There are various ways to boost immunity, such as exercise, early to bed and early to rise, and a balanced diet, which we modern people know but find difficult to stick to, so you can boost your immunity by supplementing with NMN (beta-nicotinamide mononucleotide).

Studies have shown that when the body is infected by a virus or bacteria, the immune system experiences a continuous inflammatory response. As inflammation continues to increase, and as cells and viruses become infected, the body's NAD+ levels continue to decrease. And, as NAD+ decreases, our body has less and less energy and substances to support cellular repair, resulting in the body's inability to fight off various infections and damage caused by inflammation, viruses and bacteria.

Recently a number of national and international scientists have discovered that NAD+ seems to be able to boost the immune system. This article will sort out the role of NMN in boosting immunity in three ways.

A cornerstone of exploration.

The University of Washington School of Medicine has published a scholarly report that NAD+ levels decrease with age in mice and humans.NAD+-depleting enzymes play key roles in many physiological processes, such as sirtuins, poly ADP-ribose polymerases (PARPs) and CD38/157 exonucleases, including metabolic, inflammatory, stress and injury responses. The activity of CD38 exonucleases affects NAD+ levels in vivo, published in Nature Metabolism in 2020. Aging-induced inflammation tightens the accumulation of CD38 in immune cells, leading to increased exonuclease activity, which reduces NAD+ levels.


Inspiration in practice.

Dr. Claudia C. S. Chini's team found a positive correlation between senescent cells and increased levels of IL-6 in white adipose tissue in aged mice compared to young mice. The presence of CD38 was found near senescent/IL-6 secreting cells in aged mice. This suggests that senescent cells and their IL-6 play a role in the accumulation of immune cells during senescence. increased CD38 leads to cellular senescence of macrophages, which in turn leads to a decline in the body's immune system.

CD38 is present on the surface of many immune cells, including CD4+, CD8+, B lymphocytes and natural killer cells (NK cells). According to an article published in Hepatology 2022, NMN enhances the anti-tumour capacity of NK cells. NMN-treated NK cells extended the lifespan of mice with hepatocellular carcinoma models by nearly three times, while reducing tumour growth.

Research coming to life.

The typical inflammatory response progresses sequentially from a pro-inflammatory, immunosuppressive phase to an inflammatory repair phase. Although the physiological inflammatory response will subside in time, severe acute inflammation usually maintains immune tolerance and leads to high mortality. A typical feature of the inflammatory response is high energy expenditure, which leads to significant changes in the NAD/NADH redox ratio. The current study by R. Miller's team in 2020 concluded that NAD+ as a nutritional supplement is effective in minimising the severity of inflammation.

NAD+ levels have been reported to be associated with poor immunity. Harvard Medical School noted that blood from patients with severe novel coronavirus had lower levels of NMN compared to blood from healthy individuals. It is possible that coronavirus infection further depletes intracellular NAD+ reserves, resulting in lower blood NMN levels in patients with novel coronavirus.

Many patients with novel coronaviruses develop a systemic inflammatory response to a cytokine storm that leads to oxidative stress, dysregulation of iron homeostasis and thrombocytopenia. In fact, concentrations of pro-inflammatory factors such as IL-1, IL-6 and TNFα are strongly associated with ICU admission and mortality in patients with novel coronaviruses.7 The Ozlem Altay team at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden found that L-carnitine tartrate, N-acetylcysteine, nicotinamide ribose and serine effectively inhibited the production of pro-inflammatory molecules such as IL-6, CCL-5, CXCL -8 and CXCL-10) and achieved a faster recovery to an asymptomatic state in patients with novel coronaviruses.

NAD+ may contribute to the regression of inflammation and help to limit or prevent the effects of cytokine storms; it may do so by increasing the activity of sirtuins.SIRT1, SIRT2 and SIRT3 all inhibit NF-κB and NLRP3 inflammasome activity through a variety of mechanisms.NAD+ another precursor NR similarly promotes SIRT1 expression, inhibits NLRP3 expression and reduces the secretion of the pro-inflammatory factors TNFα and IL-6 in hepatocytes.

So whether it is to improve the internal environment of the body when pathogens invade or to improve the inflammatory response during viral invasion, NMN can be very useful. 

Supplementing NMN and strengthening the body's immune system is a good way to fight the novel coronavirus.