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Age-Dependent Decline of NAD + -Universal Truth or Confounded Consensus?

Augusto PelusoMads V DamgaardMarcelo A S MoriJonas T Treebak
Published in: Nutrients (2021)
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD + ) is an essential molecule involved in various metabolic reactions, acting as an electron donor in the electron transport chain and as a co-factor for NAD + -dependent enzymes. In the early 2000s, reports that NAD + declines with aging introduced the notion that NAD + metabolism is globally and progressively impaired with age. Since then, NAD + became an attractive target for potential pharmacological therapies aiming to increase NAD + levels to promote vitality and protect against age-related diseases. This review summarizes and discusses a collection of studies that report the levels of NAD + with aging in different species (i.e., yeast, C. elegans , rat, mouse, monkey, and human), to determine whether the notion that overall NAD + levels decrease with aging stands true. We find that, despite systematic claims of overall changes in NAD + levels with aging, the evidence to support such claims is very limited and often restricted to a single tissue or cell type. This is particularly true in humans, where the development of NAD + levels during aging is still poorly characterized. There is a need for much larger, preferably longitudinal, studies to assess how NAD + levels develop with aging in various tissues. This will strengthen our conclusions on NAD metabolism during aging and should provide a foundation for better pharmacological targeting of relevant tissues.
Keyphrases
  • gene expression
  • endothelial cells
  • health insurance
  • risk assessment
  • genetic diversity