Clinical trials and animal studies suggest NAD+ can improve memory and learning. Research shows NAD plays a role in gene expression, DNA repair and repairing cells. DNA damage can increase your risk for neurodegenerative conditions like dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Among all the NAD+ precursors, nicotinamide riboside (NR) has gained the most attention as a potent NAD+-enhancement agent. This recently discovered vitamin, B3, has demonstrated excellent safety and efficacy profiles and is orally bioavailable in humans. Boosting intracellular NAD+ concentrations using NR has been shown to provide protective effects against a broad spectrum of pathological conditions, such as neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, and hearing loss. In this review, an integrated overview of NR research will be presented. The role NR plays in the NAD+ biosynthetic pathway will be introduced, followed by a discussion on the synthesis of NR using chemical and enzymatic approaches. NR’s effects on regulating normal physiology and pathophysiology will also be presented, focusing on the studies published in the last five years.
The initial discovery of NR-mediated lifespan extension in yeast without CR has ignited an intense interest in vitamin B3 for age-related studies.
NR supplementation has been increasingly recognized as an effective strategy to augment intracellular NAD+ concentrations to benefit human health. Chemical and enzymatic approaches have been developed to produce this rather labile molecule with good stereoselectivity, yield, and synthetic easiness. The biological function and therapeutic potential of NR have been heavily pursued in the last few years. This NAD+ precursor has been shown to prevent or alleviate multiple pathophysiological conditions in diverse model organisms. The clinical significance of NR is also investigated in several trials for metabolic disorders, aging, neurodegenerative diseases, and, most recently, COVID-19. Accumulating evidence unequivocally establish NR far ahead of other NAD+ precursors in improving human wellness. The future will reveal whether ample preclinical investigations can be translated into clinical applications.