Welcome to Episode 464 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.
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Baran is an entrepreneur, inventor, and an accomplished executive. Previously, he led numerous start-ups and served as CEO and COO at public and private companies, where he collaborated with top scientists, visionaries, and medical experts, and developed award-winning products. He is a frequent speaker at conferences like Biohacker Summit, Tech Open Air and Brandweek. At UC Berkeley, he studied economics and earned athletic and academic scholarships. He gets a special thrill at enhancing people’s lives with the products he helps innovate.
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TRANSCRIPT
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon
Welcome to episode 464 of the intermittent fasting podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of Avalon X and author of What, When, Wine, Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting and Wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you.
Please remember the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine. If it's that time and get ready for the intermittent fasting podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 464 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I have a very special guest with us here today. And it is about a topic, friends, that I have been talking about for years and years and years. And that is supporting our NAD levels, and in particular with the precursor, NMN. Okay, so that was a lot of letters and words that I just said. Hopefully, like I said, you guys are familiar. But the backstory here, I'll tell you my personal story with this, is I first, honestly, I probably first heard about the importance of supporting NAD, which do not worry, we're going to explain what this all is in the show, about it was when I launched my biohacking podcast. So it was probably around 2018 or 2019. And I quickly became aware of the massive importance and benefits of supporting our NAD levels. And there has been this ongoing debate. It's funny, because every, I feel like every guest I have on my shows, who I think might even remotely weigh in with an opinion here, I asked them this question of how do they best support NAD? Do they think they should do, you know, NAD IVs, NAD injections, or and or support with precursors such as NMN, or NR, and again, lots of letters. But my personal history, so because I was so torn about it, over the years at different times, I would take NMN and NR, I tended to gravitate towards NMN, especially having had David Sinclair on the show a few times, and he's a big fan of NMN. I have also I have not done NAD IVs, because they seem very expensive. And I don't want to pay out that much money to not feel well for a little bit because the side effects can be pretty intense. But I did do about six months of NAD intermuscular injections every week, I stopped doing them because they actually didn't make me feel well either. And I just wasn't really sure if they were working. All of that to say, I think a fan and been taking NMN for quite a while. So I was really excited when I was introduced to this company called Wonderfield.
Melanie Avalon
And so they make NMN capsules, they also make a synergistic blend that features resveratrol. So we can talk about that as well.
But I was really excited because I as you guys know, it's really important to me to have clean, high quality tested products. And the I love with the with Wonderfield, they have a very simple single ingredient NMN product that I have been taking daily. And their board of directors friends is ultimately insane. It's all of these different people from, you know, USC and Harvard. And we were just talking before this, Dr. Andrew Salzman is the chief medical director. I've just been really impressed with their science, their website, their product. And so I am so honored to be here today with the co founder and CEO, Baran Dallavur. I hope I said it correctly. He founded it in 2019, is here today to talk about all of the things. I'm really excited because I asked for questions about this in my group, and I got quite a few different ones. And, and one of the questions that I got right away from a risk was, you know, what is the difference between the three? And by the three, I mean, NAD, NR and NMN. And that you said, explain it to me like I'm six. So I hope today's conversation, people will walk away with an understanding of not only the importance of supporting our NAD levels, but also how NMN in particular can do that. So for Ron, first of all, well, just first of all, thank you so much for all that you do. And thank you so much for being here.
Baran Dilaver
Thank you so much for having me and thanks for the background story. Love your background story.
And I'm pretty amazed that, you know, you started your NAD journey all the way back in 2018 and present.
Melanie Avalon
Thank you. And like I said, it's funny because now I feel like I can just kind of casually talk about it and people will know what I'm talking about. But when I first started looking into it, nobody really knew what it was. Oh, and then there was the whole moment with the FDA where NMM was maybe going to be taken off the market and then that was a whole thing. There's just been a lot that's happened.
So in any case, to start things off, your personal story, would you like to tell listeners a little bit about your background? I know you've led numerous startups, so I'm really curious what brought you to Wonderfeel. So you went to UC Berkeley where you study economics and you had athletic and academic scholarships. Oh, athletics. So what sports did you play?
Baran Dilaver
water polo we had a pretty good water polo program yes we were always competing to to win the nc2a so i was really fortunate to be able to part of that program
Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, that's amazing. Were you all always interested in longevity science? Water polo and longevity science.
Baran Dilaver
No, I mean, playing sports puts different mindsets, but in my late 20s, 30s, I definitely abuse my body thinking that I'm some sort of a rockstar, which I wasn't really clear about that. But yeah, I started getting older, and the way we started Wonderfield, I will tie it back to a wonderful encounter.
I ended up going to a lot of conferences, and in these conferences, you usually are impressed with one or two speakers. They just really captivate you, so Dr. Sosman was one of those. He was so interesting, and he was answering the questions so well, and his background was so interesting. It turned out to be so relevant to what we do, if you don't mind, I'll just share one of his great contributions to science. Back about 25, 30 years ago, he discovered, invented, that's the proper terminology, invented something called a part inhibitor. What it does is it fixes the broken DNA, the gene, the Broca gene that causes breast cancer and ovarian cancer in women. So this invention included using NAD and every term. So he wrote some of the original papers, and he's done the original research on NAD and how it works in the cell with DNA repair, et cetera. So he's really versed in the biochemistry, but he's been always a pharmaceutical inventor, so he's been looking at addressing really serious diseases, and he's been very successful in his career. The wonderful thing is we were able to take him almost out of that pharmaceutical realm and bring him to a nutraceutical realm. While we are pursuing pharmaceuticals as well, we are definitely not big fans of pharmaceuticals, but there's a time and place, and unfortunately, the medical system, most of the doctors still only believe in the pharmaceutical results, probably because of all the clinical trials you have to do to prove its efficacy and safety. But anyway, so yeah, Dr. Salsman coming on board was a big, big, big instigation for Wonderfield to work on what we work on, longevity.
Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, that is amazing. I love the image of you taking him from the pharmaceutical side.
That's amazing. So when you launched the company, so you saw him talking and you were really inspired and that led to the inspiration for the company? I mean, I know that would be simplistic, but is that what happened?
Baran Dilaver
Pretty much. I mean, that's the simplistic version. And the goal was to bring him on board as an advisor. I mean, I'm so happy and fortunate that it became much more than an advisor.
He actually, he's one of those guys who just can't stop working. It's like you'll get emails from him, texts from him at four in the morning. So he got so excited with what we do. And he also likes the fact that he doesn't have to spend 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing one specific drug. He sees that the inventions, we are able to put it into the markets and get immediate feedback while we are working on the inventions parallel tracking them. Also, he's been in the... He was a medical doctor and he got into scientific discovery. And for 40 years, he's actually touched so many different areas. So for him also, it's very satisfying because he's able to tie all of his work together and he sees how it applies to aging and longevity.
Melanie Avalon
the timing of it. So while we're recording this, although this will air in the future, but the episode that I'm airing right now on my other show is with Charles Pillar.
He's the investigative journalist at Science Magazine who broke this story about all of the fraud and Alzheimer's data research. The reason to bring it up is reading his book. He has a book called Doctor. It was like a complete paradigm shift for me about, I mean, I knew about the, like with the pharmaceutical industry, how, you know, it takes a lot of time to do these trials and things like that. But it, it just completely opened my eyes to the, like the problems with the incentives and the structures and the way everything is set up with the pharmaceutical industry. It doesn't really serve, how do I say this? It's just so like money driven.
Baran Dilaver
Narrow is very narrow and it's very capitalistic yes. I'm hoping to change that i mean i don't know if you can but we're hoping to be part of the movements that changes that's another thing so i interrupted you but there's no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to use.
Nutraceutical or like these natural ingredients because they cannot patent them and if they cannot patent them there's no incentive which is really sad because there's so many good for you ingredients that will help with certain diseases medical conditions and the side effects being positive you might just live longer but that's that's not how the system is set up.
Melanie Avalon
Exactly, which I know is why, like mentioning David Sinclair, his book Lifespan, he talks about how he really champions the idea of aging being a disease, because if it's a disease, then you can, then you could do more trials for it, because you'd have something that you could work towards that's verifiable as a disease. Wow.
Okay. So I'm super curious. I mentioned earlier, I guess backtracking. So now that we've talked all about some of this history and everything, NAD in general, what is it?
Baran Dilaver
If you don't mind, I mean, you've been talking about it for so long, but, you know, my friends still sometimes get confused about why NAD is so important. So we came up with an analogy, and it seems to resonate with people. So I'll go through it, see, and I'll love your feedback too, because we've been talking about it so long. So NAD is crucial. We can get into the biochemistry, but, you know, it's something your body produces in billions every day. Without it, you'll be dead in 10 seconds. So it's that important.
It takes place in over 500 enzymatic processes, but what does this all mean? What does DNA repair? So my analogy is, think about NAD, it's kind of like the life source, a river that feeds into a valley. And in that valley, let's say there are some villages, some towns, and there are farms, there are orchards. People use the water for irrigation. They use it to, there's fish there, so they fish, they use the water for their houses, for cleaning, for water supply, for drinking water, et cetera. So it's like the lifeline of this valley. And what happens over the years is that water starts diminishing. But the effects are not, you know, always very visible. Maybe some year, the strawberry fields don't produce as many strawberries. Maybe the other year. I mean, think about the strawberry field as one of your organs. Maybe your liver is not functioning optimally. Or your apple orchards don't produce as many apples. So that's maybe your skin not really recovering from sun damage or being exposed to sun. Or some years, you know, maybe there's not enough fish for people to feed themselves. And then, you know, as it gets worse, the water might get polluted, et cetera. So that's kind of like my analogy.
So the effects are not the same for everybody. And the effects are not necessarily all visible, because maybe everything slows down at the same time. So you don't have like one bad year where there's no strawberries, right? Like, you know, nothing fails, but everything is a little less optimal.
Melanie Avalon
No, I love that analogy and what determines where the changes in the river are affecting, you know, whether there's strawberries or whether it affects the soil over here. Like, why do different diseases manifest in different people based on that?
Baran Dilaver
Great question. I'm not sure if I have a simple answer to it, because everybody is different.
We are all exposed to different offenders, you know, whether you live in an area, there's crazy pollution, or whether, you know, you're super stressed, or you don't sleep well. I think, like, based on the environmental, like, what have your body is attacked, you know, the like, the weakest part goes out first, right? And on some people, it's, it's, it comes up as skin issues. On some people, it's, it's, you know, lung issues, or diabetes, or heart issues, or neurodegenerative diseases. So I think it depends on your your metabolism and what you're exposed to.
Melanie Avalon
So the actual, because that was a really great analogy, the actual river, which is like the NAD, so the actual NAD in our body, what is it doing that is doing that? So I know it's involved in like energy production and antioxidants, like what is it actually doing in our body?
Baran Dilaver
Yeah, so 70% of it goes into ATB production. So 70% is directly related to energy, which is super important. So all your organs need energy. And what happens is like like in our river knowledge, they don't get as much energy as they used to over the years. So they get less and less energy. So they don't work as optimally.
Some people see it for instance, they have a couple of drinks, and they don't recover as fast anymore, because the liver is not processing, it's fast enough, well enough. So energy is correlated to all the organ functions in one way. And then the 30% of it is used in different enzymatic processes. One example I can give you is DNA repair. But what is DNA repair? Well, let's start with, you know, what happens to our DNA that every day, it gets injured. So our DNA, my thing is like 70 times per minute gets that that strain, double strain gets gets broken. And what any data is actually the DNA repair mechanism is an enzyme called PARP. So PARP goes and grabs one end of the strain, and then grabs the other end. And then it puts it back together, it basically glues it. And in order to glue it, it needs an AD. So if it doesn't have any AD, the glue doesn't doesn't doesn't hold it. And you know, so if you if your DNA is not repaired constantly, then it's good to create basically cancer tumor, right, it accumulates.
Melanie Avalon
So that's why you were mentioning earlier, Dr. Salzman's work, the PARP inhibitors, that was related to that.
Baran Dilaver
Similar, right. Similar mechanism, exactly. So, I mean, there's different biomechanics in there as far as repairing the BRCA gene, but the concept is the same.
Melanie Avalon
So so fascinating. I actually had not heard that fact before about if we, you know, magically are suddenly lost our energy, we would die in 10 seconds. That's, that's wild.
Baran Dilaver
Yeah, when somebody has a heart attack, their NAD levels plummet.
Melanie Avalon
Wow. Okay, so it actually can happen. I was thinking it was like just a hypothetical. Where does it go? It's just gone. All of it's gone all of a sudden.
Baran Dilaver
The production goes down. Yeah, your production, all of a sudden you're not producing as much in AT.
It's something you produce all the time, right? It's something so basic. It's something so fundamental.
Melanie Avalon
And is it something that you can stock up on or does it have to be constantly refilled?
Baran Dilaver
Great question. So our theory is, since you produced us all the time, it's better to get the production up. That also goes into leads into actually your question. Do you want to do an AD injections or do you want to do an AD IV? Because in those cases, the theory at least is to give the body much more an AD than it usually makes. So whether that's the right approach is a different question.
I'm just talking about the delivery and you're talking about stocking up. Are there benefits? Happy to dive in.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah. So no, I would love to talk about this because I think when it comes to all of this, people do see more and more these IV, these NAD IV drips. And like I said, I was doing the injections. It's funny because I would go and get the injections every week, and then they would always try to sell me on the IV. And I was like, I just don't know if I want to sit there for five hours, not probably feel that well, spend all that money and also not even know the long-term benefits.
And then actually, Amy said, she said, I recently heard on another podcast, Your Body Can't Absorb IV NAD. So the popular IV drips are not effective. She says, unless it is NR, I didn't know they did NR drips, regardless. So the IVs, where do you guys land on the IV front of what's happening there?
Baran Dilaver
Yeah, so there's the theory, and then there's the real life stories. I want to be very careful about having an open mind. So some people do report benefits to the NAD IV, or the NAD injections. And some people, you know, to report a lot of side effects.
So on paper, NAD does not easily get inside the cell. That's a fact, because NAD is so precious inside the cell that the cell membrane doesn't let NAD to slip out. So the same NAD that doesn't slip out also is very difficult for NAD to get in. So Dr. Sosman theory on that one is the NAD, like if you flood your system with NAD, I mean, our bodies are pretty smart. So he thinks that most probably that the NAD turns into NMN and R, and then goes inside the cell and then becomes NAD again. So that's a good theory. Unfortunately, there are very, very, very few clinical trials and studies on NAD IV and NAD injection. And based on the theory that, you know, NAD doesn't readily go inside the cell, there are questions. But at the same time, we hear some really interesting good reports from users, like for drug addiction, I think like for emergency room cases, I will hope to see much more studies on this for us to have a better understanding. So we, you know, we used to say like an AD IV probably doesn't work. Now we are much more open-minded about like, yeah, let's see more studies. But I think the main challenge is that it takes a long time, and you have to put a needle. So it's not that practical. And the other question is, you know, if you spike up your NAD so much, how good is that for you? Maybe it's a great thing. We just don't know.
Melanie Avalon
Just my personal perception was, again, I haven't done the IV, but when I was doing the injections, it didn't feel good. And I was like, I feel like my body is telling me something here, like it doesn't like this thing in its system right now. And I know that's like very casual way of perceiving it, but you know, I just didn't make me feel good.
I felt like, you know, really, like my chest would get really, really tight during it. Have you done an IV?
Baran Dilaver
Actually, I have not, but I hear the same feedback and I think listening to your body makes a lot of sense.
Melanie Avalon
I remember I was talking with my friend, and actually she works at one of the places, and she did an injection to herself because she was an esthetician nurse, and so she was able to, and she said she thought she was going to die, so she's never going to do it again. I shouldn't laugh about that, but I have noticed, though, and I have questions about the transport and getting into the cell and everything, I do love transdermal NAD patches.
I do really like a slow drip situation, not a drip, but a slow absorption situation. I wear those when I go out, and I'm drinking all my wine, and I do notice a huge benefit with those. So I'm really curious because in the history of this evolving science and understanding of NMN, NR, and NAD, there's also been, I remember when I first started learning about it, the word on the street was that NR had a cellular transport mechanism to get into the cell, and NMN did not, that NMN had to convert, and then convert, like a lot of conversion was required, but then they were saying there was a direct transport into the cell. So what is the latest research on NMN versus NR, and maybe if you can briefly explain the difference between the two, and then do they equally easily get into the cell, or how do they have to convert? What is the situation?
Baran Dilaver
Great question. I'll start with the high-level answer. NR and NMN, nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide, they are both great precursors for NAD. We actually do not necessarily say that one is much better than the other one. I think that we think they're both great.
There's great value to both of them, and they work hand in hand. They work together. A lot of NR turns into NMN, and there's absolutely a receptor outside of the cell for NMN. Which is called SLC12A8. It grabs the NMN and flips it inside, and inside NMN turns into NAD. But the body is not that straightforward. The clinical trials show that NR also is able to increase NAD levels. Nobody has done a side-by-side study comparing NR and NMN, but they both work. So I think that's a great starting point. And even though we choose NMN, we think NMN is a bit more effective. We also support people who are taking NR. So they are doing the right thing as well.
For us, the more important and interesting fact is not just raising the NAD levels, but to decrease the depletion. So that's why we are really big on the formula, how we do that.
Melanie Avalon
So that's really surprising to me that they haven't, nobody's directly compared NMN to NR.
Baran Dilaver
Not yet.
Melanie Avalon
So when it raises, when you say it raises the levels, is that intracellularly or in the bloodstream or where?
Baran Dilaver
That's a great question. So the most important part is actually to measure it in tissue where it matters, but that's really difficult.
Like you have to take action, like a piece of, piece of like, like,
Melanie Avalon
of biopsies.
Baran Dilaver
Yeah, exactly. That's very expensive, very difficult, and people don't want to give up. Not fun.
Not fun, exactly. So some blood and AD levels are some sort of indicators that help. So there's different methodologies to measure it. But then the question gets actually really deep and complicated. Which organ benefits from it? Does it get into brain? Does it get into heart? Does it get into liver? So those are not well studied. So we are working, we're doing a lot of research trying to understand because it's one thing to get the NAD levels up in the blood, another thing to get the NAD levels. I mean, there's an AD, obviously, a lot of NAD in the brain. But with supplementation, can we get the NAD levels up in the brain? How much can we get it up? Because that has a direct impact on your cognition, on your focus, and potentially helping with the neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's.
Melanie Avalon
And because I'm just thinking about it.
So if we're primarily testing the blood levels, because that's easier than doing like a biopsy, but inimin and NR cannot, or can they convert to NAD outside of the cell?
Baran Dilaver
No, they come inside the cell. Since you asked the question, I think I also want to clarify people like now there are many, many companies because NAD is becoming more popular selling NAD.
But NAD as a supplement does not work, like that is known. NAD does not get inside the cell. It's a bit different when we talk about IV and injections, we think, because you're again, you're putting so much NAD into the system that the body is able to work with it. But if you're taking a capsule of NAD, that's you're just wasting your money.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, yeah, it's interesting because some people will tell me that they take NAD like it's a supplement orally and I'm like, I don't know that that works.
Baran Dilaver
terminology is getting confusing i mean there there might be might be taken actually our products thinking that's the purpose is to increase the level so it doesn't need to product when some people do unfortunately by like something with nato which does not work.
Melanie Avalon
It's I literally remember the first time somebody told me that and I was like, I was like, are you sure it's not intimate or in our and they were like, no, it's NAD. And they sent me the link and it was NAD and I was like, okay, well, okay.
Baran Dilaver
No, that's unfortunate.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so if you're testing NAD levels in the blood after, like in the studies, after people are taking NMN or NR and the levels are going up, then that presumes that it went into the cell, converted into NAD and came out, right? Like it has to have gone into the cell to have raised the blood levels.
Baran Dilaver
Yeah, depending on the tests, that's, that's the goal trying to establish that it, it, it, they need to levels go up where it matters. So there are different ways to look at the indications.
Melanie Avalon
And are most of the studies, or in general, and what type of studies do you prefer? Is it more about testing NMN and its effects on a certain condition or a certain endpoint?
Or is it about NMN raising NAD levels? And then we look at other studies that look at higher NAD levels and conditions.
Baran Dilaver
That's a good question. Dr. Salzman always likes to say that if you go to FDA and if you tell them, hey, I've changed these biomarkers, they will say, and so what? So his goal is always like, how am I helping my patients or how am I helping people? So he likes to look at the end results.
For instance, we are starting a clinical trial that is looking at our product's effects on eczema. We were fascinated and not expecting this result, but the formula, not just an amount, helps people with eczema. And I have to be very careful. We are not making any medical claims, but because the feedback has been so powerful and interesting, we want to understand, like, how does it work? Like, because they have to take the product for a long time, but then eczema, which is very difficult to work on and very difficult to treat, completely disappears. It just goes away. It doesn't come back. But when does that happen? I'll see if it is the case. Is it because they have to take it for six months? They have to take it for eight months? They have to take it for four months? So we're trying to get an understanding, but that's an incredible benefit. That's a great benefit. So looking at the benefits is more interesting. And there are quite a few different benefits. Like, there's the energy test, six-minute walk test. And we usually see the benefits in people who are older, but our audience is not that old. Older, meaning like somebody who's 75 years old and has a hard time going up two, three flights of stairs, they see the benefits quite dramatically. But then we tested our product on the fastest gold medalist and 50-meter freestyle. He can't feel the difference because for him to swim half a second faster or even less faster, there's probably so many other factors going in. So he can feel the difference of our product.
Melanie Avalon
And speaking of the timeline, so when you're testing these things and looking for the effects, how long do people have to be taking it to see the effects?
Baran Dilaver
That's another great question. So if we go back to our river analogy, some of the effects take a really long time. Think about your strawberry field, right? Like your strawberry fields didn't give as many strawberries that year. So it takes a while to have the field to become optimal again. It's not just like immediately after you give water, you get good strawberries. You have to wait a whole cycle sometimes. So it's very varied.
I think we can edit this part while I'm spacing out. We are talking about how long it takes. So some benefits are going to have to be careful. Some benefits, like recovery from workouts, people who have runner's knee, feel the benefits very, very quickly, even like the next few days. That's because the formula works on the inflammatory markers. But somebody who's really healthy, who have eczema, for instance, but otherwise they're really healthy, the benefit might take months and months to feel them. Then there's some really interesting feedback that we are getting. And now that we look into the science of it, it makes sense that people's hair colors from whites, it's turning back to its original color. Not the whole thing, but they see little spots turning back in color. That's really interesting, but that takes sometimes a year.
Melanie Avalon
Wow. So presumably, because I think our hair turns white because of oxidative stress leading to hydrogen peroxide, right? I think that's what's happening.
Baran Dilaver
We've written an article, so I've seen, I think like nine or ten different contributors, why the hair is turning white and then addressing a few of them clearly helps.
Melanie Avalon
Wow, that is really cool.
Baran Dilaver
It's not the puzzle that's been resolved yet, right? There's no magic pill.
But it's nice to know that our product helps in some cases. Perhaps the reason I'm not getting much white hair is because I'm taking it. It's hard to know.
Melanie Avalon
And is there any sort of feedback loop or down-regulation, like if you're taking in and then consistently supporting NAD production, does that at all stop what you naturally would have been endogenously producing had you not taken the supplement? So like is there like a tolerance that develops?
Baran Dilaver
No, according to the literature there is no such a thing.
Melanie Avalon
Okay. So you can, it's just, you can keep taking it.
You don't have to worry about sending kind of like the issue of oversaturating our bodies with NAD through an IV and the potential problematic signaling there. It sounds like it's okay to just keep taking NMN continuously.
Baran Dilaver
Correct. We don't see any red flags anywhere. Awesome.
Melanie Avalon
And really quickly, so we were talking about all of the pharmaceutical incentives and things like that. What happened when NMM was potentially going to be taken off of the market?
Was the pharmaceutical industry looking into making it a pharmaceutical drug, you think?
Baran Dilaver
That's exactly what happens. So the pharmaceutical lobby, given that how strong they are, they kind of took over, NMN being a pharmaceutical, took over FDA's decision and taken it out of the nutraceutical markets. But it was not a safety issue. So one company trying to patent NMN and making it a full 100% pharma product was the idea. Thank God the industry associations and people pushed back because people have taken this, it's safe, it's good for people.
So why take it off the market and make it a really expensive pharmaceutical? I mean, it does have pharmaceutical potential to treat medical conditions, but that does not come at the cost of consumers losing their access.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's really sad that the two industries are so siloed. It can't even be really integrated into the pharmaceutical world without it being taken away from other people in the process and who have it as a nutraceutical. Because I have a supplement company and I was literally going to make an in-a-min supplement and then that all happened and I was like, oh, okay, maybe not. And I was so sad because I make all my different labels like different colors and I was so excited about in-a-min, I was going to make it a rainbow label, like rainbow colors.
Oh, well, in the future. Now we have Wonderfeel, so it's all good. Which speaking of, where does it come from and how did you decide your formulations? Because you have multiple formulations.
Baran Dilaver
We have essentially two. One of them is just pure NMN for peers like yourself, and then the other one is a formula. It's a simple formula. It's not like the kitchen sink. Just a quick answer to the question about how it's made. It's made in a lab. It's an enzymatic process or starting material. Think about like kefir. It's like kefir. It's an enzyme, and then it gets processed. That's how it's made.
You have to make sure NMN is stabilized otherwise it will degrade really fast, but most of the NMN that's coming from good companies is stabilized, so you don't have to worry about it. But when you started back in 2008, that was really difficult to find, so it probably made sense that's why it started with NR. But going back to our formula, there's one ingredient that we put in there not because of its logistics effects. It's one of the most basic longevity vitamins, vitamin D3, and last year another study actually just showed how important vitamin D3 is for longevity, but most people, as you know, don't get enough vitamin D.
Or level is there like the minimal that you should get. It's the FDA's recommended dose per day, but the other ingredients are really interesting and exciting, and they have more than one purpose. I will start with, if you're interested, I mean, I would like to talk about one ingredient in particular that comes from mushrooms, ergotinine, because not many people know about it. This is fascinating. The way we came across it was many, many years ago, one of our friends told us about his mother's Alzheimer case, and the family did not want to put her into a caretaker's house, so they were looking into ways to cope with her daily issues. And they did their research. One professor from, I believe, Penn State told them to feed her a lot of porcinis in the morning. And why? Because porcinis turns out that has a lot of ergotinine, or we call it ergo. And sure enough, she will behave really well that day. So that's how we picked our interest in ergotinine.
And so we start looking into it, and it turns out that it's prevalent in mother's milk, and it's a very unstable molecule, but we all have a receptor for it. So babies have receptors for ergotinine. So we started looking into what else it does. And another fascinating thing about ergotinine is it accumulates in the body for up to 30 days where there's tissue damage. So it's an adaptive antioxidant like no other. And then Dr. Sosman saw that the real statistic benefits of ergotinine, and we wanted to put in our formula, but it was so expensive, it was like $100,000 a kilo. We're like, okay, what's the right dose to put in there? You know, we're not putting in there for window dressing. So we ended up actually talking to the Nobel Prize winner in 2021 for his work on vitamins and antioxidants. Oxford University professor, his work was back then in the 90s. And he was so excited to hear from us. He's like, yeah, I'll call that work brought me to ergotinine. And he was raising money to do an Alzheimer's study on ergotinine.
Baran Dilaver
He has to raise public money because what we talked about, the pharmaceutical companies have no interest in sponsoring or investing in a natural compound that they cannot patent. So he did eventually raise the money and preliminary results look very, very positive on Alzheimer's.
So a baby who's one year old, somebody who's like 90 years old with neurodegenerative issues benefit from it. It's adoptive in your body. So it's a really interesting, phenomenal ingredients. And again, our understanding is it used to be much more prevalent in our food supply and agricultural products. But because of the poor agricultural practices, now we can only find it in certain mushrooms like lion's manes and porcinis and et cetera.
Melanie Avalon
That's interesting. I didn't know that.
Baran Dilaver
Yeah, I think it should get more attention, and more people should take it on supplements. We don't sell it. I'm just saying other companies should sell it, and people should probably take it based on everything that we see.
But the two other ingredients, resveratrol, hydroxytyrosol is also polyphenols, that is olive oil extract is actually what it is, the hydroxytyrosol is the main polyphenol we have. They work as CD38 inhibitors in our formula, what does that mean? So one issue is the NAD, NAD production is going down as we age. And the other issue is actually the NAD depletion. If you go back to our river analogy, I don't know, think about it's like at the source of the river, somehow some of the water is diverted to some other purpose, let's say some people went up there and they decided to just take the water and take it somewhere else. So what's happening is CD38, it's in every cell, and there's a lot of it in immune cells. And as we age, they get hyperactive. And scientists still are not sure why it's getting hyperactive, but inflammation, chronic inflammation seems to be one of the causes. And CD38 eats up, chews up NAD like nothing else. So you need to control actually your CD38 activity. So resveratrol and hydroxytyrosol and somewhat ergothynin, they do bring down the CD38 activity. So as people go back to our river, so the water can be diverted back into the valley.
Melanie Avalon
Wow. Oh my goodness. Okay. So that is your younger formula. So it's synergistic and has all of those ingredients. Is it the same amount of NMN as the pure NMN or is it slightly less?
Baran Dilaver
It's just slightly less. The pure NMN is 1,000 milligrams. The younger formula is 900, and based on the data literature and studies, anywhere between 600 and 1,200 seems to be the right dose. And I do want to emphasize, people who are taking NR and NMN, the right dose is key. If you don't take the optimal dose, you're probably not going to get much of a benefit.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so actually Amy also asked, what is a desirable daily dose of enemin? So what is that therapeutic dose?
Baran Dilaver
We landed on 900, and you mentioned Dr. Sinclair, so he has done clinical trials where he administered 2,000 milligrams, 2 grams per day, and they did not have any serious side effects, so that, so far, maybe seems to be safe.
The number might go up, but we feel like 900 is a safe dose, safe and optimal dose.
Melanie Avalon
I'm trying to remember because it was a while ago now, when we were developing my NMN, it was a lot of long conversations about dosing. And I think we landed at a gram, 1000 milligrams.
Baran Dilaver
Sure, yeah, 1000. That's, you know, some of the leading scientists like the people at Buck Institute, like David Sinclair does the dose that they believe in, based on this research, of course.
So I think one gram, 900, potentially up to 1200 could be the then we have some people in our company and some of our clients, they take double the dose and they love it. I don't I just take the recommended daily dose.
Melanie Avalon
I have another question about that, but really quickly, one of the reasons I was so excited about you guys, you mentioned earlier how when I first started taking Enamin, back in the day, it was hard to get verified forms. And I was really grateful.
So one of my friends, his name is James Clement, he wrote a book called The Switch. And he actually conducted the largest ever study on the blood work of supercentenarians. But he runs a lab, and he was pretty obsessed with Enamin as well. So he was always just like testing different ones on himself and testing his blood levels of it. So he would tell me which brands he was finding were actually raising blood levels. So I was really grateful for that. And now, but now like fast forward, this was me buying like off of Amazon and stuff. So it's really exciting for me to see where we are now with Wonderfeel and like this incredible board of directors and everybody involved and like just knowing that I can feel good about it actually, you know, being stable and doing what it's supposed to do. This is really, really wonderful.
Baran Dilaver
Well, thank you.
Melanie Avalon
I really mean it like friends just go to the website and like look at the board of directors and and there's a ton of like science on the website and like blogs and information so people can definitely check that out.
The timing is something i wondered personally morning versus evening does it does it matter. And also with food or without which is a good segue to another question but yes when to take it.
Baran Dilaver
Timing is a great question. So what we found out is when people divide the dose, 90% of the time, they forget to take it in the afternoon. So that's why we recommend take two in the morning. So at least they get your dose.
And in our view, if you're able to take one in the afternoon, it might be better. For some people, it really helps their sleep cycle. Some people get too much energy. They're not a fan of taking it later in the evening or later in the afternoon. But just to be on the safe side, take two in the morning. And you can take it without food. So we recommend just take it first thing in the morning. But if you take it with food, it's not going to do any harm.
Melanie Avalon
And speaking of the food, you said there is actually, or is it a preclinical rodent trial? There's something on enemin and fasting?
Baran Dilaver
That was interesting. It came out last year, yes.
So, they did a preclinical animal trial, and they did, I think, four different arms. They gave NMN, and today there was, of course, the arm that they didn't get any drugs. So, what they found out is there's a synergistic effect with intermittent fasting and NMN, that it helps with muscle growth and endurance. And it kind of makes sense, right? Like, intermittent fasting definitely helps with NAD production, definitely helps the cells, the whole mechanism of converting into cycle correctly and getting more NAD make it available. And, you know, just boosting with NMN does make sense that it helps with muscle and endurance.
Melanie Avalon
Wow, that's amazing. Okay, I'm going to have to find that study and put it in the show notes. Awesome, thank you.
That's amazing. I might even talk about it because normally on the show, when I have my co-host here, we open with a study. And so I might, I think I'm open with that study next time. So that is awesome. One quick question. Does NMN need to be taken with methyl donors? I know that was a concern that I was coming across in the past.
Baran Dilaver
Yeah. Don't quote me on this, but I don't think... I think 99% of the people don't have any issue creating metals.
People who get their blood levels tested, they should check their homocysteine levels. So, if they have an issue with their homocysteine levels, their doctor will probably prescribe them betaine or it's also called TMG. So, if they have that case, they definitely... if they're taking an amount, they should definitely take TMG with it. So, TMG will allow them to create metals and have the metals.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, thank you. Yeah, there's one in a minute out there that kind of markets itself around being paired with methyl donors. So I've always been a little bit curious about that.
Baran Dilaver
I mean, my take on that is bettering or TMG itself actually is a really beneficiary supplements. So yeah, 99 per I mean, again, don't quote me like 99% or even more of the population does not have any issue. But taking bettering here and there, it's good for you. So why not?
It's a nice supplement. But it's not it's not needed unless your homocysteine levels are low.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, perfect, perfect. And what are you most excited about in the, like with the current research and the future of the company?
Do you guys intend making any more product lines or what's the future here?
Baran Dilaver
I'm very excited about the research we've been doing, but as I was telling somebody, for the last three years, we've done so much research, but we really don't have anything to show for. We haven't published papers, so we just went back and said, okay, we need to publish some of our preliminary results, at least.
Some of them we did, and because we wanted to keep working on them. But I think I referenced, we are trying to understand like increasing NAD levels and how it could be more effective in certain organs. Like, are we really getting to the brain? And if we can really get to the brain, what does that mean? So, we're really excited about finding different methodologies to improve the efficacy of our products or have more targeted purposes by being able to, again, target certain organs. I'm excited about our small-scale clinical trials. So, if we are able to do something about eczema, that's really satisfying because people have to take all kinds of steroids, and people have to take steroids, and after a while, the steroids don't work anymore.
And also, we have a new product coming up that's something so simple and basic. So, creatine supplements, but the issue that I personally have with the creatine supplements are they're really difficult to take. Like, you have to use your powder, and not every morning, I'm able to take the powder.
So, we've been working on it for five years. We made a diabetic and keto-friendly dark chocolates, like super tasty dark chocolates with creatine in it. And that's just the blueprints. We're hoping to put some of our formulas into that dark chocolates.
Melanie Avalon
Wow, that's exciting. Oh my goodness.
Yeah, we've talked about creating quite a bit on the show So that's absolutely amazing and I'm excited to maybe see some of the published results in the future So for listeners, I'm sure they are super eager to get some wonder feel which again cannot recommend it enough And you guys are so kind. We do have a discount code for listeners So if listeners go to if podcast comm slash wonder feel Use the coupon code Melanie Avalon that will get you $15 off What the one-time price of subscribe and save and then you'll also get a $20 credit for your next subscription delivery So basically subscribe you'll get $15 off and then a $20 credit for your next delivery with the code Melanie Avalon again, this is that I have podcast comm slash wonder feel and And Yeah, thank you so much.
This has been so so wonderful. So exciting Do you personally take the the blend of the the younger and or do you take one or the other?
Baran Dilaver
I take the other formula. I'm such a believer and sometimes people ask me like, do you take a break? I tried to take a break, but I'm brainwashed.
I'm seeing all this great results and studies. I'm not able to take a break to see what happens.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I feel you. I feel like I'm the same way. And like I said, it's been the whole world of NAD support. I've just been so passionate about it because I think it's so important, like so important. And it's also been like I was talking about in the beginning, confusing and I don't know if I'm like doing the right thing. And so it's just really nice to see, especially now, like more of the scientific studies, the clinical work behind everything, everything you guys are doing. So I super appreciate it.
Cannot recommend it enough to listeners. Go get it now. Again, that's ifodcast.com slash wonder feel with the code Melanie Avalon to get you $15 off and then a $20 credit for your next subscription. So thank you for Ron. This was so absolutely amazing. Was there anything else you wanted to share with listeners?
Baran Dilaver
No, thank you so much. You've asked some really great questions, you know, you got it a little greedy. I really enjoyed this conversation and thank you for the kind words, we really appreciate it.
Melanie Avalon
No, thank you for everything that you're doing. This has been an absolute pleasure. I'm so grateful and I'm looking forward to everything in the future. So thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by podcast doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.
See you next week.
Baran Dilaver
you