Hello and welcome to the VP Life podcast, brought to you by
Rob:vitalityPRO . My name's Rob and I'll be your host on today's episode.
Rob:Today we're sitting down with Dr.
Rob:Jin-Xiong She Dr.
Rob:She is a renowned scientist and entrepreneur who's made it his career's
Rob:objective to further our understanding of genomics and human cellular metabolism.
Rob:During today's discussion with Dr.
Rob:She, we will discuss what his views on nutrition and longevity are, why
Rob:he prefers NMN as an NAD booster, and why niacin may actually be harming us.
Rob:Today's episode covers a lot, so if you lose track, be sure to
Rob:check out the show notes linked in the video description below.
Rob:Hi Dr.
Rob:She thank you for joining us today.
Rob:Um, so yeah, if you could just quickly introduce yourself and what
Rob:it is that you are all about and Jinfiniti and we'll go from there.
Dr She:All right.
Dr She:Very nice to be with you, Rob.
Dr She:It's my pleasure to, uh, have the opportunity to talk to you.
Dr She:So, uh, I am Jinxiong Xi.
Dr She:I have been an academic scientist for over four decades, and I
Dr She:Published over 400 papers, and I, I'm tired of writing papers.
Dr She:So I decided to quit my academic job a little over two years ago.
Dr She:And I've been focusing on my company, Jinfiniti Precision Medicine, for the
Dr She:last, I guess, 20, about 28 months.
Dr She:And it has been a wonderful journey.
Dr She:And what I'm most excited about is the ability to impact people's
Dr She:life right now on the spot.
Rob:Okay, that's awesome.
Rob:And a bit more about Jinfiniti.
Rob:It's very much a company sort of built around testing specific
Rob:biomarkers, especially ones that are, uh, aimed at longevity.
Rob:Is that correct?
Rob:That that's generally the idea.
Dr She:Yeah, it's, uh, in general, correct, but.
Dr She:I, I would say Jinfiniti is about teaching people new philosophy.
Dr She:And I'm, I'm getting, uh, older chronologically, so I, uh, I become
Dr She:more a philosopher than ever before.
Dr She:So the philosophy that I try to teach or preach is called, is based on the
Dr She:ancient Chinese philosophy known as Taoism, or T A O, and Taoism . actually
Dr She:applies very well here when we're talking about wellness and longevity.
Dr She:How it's about staying in harmony, staying in balance, and how do you find
Dr She:the balance between our genes and our lifestyle, and that's the essential
Dr She:elements to achieve health and longevity.
Dr She:So very specifically, we preach a program that's called TAO, T A O.
Dr She:TAO stands for Test, Act, and Optimize.
Dr She:So, I, I, I want as many people as possible to understand that this is
Dr She:a philosophy or program that will allow everyone to achieve better
Dr She:health and longer health span.
Dr She:And I and the Jinfiniti are all about, uh, extending health span or closing the
Dr She:gap between life span and the health span.
Dr She:So in most industrialized countries, the life expectancy
Dr She:or life span is about 80 years.
Dr She:All right.
Rob:Yeah.
Dr She:And COVID has reduced it by about two
Dr She:years in the US
Dr She:now, well, at about 78.
Dr She:Uh, if you look at the health span, or the number of healthy years, it's about only
Dr She:55 and maybe 60, somewhere in that range.
Dr She:We have two decades of gap, at least, between health span and life span.
Dr She:I believe the most important goal for society, and at least
Dr She:for me, is how we close the gap between health span and lifespan.
Dr She:If I can help, you know, even just one person who, uh, extended their
Dr She:health span to, let's say, 80 years.
Dr She:I mean, we want longer, obviously, but even if we just close that gap of 20 years
Dr She:between health span and lifespan, and we can achieve a nod on the individual level
Dr She:and as well as on the societal level.
Dr She:So that's my first goal.
Dr She:How do we increase health span?
Dr She:The TAO program is really paying use of the currently available technologies and
Dr She:it does not cost a huge amount of money.
Dr She:Everyone can do it and we want everyone to do it.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:That's awesome.
Rob:So.
Rob:Essentially, that's your, your take on, on longevity, uh, is it
Rob:sort of a supplemental program?
Rob:Does it include sort of lifestyle factors as well?
Rob:Um, could you give us an overview of, of the program?
Dr She:Yes, sure.
Dr She:So the first step is test.
Dr She:We want to use as many biomarkers as possible and affordable to identify the
Dr She:top, what I call the sub health issues.
Dr She:for suboptimal health issues.
Dr She:These are inflammation, oxidative stress, senescence, metabolic
Dr She:dysfunction, micronutrients, and so on.
Dr She:We use tests to identify which of these major issues are the
Dr She:problem for a given individual.
Dr She:And with the health data in hand, we can come up with a very precise
Dr She:and personalized action plan.
Dr She:So that's the second part.
Dr She:We want to act precisely in a personalized way, and we also
Dr She:want to act in a proactive way.
Dr She:And we also have to act.
Dr She:You know, very persistently.
Dr She:So, so once the, um, the actions are taken, we retest to evaluate the
Dr She:effectiveness or network efficacy.
Dr She:with the actions that, uh, uh, were recommended.
Dr She:So that's where the fine tuning or the optimization part comes in.
Dr She:So if you repeat this, uh, test, act, optimize steps, uh, you
Dr She:can continue to make a progress.
Dr She:You can continue to address the most important issues first,
Dr She:and then you go down the list.
Dr She:If we take the first risk factor away, we can extend the health span
Dr She:by 5 to 10 years, and maybe longer.
Dr She:If we take the second one away, we gain another 5 to 10 years.
Dr She:We take the third one away, we gain another 5 to 10 years.
Dr She:If we just take the Top three risk factors away, you can likely gain
Dr She:15 to 30 years of health span.
Dr She:And that's how, that's why I think the Test Act Optimized
Dr She:approach is so essential.
Dr She:You want to know which risk factors are the most important
Dr She:ones for each specific person and do it in a very personalized way.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:Uh, your company Jinfiniti are you guiding individuals through this process?
Rob:Do you have a sort of a program in place?
Rob:Is that, uh,
Dr She:We do, we do provide.
Dr She:So, uh, so after tests, the actions include both, uh, lifestyle, uh,
Dr She:changes, you know, people needed to be more active, uh, more engaged in,
Dr She:uh, exercise, they need to have a balanced nutrition, you know, avoiding
Dr She:certain food that are not good.
Dr She:And you also want to have a diet that's rich in and balanced in a lot of the
Dr She:nutrients, not only macronutrients that everyone knows about, but there
Dr She:are many micronutrients that we, uh, needed to, uh, pay attention to.
Dr She:Unfortunately, in the modern diet, many of the micronutrients we need to
Dr She:stay healthy are deficient and they are depleted by modern, uh, agriculture.
Dr She:So that's where, you know, supplements come in, and if you cannot get
Dr She:enough from food, you have to take it from the supplements.
Dr She:So, so I'm using both lifestyle and supplementation and from time to time,
Dr She:you know, we may have to, uh, use very specific, uh, uh, medical procedures.
Dr She:You know, for example, I'm a big fan of, uh, therapeutic plasma exchange, or TPE.
Dr She:And we've, while doing a clinical trial, we find it very
Dr She:effective at removing toxins.
Dr She:So it's a great detoxification procedure.
Dr She:Unfortunately, it's a little too expensive for everyone to afford it.
Dr She:But, but if toxins are a major issue for individual, that may be a
Dr She:very appropriate procedure to take.
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:So That's why you, you need to, you need to test to figure out, you know,
Dr She:what, what each person needs the most.
Rob:Yeah, you have to identify which variables are at play and sort
Rob:of upsetting someone's homeostasis.
Rob:TPE, that's something I've looked into and, uh, well, maybe not as deeply as you
Rob:have, but essentially that's almost like a whole body, uh, PRP in a sense, is it not?
Rob:You are separating the plasma out from a large quantity of blood and then
Rob:re perfusing it back into the body.
Rob:Is that generally the idea?
Dr She:Roughly, but not, not exactly.
Dr She:So with the TPE, you take the plasma out, uh, from one arm.
Dr She:You replacing with, uh, saline solution and albumin and plus other
Dr She:nutrients depending on the protocol.
Dr She:So if it's done correctly using the right protocol, it's both a detoxification
Dr She:protocol and the regeneration protocol.
Dr She:It's a detoxification because you are removing everything that's in,
Dr She:in the plasma except the blood cells.
Dr She:We put a blood cells back.
Dr She:Right, we don't put the plasma back, we put the, uh, we put the blood
Dr She:cells, we put albumin, we put the saline solution, and then we put, uh,
Dr She:other nutrients back in the other arm.
Dr She:So, it's, uh, removal of all the plasma, and replace, uh, with healthy
Dr She:and rich in nutrient, uh, solution that's comparable to the plasma.
Dr She:50 percent of the protein in the plasma is albumin.
Dr She:That's why we replace it with albumin.
Rob:So essentially it's almost like an updated version of the quote unquote
Rob:young blood transfusions, where you would sort of take blood from a, from a
Rob:younger mammal and insert it back into an older mammal of the same species.
Dr She:It is.
Dr She:So the only difference is, uh, in the young, young plasma exchange
Dr She:protocol, you put someone else, um, probably someone younger.
Rob:Yeah.
Dr She:The plasma back into, uh, into yourself.
Dr She:I'm not, uh, a huge fan of young plasma exchange.
Dr She:Personally, I wouldn't do it because someone's young.
Dr She:That doesn't mean that the person is more healthy than I am.
Rob:No, definitely.
Rob:I mean, uh, everyone's going to have their own sort of pathological microbial makeup.
Rob:And unless you're sort of filtering it and really sort of checking it for
Rob:something that's, uh, that you, yeah, you could sort of, I suppose, sort of
Rob:transfer an infection across as well.
Rob:So, and I'm sure it's something Brian Johnson actually was
Rob:experimenting with at one point.
Rob:I don't think he did it for very long.
Rob:Not surprisingly.
Dr She:It's a, it's a kind of a three way experiment that he did.
Dr She:So he got the plasma from his son and he give his plasma to his father.
Dr She:So Brian did not get any benefits from his son's plasma
Dr She:based on the test that he did.
Dr She:But his father did get some benefit from Brian's plasma.
Dr She:I can totally understand because, you know, Brian is pretty optimized.
Dr She:I work with Brian and he uses our test and our supplement.
Dr She:I mean, Brian is pretty optimized.
Rob:Less to tweak there, that's for sure.
Dr She:It's very hard for him to get additional benefits, right?
Rob:Yeah, definitely.
Dr She:On the other hand, his father was less healthy, so he,
Dr She:uh, he can potentially get the benefits from Brian who is optimized.
Dr She:So I don't, I don't think it's only an issue of age.
Dr She:You cannot just define it by age.
Dr She:Young plasma doesn't necessarily mean it's better plasma.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:It's, it's relative to the health of the individual in question to a large extent.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:Yeah.
Dr She:Right, that's why I have some concerns because you don't, you don't
Dr She:know who is healthier and you don't, you cannot control the quality and the sources
Dr She:of so called young plasma or healthy, I would prefer to call it healthy plasma.
Dr She:I think that would be a better term than young plasma.
Rob:Yeah, I think that, uh, and this is going a little bit of a
Rob:tangent, but the same issue is present with fecal matter transplants.
Rob:They're obviously an amazing modality, especially when it
Rob:comes to infections like C.
Rob:diff.
Rob:Um, but controlling the, uh, the donor and getting a consistent viable
Rob:product transplant has always been the major issue with the technology.
Rob:So, yeah, that's interesting.
Rob:Um, getting back to your program.
Rob:So typically with TAO, what are the, The main things you see with
Rob:an individual, I assume you, it's, it's a lot of the same things.
Rob:Uh, so you're seeing sort of dysregulated blood trigger, high
Rob:levels of systemic inflammation, high levels of oxidative stress.
Rob:Do you, uh, do you work with specific sorts of diets, sort of
Rob:like a ketogenic approach, a low carb approach, a high carb approach?
Rob:Or do you generally sort of personalize those sorts of protocols and
Rob:interventions to the person in question?
Dr She:So we, so we do the test and then based on the test results, we, uh,
Dr She:we can recommend, uh, specific actions.
Dr She:I'm not a nutritionist and I don't have a team of nutritionists on our program.
Dr She:So we, um, from the nutritional point of view, we, uh, we
Dr She:recommend, uh, balance the diet.
Dr She:I mean, obviously, you know, you, you want to consume more
Dr She:vegetables and more, more foods.
Dr She:One is a fine.
Dr She:And the one thing that we really focus on is to reduce the carbohydrate intake.
Dr She:You know, I, as we were talking before you started recording, I came off of rice
Dr She:about three months ago and lost 15 pounds.
Dr She:And carbohydrates, especially, you know, rice seem to be Major health, uh, risk.
Dr She:Then even red meat.
Dr She:So we, from the data net, we see the top three, maybe four issues are inflammation,
Dr She:oxidative stress, micronutrient deficiencies, and uh, uh, senescence.
Dr She:These are these and, and, and sugar and, and lipids.
Dr She:I mean, these are the.
Dr She:Information everyone talks about in both medical professionals
Dr She:and, uh, you know, the general public, uh, do pay attention to it.
Dr She:But what we found, uh, is that oxidative stress or reactive, uh, oxygen species.
Dr She:Uh, a much bigger problem in the United States, uh, than actually inflammation.
Dr She:About 80 percent of Americans have high oxidative stress.
Dr She:And inflammation is only detected in about 10 percent or so.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:Do you think that oxidative stress is sort of Obviously, obviously
Rob:it's environmental, but do you think it's, it's, is have you picked up
Rob:any sort of specific cause, specific toxins, uh, or was it more sort of a
Rob:pathology that somebody has picked up?
Rob:So if I was to clarify that, or is it something like dirty air that's
Rob:causing it specifically, do you think, uh, is it, or is it more sort of the
Rob:end result of a poor diet and having maybe, uh, high AGEs in the diet?
Rob:Um, what
Dr She:Yeah, I, I, I, I'm pretty sure it's the food.
Dr She:In America, we eat a lot of the ultra processed food.
Rob:Yeah.
Dr She:If you look, if you look at, uh, European Caucasians and white
Dr She:Americans, Europeans are doing great.
Dr She:They don't have very high levels of oxidative stress.
Dr She:We tested people from Europe as well.
Dr She:And that's true for other ethnic groups.
Dr She:People who live in the U.
Dr She:S.
Dr She:have higher oxidative stress, irrespective of their genetic background.
Rob:Do you think that's down to food quality to any level?
Rob:Literally the, the quality of the, I mean, obviously your, your sort of more
Rob:Southern European countries, uh, such as France, they eat, they eat a lot of
Rob:carbohydrates yet they seem to, at least in some part anyway, remain, maintain
Rob:a high level, a level of metabolic health, sort of generally speaking.
Rob:Do you think food quality comes into it or is it just A case of overconsumption.
Rob:Uh,
Dr She:I think, I think it's both.
Dr She:I think it's the additives that, uh, we added to, uh, to
Dr She:the, uh, process of the food.
Dr She:I mean, I cannot pinpoint it to very specific, you know, compounds or
Dr She:anything, but in general, you know, I lived in France for five years.
Dr She:I mean, we, we didn't eat any of the box of food or anything.
Dr She:We, on the weekend would bike to the supermarket, uh, the open
Dr She:market and to buy fresh produce.
Dr She:In American.
Dr She:You know, we, we consume a lot of the processed food, even, uh, even for
Dr She:vegetables is frozen and the additives in, and it certainly has something to do with
Dr She:how the food, uh, processed and stored and under the quantity, uh, as well.
Dr She:In America, we tended to eat a lot more than in other parts of the world.
Dr She:So, you know, oxidative stress is a huge issue for many, many people.
Dr She:diseases because it has a major, it's mostly produced in the mitochondria and
Dr She:the mitochondria defect or dysfunction is probably one of the most important
Dr She:risk factors for various diseases.
Rob:Yeah.
Dr She:This is an issue that very few people talk about and Um,
Dr She:medical professionals don't know about it, they don't talk about
Dr She:it, no one really talks about it.
Rob:So how are you measuring sort of oxidative stress at
Rob:the level of mitochondria?
Rob:Are you looking at cell membrane health, cardiolipin, those sorts of markers?
Dr She:We have a marker which is a kind of a metabolite of
Dr She:oxidation, it's called hydroperoxide.
Dr She:It's a metabolite of the reactive oxygen species.
Dr She:Uh, different radicals.
Dr She:So, so the hydroperoxide can combine it to macromolecules, combine
Dr She:it to cell membrane and damage, you know, DNA, RNA proteins and
Dr She:cell membranes and everything.
Dr She:That's, I believe, a major risk factor for many health issues we see.
Rob:Yeah, no, definitely.
Rob:And I mean, obviously, aside from sort of improving diet, how are you sort
Rob:of then reversing that sort of damage?
Rob:Are you utilizing compounds like phosphatidylcholine to improve the
Rob:cell membrane or, or the cell itself?
Rob:How do you sort of generally suggest people fix those sorts of issues?
Dr She:Well, the, the approach is increase, uh, the
Dr She:anti oxidant the capacity.
Dr She:And there are many potential ways you can increase, let's say, you know,
Dr She:vitamin C, vitamin E, and CoQ10.
Dr She:Another one is glutathione or glutathione precursors, NAC.
Dr She:We tried many of these compounds, and unfortunately, we have not found one
Dr She:that's very, that's highly effective.
Dr She:And about two weeks ago, now we think we are on the right track.
Dr She:Coming up with a formulation that can reduce oxidative stress.
Rob:Super antioxidant, as it were.
Rob:That was, uh, sort of all the, for want of a better word, sort of the rage in the
Rob:early 2000s, well, in the late 90s and early 2000s, was looking at antioxidants
Rob:as a cure all for pretty much all disease.
Rob:Was that not the case?
Dr She:Yeah, with the antioxidants, you, you actually need, uh, in
Dr She:most of the studies, they only evaluate one a time, and that's not
Dr She:a, that's not a good, good enough.
Dr She:You really have to look at the multiple compounds, multiple antioxidants, you need
Dr She:to, you know, reduce them all the way to, uh, uh, CO2 and water, and, uh, otherwise
Dr She:it's not, it's not going to work.
Dr She:So, and the second issue is, you know, how, how much that one needs
Dr She:to take, and they absorb, because most of these are fat soluble.
Dr She:And also.
Dr She:It's um, the, the test for oxidative stress has been, uh, very difficult.
Dr She:You know, what we should test and how we should test it, and also issue.
Dr She:And most of the supplement companies, unfortunately, don't really conduct,
Dr She:uh, well designed studies to figure out, uh, whether their products work or not.
Dr She:So at Jinfiniti we, we, we tried to change that and we don't put any, any
Dr She:product out until we absolutely know that's going to help a lot of people.
Dr She:No product is going to help everyone, but we, we wanted it needs to help
Dr She:the vast majority of customers who, uh, who may take the product.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:You're chasing clinical outcomes, not just mechanism, essentially.
Dr She:Right, right.
Dr She:You want the clinical outcomes and you, you know, you, you, you want to
Dr She:have biomarkers that can be assessed relatively easily and quickly.
Dr She:To predict what's going to be longterm outcome.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:That sounds like an amazing program.
Rob:I think it's probably a good time to sort of maybe move on to
Rob:NAD, which I suppose is, is maybe what Jinfiniti is best known for.
Rob:And we certainly get a lot of questions about sort of NMN and
Rob:NR, your, your main NAD precursors, not including Niacin, et cetera.
Rob:What are your thoughts on.
Rob:NR and NMN specifically.
Rob:And I know that you're more of a fan of NMN, if I'm correct.
Rob:And uh, yeah, why?
Dr She:Let's probably back up one step.
Dr She:Um, so you can call them probably about five different NAD precursors.
Dr She:Right.
Dr She:So the closest one to NAD is NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide.
Dr She:It's a one step precursor because you only need one enzyme to make NAD from NMN.
Dr She:So it takes one step and then the next one is NR, nicotinamide riboside.
Dr She:Right.
Dr She:Mm-Hmm.
Dr She:NR needs to go to NMN and that's called, that's through the, uh, NRK or NR kinase.
Dr She:And then you will, will be made into NAD.
Dr She:So two step precursor for NR.
Dr She:Then a little further, you have nicotinamide, nicotinamide.
Dr She:It can be made into NAD through a pathway that we call a salvage pathway.
Dr She:Mm-Hmm.
Dr She:. Right.
Dr She:So that, that takes, so that, that, that's another, uh, NAD precursor.
Dr She:The fourth, fourth precursor is, uh, niacin and niacin, uh, goes
Dr She:through a very different pathway to be made into a, uh, NAD and then
Dr She:the fifth one is trytophan, right?
Rob:An urine pathway.
Rob:Yes.
Rob:There we go.
Rob:Yeah.
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:Trytophan can be converted into NAD as well.
Dr She:So what we know now is NMN and NR are both.
Dr She:Highly effective, uh, precursors for ourselves to make NAD.
Dr She:We, we actually have compared NMN and NR in a number of individuals.
Dr She:In most people, the efficacy is comparable.
Dr She:So from that point of view, uh, NMN and NR both work quite well.
Dr She:So there is a small percentage of individuals who can be deficient in NRK,
Dr She:so they cannot make NR to NMN effective.
Dr She:What I don't know is what a percent, what a percentage of people are relatively
Dr She:deficient or suboptimal for NRK.
Dr She:And certainly you are going to find some individuals, right?
Dr She:But I know the percentage is not very high because if it's very high,
Dr She:we would have enough data to know.
Dr She:So from that point of view, NR and NMN are comparable I like NMN better
Dr She:than NR, uh, because number one, everyone who can benefit from NR
Dr She:can potentially benefit from NMN.
Dr She:And the argument against NMN by the NR camp was that there was no transporter
Dr She:of NMN there, was a transporter for NR . This was changed about, uh, two years ago.
Dr She:So an NMN transport was, was found and we know, uh, NMN can elevate
Dr She:NAD very effective in people.
Dr She:So whether there's a transporter or not really doesn't matter.
Dr She:You know, it works, we know it works.
Dr She:So, but both NR and NMN also have their own biological functions.
Dr She:And it's not, their function are not just through serving as an NAD precursor.
Dr She:I mean, these are compounds, they have functions.
Rob:Yeah, they've got other signaling processes as
Dr She:Well.
Dr She:They've got other signaling processes and, you know, how they work
Dr She:exactly are not fully understood.
Dr She:But for example, NMN, we know it's pretty, you know, anti inflammatory.
Dr She:So, with our data, we know that NMN, uh, seems to provide more health benefit
Dr She:than, uh, and that's, that's debatable and we can, we can debate on that.
Dr She:The next, uh, piece of data that, uh, we have and it's not published,
Dr She:I think it's very important, is that People who take high doses of niacin
Dr She:for, to reduce cholesterol level, have extremely high levels or can
Dr She:have extremely high levels of NAD.
Rob:They also can have extremely high levels of insulin, can they not?
Rob:Niacin, high dose niacin therapy has shown to actually be
Rob:positive of insulin resistance.
Rob:Is that not the case to some extent?
Dr She:I actually don't know what niacin causes insulin resistance,
Dr She:I'm not, I'm not aware of, of that.
Dr She:So what, what we, what we do know is niacin can reduce LDL, but it does
Dr She:not reduce cardiovascular events.
Dr She:It does not reduce death from cardiovascular.
Dr She:Uh, uh, diseases and you actually can increase, uh, CVD death slightly
Dr She:or may not be significant, but it, that have a potential to increase it.
Dr She:So using niacin to, uh, to reduce LDL and uh, and CVD is really not, uh,
Dr She:well, you can reduce the LDL, but it does not reduce, does not provide.
Dr She:benefits for the CVD if you want.
Dr She:That's kind of the current knowledge that I know.
Dr She:And a lot of people are trying to use niacin to increase their NAD levels.
Dr She:And I get this question all the time.
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:Why do I just use the cheap Niacin to increase my why I should use, you know,
Dr She:NMN and NR that are more expensive.
Dr She:Well now we know You mentioned that a recent paper came out in Nature
Dr She:Medicine and actually about two weeks ago So what this Nature Medicine paper
Dr She:found was that In a cohort with high risk for CVD, and many of them are
Dr She:probably taking niacin, and probably high dose of niacin to reduce LDL.
Dr She:They produce a higher level of 2 NAD or actually nicotinamide
Dr She:metabolites called 2 PY and 4 PY.
Dr She:Which are now named.
Dr She:We're not going to try
Rob:to try those ones again.
Dr She:2 nicotinamide, they call it NAD metabolites.
Dr She:Actually, it shouldn't be called NAD metabolites.
Dr She:It should be called nicotinamide metabolites.
Dr She:Okay.
Dr She:Determine metabolites of NAD.
Dr She:And they are actually broken down from nicotinamide, so 2 PY and 4 PY.
Dr She:What they found is individuals in this cohort in the fourth quartile, the 25%
Dr She:of individuals who have the highest level of 2 PY or 4 PY, uh, have increased,
Dr She:uh, uh, risk for cardiovascular event.
Dr She:Now, that's a very important finding.
Dr She:What it means is people who are taking niacin and have higher
Dr She:nicotinamide metabolites may have higher risk for, for CVD.
Dr She:And, and that's not, not, not good.
Rob:Definitely not.
Rob:Did they, I haven't, I've only read the abstract of the paper, wasn't open access.
Rob:Did they happen to go into the potential mechanism behind why?
Rob:Yeah,
Dr She:the potential mechanism is these two metabolites may increase the vascular
Dr She:inflammation, they can specifically.
Dr She:So I think the problem is For a lot of, uh, so-called experts are interpreting
Dr She:the data as that it's not a good idea to increase, uh, to take NMN or NR
Dr She:or what's the appropriate doses of NMN and NR to increase the NAD level.
Dr She:And I don't blame them because they don't, they don't have the data that we have.
Dr She:The data we have is, if you take a niacin, high dose of niacin, your
Dr She:NAD level can go to, you know, 100 to sometimes 180 micromolar.
Dr She:Okay.
Dr She:Very, very high levels.
Dr She:So that's why they have very high levels of nicotinamide metabolites,
Dr She:and potentially they have higher risk of cardiovascular events.
Dr She:So, in our program, what we recommend is to take enough doses for NMN
Dr She:or NR, So your energy level stays within 40 and 100 micromolar.
Dr She:We, if it's over 100 micromolar, there's potential, uh, harm.
Dr She:I mean, we have been recommending that for four years.
Rob:At the end, endothelial level.
Rob:Exactly.
Dr She:Right.
Dr She:So with this additional evidence, you know, actually re emphasize our
Dr She:recommendation that you don't want to get your NAD levels way too high.
Rob:More is definitely not better.
Dr She:Yes, more is not necessarily better.
Dr She:And we know it's definitely bad here in terms of NAD, but I didn't,
Dr She:I suspected it, but I did not have enough evidence to specify the up
Dr She:limit of the optimum range for NAD.
Dr She:Now with the data we have from Niacin.
Dr She:And also the recent Nature Medicine paper, we know that you should not get your
Dr She:NAD level higher than 100 micromolar.
Dr She:And ideally, probably we're going to reduce it to 80 micromolar to be safe.
Dr She:90, about 70, 80 percent of customers following our recommendations get
Dr She:their NAD between 40 and 80 micromolar.
Rob:Okay.
Dr She:About 5 percent of individuals taking various NAD
Dr She:products and getting their NAD.
Dr She:Uh, to over a hundred micromolar.
Dr She:So with all the evidence that we see now, what's very clear is
Dr She:you don't want to just take a NMN or NR product without testing.
Rob:Yeah, no, you want a baseline.
Rob:Um, just out of interest, what are the, what are the, what base levels
Rob:do you see, uh, with people who come to you initially, maybe people who
Rob:are unwell, uh, how they're presenting to you in terms of their NAD levels?
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:So, so it is age dependent and it's a country, maybe ethnic, uh, uh,
Dr She:group dependent for, for Americans and for Caucasians, naturally
Dr She:in their forties and beyond, uh, usually in the mid twenties.
Dr She:Yeah, no, and occasionally we'll have someone in the, uh, uh,
Dr She:in the high 30s or middle 30s.
Dr She:So most people are somewhere between, you know, 25 and maybe 32 or so.
Dr She:And if the age is above 40, uh, 40 years, the old, the older the person is, the more
Dr She:likely their NAD level is lower, and it's not a perfect correlation if you want.
Dr She:We also find the deficiencies in, even in very young, young children.
Dr She:About 25 percent of teenagers are deficient in NAD.
Dr She:Do
Rob:you think that's a nutritional issue?
Dr She:I do not really know.
Dr She:I am certain it's probably nutrition dependent.
Dr She:Partly it's genetic.
Dr She:We do, we do some, do see some, uh, clustering of NAD levels in families.
Dr She:If, if, uh, if it's low in, uh, in, in someone, um, there's higher chance
Dr She:to be, uh, low in other, uh, family members, um, blood related members.
Dr She:So that, I'm pretty sure that's a genetic component, but
Dr She:it's not a very well studied.
Dr She:And we also see a major difference between ethnic groups.
Dr She:Caucasians tend to have higher NAD levels.
Dr She:And Asians, especially, uh, Vietnamese.
Dr She:Koreans and Indians tend to have lower levels of NAD.
Dr She:Chinese tend to be low as well, but they seem to be a slightly higher than, than
Dr She:the Vietnamese and Koreans and Indians.
Dr She:Do
Rob:you have any working theories for that?
Rob:Uh, obviously there's a, uh,
Dr She:It's a genetic and the whole lifestyle, right?
Dr She:I think both, both are involved.
Dr She:I don't know exactly what percentage is contributed by genetics versus lifestyle.
Dr She:The good news is, even if someone is very deficient at the baseline, we
Dr She:can get their NAD levels Optimized how people respond to the energy
Dr She:supplementation does not really depend on the baseline level and that's kind of
Dr She:a misconception, you know, many people asking me, well, should I take in this
Dr She:amount of, uh, based on my baseline.
Dr She:I said, No, we don't see a correlation between how people
Dr She:respond and their baseline level.
Dr She:The baseline test is important because you know how deficient you are.
Dr She:And you can see the progress after supplementation.
Rob:Yeah, it's, it's, it's relative again.
Rob:It's just.
Dr She:Yeah, but even if they don't have this, even if they don't want to spend
Dr She:the money at the baseline, I'm fine.
Dr She:What I'm not fine is that they don't take a test after supplementation.
Dr She:And then you're taking, The much bigger risk here.
Rob:Yeah, getting to the level.
Dr She:Now, one is you don't know whether your NAD strategy
Dr She:is working for you or not.
Dr She:That's the first question.
Dr She:And now, and that's also equally important.
Dr She:We do have a small percentage of individuals who get their NAD levels too
Rob:high.
Rob:Yeah, definitely.
Dr She:And they may.
Dr She:They may have, uh, increased cardiovascular, uh, risk or, or
Dr She:vascular, uh, in inflammation.
Dr She:It's not a very high percentage, but there is a small percentage if
Dr She:they take, uh, uh, recommend NMN and, and NR dosage not the big risk
Dr She:is I think the vast majority of
Dr She:people taking NMN and NR supplements
Dr She:on the market don't get their NAD
Dr She:optimized.
Dr She:Because they're not taking,
Dr She:uh, taking enough or not, not, or not taking a high quality product.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:Something that's actually going to work.
Rob:That leads me to two questions.
Rob:Uh, next I would actually like to quite
Rob:chat about Accuri, but before
Rob:that, how are you testing Well, I know how you're testing NAD levels.
Rob:Uh, I've seen your test product, but up until recently, it was always sort
Rob:of debated that in order to actually test NAD, you literally had to take
Rob:it out of somebody's arm, put it in cold storage, then put it into,
Rob:uh, Yeah, and then put into HPLC.
Rob:I think if I'm correct, uh, I know you're, you're now doing
Rob:a, a dried blood spot test.
Rob:How do you ensure that that test, uh, actually reaches your lab and that it's
Rob:the NAD levels in it that's stable?
Rob:Could you walk me through that?
Dr She:Yeah, sure.
Dr She:So we, you know, NAD is degraded by, by enzymes.
Dr She:So we have, we came up with a NAD stabilizing buffer and that's why,
Dr She:uh, the NAD is, um, it's stable for a period of, uh, about a month.
Dr She:We, we don't, we don't process samples that are beyond the Beyond one month old,
Dr She:and so we, we get a reliable data within a month, um, because of the stabilization,
Dr She:uh, buffer we, uh, we develop.
Rob:Okay, so that sort of removes the issue of oxidation as well, it's then
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:Yeah.
Rob:Okay.
Dr She:So, so that, and I think that's the key.
Dr She:And then, you know, there are many different ways that you can measure
Dr She:energy level and mass spectrometry can be used, but mass spectrometry is
Dr She:very expensive, not very reproducible.
Dr She:And we, we use mass spectrometry, uh, as well when we're
Dr She:developing the, uh, the method.
Dr She:And we use a chemical enzymatic, uh, uh, approach and that's highly
Dr She:specific, highly reproducible and it's automating, um, at least semi automating
Dr She:that allows us to, uh, you know, get it done quickly and reproducibly.
Rob:Let's
Rob:chat about Accuri for a bit.
Rob:I know it's your, your flagship product and I know
Rob:it's more than just the NMN.
Rob:I think before the, uh, we started recording, we started talking about
Rob:molecular reductionism and how sometimes just targeting a specific
Rob:pathway within one molecule isn't always the best approach because
Rob:just throwing pure precursors at the problem doesn't always increase
Rob:levels.
Rob:I know Accuri also contains,
Rob:in addition to NMN, D ribose and creatine.
Rob:Uh, would you be happy just to sort of walk us through the process there
Rob:and why you chose those specific, uh,
Dr She:Yeah, I mean, I can I can answer your questions in in two, uh, two, uh,
Dr She:two different at a two different levels.
Dr She:One is Overall picture of what I would like to do.
Dr She:So we have the test.
Dr She:We have the major categories of risk factors.
Dr She:We are formulating supplements targeting each of the main
Dr She:categories of risk factors.
Dr She:So we'll have a oxidative stress formulation, we'll have
Dr She:inflammation formulation, and so on.
Dr She:So all these products are actually coming online in the next, uh, a few months,
Dr She:and they're actually in production now.
Dr She:Specifically for, for the NAD product, We have four ingredients.
Dr She:We're testing, you know, hundreds were given the combinations in terms of
Dr She:ingredients and also
Dr She:proportions.
Dr She:And we came to this particular formulation with four ingredients.
Dr She:So we have
Dr She:NMN base.
Dr She:NMN is the main.
Dr She:Uh, NAD precursor.
Dr She:We have D-Ribose , we
Dr She:have,
Dr She:uh, creatine, uh, monohydrate and we have nicotinamide.
Dr She:So why
Dr She:this product?
Dr She:We know this product works, uh, works better
Dr She:than pure NMN or pure.
Dr She:NR uh, you know,
Dr She:I'm, I'm not here to, to sell my, my product or
Dr She:anything, but as an example to
Dr She:discuss how, how we should move forward, uh, in terms of science.
Rob:What do you think about utilizing cofactors and other molecules that
Rob:help to recycle NAD specifically in a product or things to actually help
Rob:increase sort of enzymatic production, NAMPT and those sorts of things?
Dr She:Oh,
Dr She:yeah.
Dr She:So.
Dr She:So those
Dr She:are important.
Dr She:I'll come back to that question.
Dr She:Let me finish
Dr She:the four ingredients
Dr She:. Dr She: So we, we, we did not understand how it works at the beginning, frankly.
Dr She:I mean, it took us quite a few months and even over a year, and I'm still learning
Dr She:now as to why this works so much better.
Dr She:It does work.
Dr She:It does increase NAD better, but that's not the main benefits.
Dr She:It actually provides much more health benefits than pure NMN or NR as well.
Dr She:You know, we're getting incredible data from from customers And that's
Dr She:because each of each of the ingredients provide the biological functions
Dr She:and they work synergistically and We
Dr She:have creatine you know creatine increase
Dr She:the muscle mass increase muscle efficacy and
Dr She:also creatine is uh The
Dr She:neurotransmitter.
Dr She:I mean, that's recent finding.
Dr She:And D ribose, uh, D ribose is a, uh, activity in AMPK.
Dr She:I was learning, you know, last night.
Dr She:Oh,
Rob:I did not know that.
Rob:That's awesome.
Dr She:Yeah, I didn't know until last night when someone
Dr She:sent me a paper, you know.
Dr She:So much to to
Dr She:know.
Dr She:And D - ribose has
Dr She:all kind of, uh, uh, functions in addition to be
Dr She:the backbone of, uh, the NAD
Dr She:molecule.
Dr She:Niacinamide is,
Dr She:you know, it's
Dr She:a part of NR, NMN and NAD,
Dr She:so we, and it has its own function.
Dr She:So for some magic reason, when we put it together in the proportions we
Dr She:have, it just provides, um, you know,
Dr She:better energy levels and better.
Dr She:more importantly, you know, better health benefit.
Dr She:That's what I care, care the most.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:Do you notice sort of improved parameters in terms of lowering blood
Rob:sugar and those components as well?
Dr She:Uh, we, we do, we do not have, uh, we do not have data on,
Dr She:um, blood sugar levels, but we do know it reduces insulin resistance.
Dr She:It reduces triglyceride.
Dr She:It can reduce LDL in some individuals.
Dr She:and also reduces inflammation.
Dr She:But, you know, more importantly, it improves cognitive function.
Dr She:It, uh, reduces arthritis.
Dr She:I mean, my allergies are gone.
Dr She:I have many people coming back and why my allergies are gone with the product.
Dr She:Asthma is gone.
Dr She:Um, so
Rob:So
Rob:it's, it's,
Rob:it's almost stabilizing mast cells as well then?
Dr She:Yeah, yeah.
Dr She:No, almost every day we're finding, we're finding new, uh, new, new function
Dr She:from, uh, from, from the product.
Rob:Sort of
Rob:miracle little electron accept and it's sort of changing human biology.
Rob:That's awesome.
Rob:Okay, cool.
Rob:Should we quickly just get back to the question that we
Rob:mentioned slightly earlier?
Rob:Um, Not that I can remember what it was.
Rob:I think I
Rob:need some Accuri...
Rob:How are
Rob:you dealing with senescence?
Rob:I know that you've got a marker that helps to actually track it.
Rob:It's a senescence associated beta galactosidase.
Rob:I think that's quite a new marker, quite a novel biomarker and it's
Rob:It's something we've not been able to track before as a community.
Rob:How exactly does that work?
Rob:And what are the clinical implications of that?
Dr She:So senescent cells produce a bunch of molecules that are called
Dr She:SASP or SASP, senescent associated phenotype, um, secreted phenotype.
Dr She:Um, most
Dr She:of the.
Dr She:SASP molecules
Dr She:are proteins, informatory, uh, cytokines, and
Dr She:one of the SAPS molecule
Dr She:is, uh,
Dr She:beta galactosidase, or I
Dr She:call
Dr She:it Beta Gal.
Dr She:And there
Dr She:there are different, different
Dr She:isoform of beta Gal,
Dr She:and what's specific to senescent cells?
Dr She:Is the isoform of beta Gal that
Dr She:functions in the lysosome and the
Dr She:pH of 6 or in acidic environment.
Dr She:So, um, this is a relatively specific enzyme to senescent cells.
Dr She:You know,
Dr She:nothing is you know,
Dr She:very specific when it
Dr She:comes to SASP or anything
Dr She:related to, uh,
Rob:Biology
Dr She:or to, uh, to senescence, you know, don't, don't expect to find, uh, a
Dr She:magic molecule that's going to be, uh, you know, very specific to senescent cells.
Dr She:It's just not going to happen.
Dr She:But if you
Dr She:look at the all the all
Dr She:the potential biomarkers,
Dr She:uh, beta Gal, or SA beta Gal.
Dr She:is, uh,
Dr She:uh, the best one and it's one that can be measured easily
Dr She:and can be measured in single.
Rob:So it's the, it's currently the best proxy that we have at the moment.
Rob:Is that correct?
Dr She:Yeah, it's the best proxy that we, we can have
Dr She:that, that, that is very useful.
Dr She:We, we analyze it in, uh, in, you know, tens of thousands
Dr She:of people who is healthy and
Dr She:with various, uh, conditions.
Dr She:And for example, we know, we published a paper about four years ago.
Dr She:We showed that it can predict outcome of chemotherapy in cervical cancer patients.
Dr She:And now we, we also know, uh, the changes,
Dr She:uh, after senolytic treatment.
Dr She:So, so we have a pretty good evidence that this is a
Dr She:useful, uh, useful biomarker, both to assess the health status of an
Dr She:individual, and also to evaluate
Dr She:what the senolytic uh, uh, products
Dr She:are doing anything.
Rob:If you do have a test that, well, an individual who tests high for this
Rob:marker, what are your preferred, I'm sure you've got a product coming out for it
Rob:soon as well, but what's your preferred senolytic products out there to actually
Rob:combat the buildup of senescent cells?
Dr She:Yeah, so, so the first recommendation I normally give is a
Dr She:combination of Quercetin and Vitamin C, and these two have synergistic
Dr She:effect to reduce senescence.
Dr She:And we can also add,
Dr She:add some Fisetin into
Dr She:the, into the formulation.
Dr She:And it seems to work, uh, pretty well.
Dr She:Another very popular protocol is called the D plus Q protocol.
Dr She:It's, uh, Dasatinib plus Quercetin.
Dr She:Dasatinib is, uh,
Dr She:anti cancer drug, um, developed for CML.
Dr She:And I'm, I studied this drug for actually a number of years, uh,
Dr She:while I was working on cancer.
Dr She:It's basically, it blocks the cells.
Dr She:I mean, basically, that's basically what it is.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:And you're utilizing the vitamin C in that protocol purely as an
Rob:antioxidant, is that correct?
Rob:Or does it have effects beyond just that for
Rob:senescence?
Rob:Well, Quercetin,
Dr She:Quercetin Is a widely
Dr She:known, uh, senolytic compound.
Rob:I meant, sorry, the Vitamin C.
Dr She:Vitamin C.
Dr She:Yeah, Vitamin C.
Dr She:No one knows exactly why Vitamin C, uh, synergizes with Quercetin.
Dr She:At least I don't know.
Dr She:I have not found any, any published data.
Dr She:And I I cannot come up with a potential mechanism.
Dr She:And,
Rob:Fair enough.
Rob:That's what it is.
Dr She:But it works.
Dr She:I mean, I, I didn't dive very deep into it as to why they couldn't synergize.
Dr She:Uh, I guess now after your question, I needed to, uh, uh, study a little more.
Rob:No, that's all right.
Rob:Uh, I sometimes think that people, especially science, uh, scientists
Rob:sort of get too wrapped up in mechanism and not, and don't get concerned
Rob:enough about the clinical outcome.
Rob:So I think, yeah, if it, if it's doing people good.
Rob:And that's solving the problem.
Rob:Maybe at this point in time, that's all we need to know.
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:My reaction normally is I I'm going to leave the mechanism
Dr She:questions to, uh, my academic peers, uh, that I used to be part of.
Dr She:And now I, I want to deliver outcome.
Rob:Yeah, no, definitely.
Rob:That's, uh, I mean, that, that's what you want at the end of the day
Rob:from, uh, academic researchers to be able to provide people with an
Rob:actual answer that improves lives.
Rob:Shall we move on to age tests?
Rob:I know we discussed that, uh, beforehand as well.
Rob:What are your thoughts on epigenetic age tests?
Rob:I'll quickly sort of throw my opinion into the ring just to lay it out there and
Rob:then you can tell me if you agree or not.
Rob:I think they're an
Rob:interesting marker.
Rob:But I don't
Rob:think they have any specific clinical outcome just yet.
Rob:They seem to sort of broadly indicate that there is a high level of
Rob:inflammation, but they don't sort of indicate, A, what sort of inflammation,
Rob:and B, very seldom, seldomly do they actually seem to provide you with any
Rob:sort of, way to actually
Rob:improve that age score.
Rob:What are your thoughts?
Rob:Do you have a preferred one, whether
Rob:it's the Dunedin age clock or like glycans?
Rob:Uh, what
Rob:are your thoughts on those as a whole?
Dr She:So in general, I, I agree with your assessment.
Dr She:So I, I think the biological age is, is a very interesting measurement,
Dr She:and it's easy to understand for non scientists, and you know, everyone
Dr She:understands what's the age, right?
Dr She:And if you tell someone you're younger or older than your age, You don't need to
Dr She:explain anything else, so it's very good.
Dr She:I think it's a, it's a good psychological indicator and it can also be a useful
Dr She:tool to assess intervention outcomes and so, so you give, you give, uh, you
Dr She:give someone easy to understand the number that they can be associated with.
Dr She:So it, I'm, I'm not against biological age.
Dr She:I think it does serve a purpose.
Dr She:The problem that I have with Biological Age is it's overhyped.
Rob:Yeah, definitely.
Dr She:It has its position, you know, everything that can
Dr She:be measured has its utility.
Dr She:And it all depends on how you use the information and for what purposes.
Dr She:So what you said was very, uh, very good is I don't find
Dr She:biological age tests actionable.
Dr She:And what it means is you cannot derive very specific, uh, personalized
Dr She:action plan for after the test.
Dr She:If your age is, if your biological age is worse than your chronological
Dr She:age, you know, you needed to, uh, do something, you probably don't
Dr She:need to test your biological age to know that you need to do something.
Dr She:And so it's kind of, uh, redundant, uh, not very useful information to me.
Dr She:I know I needed to constantly improve.
Dr She:So, um, I personally prefer tests that will tell me exactly what I
Dr She:needed to do, how I'm going to do it.
Dr She:And then after the specific actions, We can measure what the progress is made.
Dr She:So, um, I unfortunately, biological came to the same for anti-aging and longevity.
Dr She:And a lot of people are pushing the idea and lot of companies
Dr She:are coming up with, uh, the test, including you, you, you sell test.
Dr She:I have a test as well, even though I, frankly, I, I'm not a big
Dr She:proponent of biologic age test.
Dr She:If not, if they have to make a choice of what to test.
Dr She:If they have, are willing to spend the money on testing everything,
Dr She:sure, you know, get a biologic test.
Dr She:I got a test on myself and I actually got tested a couple of times.
Dr She:I'm fine with the, uh, information and then it's, it really does
Dr She:not tell me what to, what to do or not want, what not to do,
Dr She:but you can ,if you have money, then they
Dr She:are much better more important tests to, uh, to do
Dr She:than just a biological aging test.
Dr She:And biological aging test is, uh, includes a variety of different tests.
Dr She:Some people are using the expensive
Dr She:tests for methylation or glycans.
Dr She:Other people are using proteins or the routine biomarkers to calculate age.
Dr She:Instead of calculating age, that I refuse to do, we calculate a W
Dr She:index or wellness index.
Dr She:I think a wellness index
Dr She:is more appropriate in many situations than calculating the age,
Dr She:even though ages easier to understand.
Dr She:So I'm, I, you know, I'm, I'm going to continue to push, uh, what I believe
Dr She:is the right thing is to assess your health status using various markers
Dr She:and, uh, and come up with specific information and, and, and assess
Dr She:what any actions are working or
Dr She:not.
Dr She:Dr.
Dr She:She, this has
Rob:been amazing.
Rob:Thank you.
Rob:Can you tell us where people can find you and, uh, a bit Yeah,
Dr She:well, they can find, find us
Dr She:online.
Dr She:Go to jinfiniti.com.
Dr She:That's
Dr She:J-I-N-F-I-N-I-T-I.
Dr She:Jinfiniti
Dr She:Well, they can just search my name and,
Rob:yeah.
Rob:And you've got a very impressive Google Scholar profile too.
Dr She:Yeah.
Dr She:Looking, find me on, uh, on Google Scholar and LinkedIn.
Dr She:YouTube, um,
Dr She:Instagram.
Dr She:All social media.
Rob:Thank you so much.
Dr She:Why?
Dr She:It's my pleasure to talk to you.