. But, like, we always would do damage control drills, right? Because a ship, if you're in a wartime setting, could take damage, right? So, you know, the key thing is then can you repair that, right?
Greg Kelly: So that's where, like, a term like autophagy, if that's ever come up for your listeners, that's like, oh, a cell was really stressed, [00:45:00] it got damaged somewhat, but it can still repair itself through
Julie Michelson: James, James taught us all about autophagy. When senolytic hit the market, we, we dug into it and it's important. And that's where the cancer piece falls in. Right. Is when we're not cleaning out and we're not,
Greg Kelly: yeah, like cancer really means in a sense like the stress was even more severe right now that like the cells running a completely different software program, the same with cellular senescence right that's happens because a cell couldn't repair itself anymore. And so one of the. I guess a final point for the audience is one of the most important things to remember about NAD is it's one of the things that allows cells to be resilient in those early stages so that they're responding to stress in healthier ways and don't get to these more damaged states.
Julie Michelson: I love that because it's all about prevention. So, you know, and that's where the good stuff is going to, yes, help you come back [00:46:00] to that wellness. It's a place where, you know, however long ago you left it and, and also prevent, um, and that's where it's this amazing, you know, longevity supplement as well. And so, you know, I feel great, but I'm going to take it and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to stop.
Julie Michelson: Um, and like I said, I'm excited to, to feel what I feel, um, cause I know it's coming. I, I know because I've had the head injuries, because I've had the. toxin issues and, um, and because I'm experimental, like I, I know when things shift and, and I can feel it. And, and so I have high expectations.
Greg Kelly: Good. Well, thank you for your support and for taking quality NAD.
Julie Michelson: I, I thank you. So always listeners are leaning in at the end because I always ask, you know, what is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve [00:47:00] their health?
Greg Kelly: So when I was a naturopath in practice, I worked with, um, Peter D'Adamo. He was the famed for blood type diet if, um, people know of him. But my passion was always mind body things and neuro linguistic programming was something and actually taught some NLP basics to naturopaths at one point. But fundamentally, I think One of the most important things for health is the stories we tell ourselves.
Julie Michelson: I love
Greg Kelly: Right? So, like, I used to view part of my job when I worked with patients is that they were coming in and saying, Dr. Greg, I've got these things going on in my body. I'm confused. They're scary. I don't know what they mean. And I'm stressed out about them. And it's causing me distress in a simple sense, right?
Greg Kelly: And that part of my job was to help be, like, tell a better story. And so, the You know, whatever the [00:48:00] story happens to be for us, like we can all be better storytellers in some area of our lives, often many. And so that would be it. Just listen to the stories that you tell yourself, question them because often they're not true. And
Julie Michelson: even if they were at one point, they're usually no longer true.
Greg Kelly: right? And so, um, that would, and one of the stories that I tell myself is that my body's amazing, that it's going to sometimes do things I don't understand, like that may be, you know, like a symptom or, you know, you name it, but that's not because it's letting me down. It's because maybe it didn't have what it needed to do that, right?
Greg Kelly: Or, or
Julie Michelson: it's information.
Greg Kelly: It's doing the best it knows under the circumstances, but maybe it just doesn't know any better. Right? So rather than blame it, you know, the goal is to try to like, almost like I would think of if I had [00:49:00] a symptom, like I would, in my mind's eye, just, Oh, I'm going to be like, you know, a mom or dad that just holds that symptom and says everything's okay.
Greg Kelly: So anyways,
Julie Michelson: It's, it's so essential with, with my coaching clients. We literally, you know, everyone's expecting me to say, you know, eat this, don't eat that. And it's like, no, we're. Starting with stories and I love that you covered both so succinctly of the, the noticing and challenging, but also we, I call it tipping the scales, you know, we can we plant the stories.
Julie Michelson: That we, we need our, our, to hear. And so I love that. I'm always surprised that that was not what I thought your one thing was going to be. So I'm, I'm excited. Um, I would say maybe part B would be also try the honey D plus supplement. It's,
Greg Kelly: Yeah, no,
Julie Michelson: it's pretty amazing.
Greg Kelly: there's um, I think it's a Sufi saying, like, trust in Allah, but hitch [00:50:00] your camel to a post, right? So I believe both, right? You want to make sure that you're covering the basics and the mind is just so
Julie Michelson: Well, I, if you don't address the, and don't, I hope I get the feeling you won't take offense to this. I hope you won't. Um, if you're not going to address the mind piece and the mind body connection, it's really not going to matter what supplements you're taking. So, you know, there, there is the synergy, um, and, and so I am a hit it from all angles.
Julie Michelson: Obviously that's your approach. That's why you guys have so many good ingredients. in your, in your, in your blends. So, which is amazing. And for listeners that are curious and want to try the NAD Plus, um, you can use Code J M coach for 15 percent off. And I really recommend you give it a try. And for those that listen loyally, you know, I don't get on here and talk about products very often.
Julie Michelson: Um, [00:51:00] but I only support what I believe in. And I believe in the neuro hacker collective products. So, um, I'm grateful for your time. And I'm glad you were just as much fun to have on as James was.
Greg Kelly: No, thank
Julie Michelson: You'll have to tell him he's going to need to up his game. So I really, really appreciate your, your knowledge and your time you've given us today
Greg Kelly: Well, it's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you.
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired, living. show. I hope you had a great time. I'm sure you'll learned as much as I did. I'll see you next week. [00:52:00]
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My Guest For This Episode
My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Dr. Greg Kelly
Dr. Greg Kelly
Gregory Kelly is Senior Director of Product Development at Neurohacker Collective, naturopathic physician (N.D.), and author of the book Shape Shift.
He was the editor of the journal Alternative Medicine Review and has been an instructor at the University of Bridgeport in the College of Naturopathic Medicine, where he taught classes in Advanced Clinical Nutrition, Counseling Skills, and Doctor-Patient Relationships. Dr. Kelly has published hundreds of articles on natural medicine and nutrition, contributed three chapters to the Textbook of Natural Medicine, and has more than 30 journal articles indexed on Pubmed. His areas of expertise include nootropics, anti-aging and regenerative medicine, weight management, sleep and the chronobiology of performance and health.
He was the editor of the journal Alternative Medicine Review and has been an instructor at the University of Bridgeport in the College of Naturopathic Medicine, where he taught classes in Advanced Clinical Nutrition, Counseling Skills, and Doctor-Patient Relationships. Dr. Kelly has published hundreds of articles on natural medicine and nutrition, contributed three chapters to the Textbook of Natural Medicine, and has more than 30 journal articles indexed on Pubmed. His areas of expertise include nootropics, anti-aging and regenerative medicine, weight management, sleep and the chronobiology of performance and health.
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