Nicotinamide mononucleotide supplementation enhances aerobic capacity in amateur runners: a randomized, double-blind study

What Was Tested

Researchers studied NAD+ in this randomized controlled trial publication.

This study investigates the effects of a combination of exercise training and supplementation with nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), the immediate precursor of NAD+, on cardiovascular fitness in healthy amateur runners.

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing was performed at baseline and after the intervention, at 6 weeks, to assess the aerobic capacity of the runners.

Why It Was Studied

Recent studies in rodents indicate that a combination of exercise training and supplementation with nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) precursors has synergistic effects.

However, there are currently no human clinical trials analyzing this.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Each group consisted of ten male participants and two female participants.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got NAD+ and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received NAD+.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with NAD+ could be set against what happens without it.

A six-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, four-arm clinical trial including 48 young and middle-aged recreationally trained runners of the Guangzhou Pearl River running team was conducted.

Each training session was 40-60 min, and the runners trained 5-6 times each week.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Bicycling, Body Composition, Dietary Supplements, Exercise Test, Exercise Tolerance, Heart Rate and Muscle, Skeletal.

Author keywords: Aerobic capacity, Exercise training, NMN supplementation and Ventilatory threshold.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of NAD+.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2021 (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the NAD+ compound page, all human trials.