The New Zealand company distributing a super-supplement with claims it helps people lead healthier lives has just introduced it to Australia.
Kevin Glucina, director of Matakana Health which distributes Tru Niagen, says it wasn't easy introducing the supplement to Australia in the last three weeks but "we managed it and the Tru Niagen story is growing day by day, hand over fist."
Glucina is predicting heightened interest in the supplement which, among other claims, supports the immune system.Tru Niagen is the commercial name of a rare form of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide riboside (NR) which is a precursor of NAD – a molecule found in every living cell of our bodies and which is "required for all cell function", says Glucina.
"A precursor simply means that the NR is converted into NAD and it is taken up by our cells," he says. "Every cell in our body needs NAD to turn food and drinks into energy. Our brain uses NAD to function normally, our muscles use it to recover and it supports healthy sleep too – there are hundreds of metabolic actions it supports.
"But we lose NAD levels as we age," he says. "About 50 per cent is gone by the time we hit our 50s and it really drops away as we get into our 70s and 80s. It's a double whammy – we produce less NAD but we need it more as we age. It's a supply and demand problem."
That's where he says Tru Niagen comes in – and, in a heavily regulated health product environment where companies have to be careful what claims they make, Glucina says trials have measured that Tru Niagen supports healthy NAD levels and that it has no recorded side effects.
While the science behind Tru Niagen is still being assessed, trialled and debated, Glucina says there are 46 human trials at various endpoints, with eight already peer reviewed and published in major scientific journals. NR was discovered in 2004 by Professor Charles Brenner of the University of Iowa and Brenner came to Auckland towards the end of 2018 to help launch Tru Niagen.
Brenner said at the time of the launch that the amount of NAD in our bodies naturally declined with age but the decline could speed up any time we ate too much, drank too much, worked too much, stayed in the sun for too long, or didn't sleep well.
That decline was thought to be irreversible but Brenner's research showed NR could support healthy levels of NAD in cells, supporting the energy they need to carry out their roles and supporting the immune system.
Brenner did not claim the supplement would help people live longer but believed it may be able to help people stay healthier and more active in their later years.
"It's not intended to treat a disease or condition. It's a wellness product but there are lots of reports of support for sleep, recovering from exercise, going through winter without ills and chills, and recovering from scratches and bruises."
Asked about claims that NR and NAD could support longevity and wellness, he says: "Well, we don't know what we can't know – we'd need scientific trials that test people over 100 years to get the data to prove that.
New Zealand had been the third country in the world to sell Tru Niagen as a dietary supplement and others were following suit. Europe was poised to follow the USA's registration of the supplement and Australia was only the sixth country to do so.
"What I can tell you is that, as time goes by and more people understand what NAD does, the interest in Tru Niagen will grow and grow."