 The most controversial anti-aging intervention, well, not the most controversial. I guess the most controversial would be Youngblood. Are you really not familiar with parabiosis? The second most controversial, a distant second most controversial anti-aging intervention, NMN is back in the news in the fight against breast cancer. Unfortunately, NMN was recently banned by the FDA, a move that could make it almost as hard to get as a blood boy. Welcome to Lifespan News, I'm Emmett Short. Now, I mentioned NAD, which is important because it plays a role in regulating things like energy production and DNA repair, so, you know, aging. Basically, having more of it is generally a good thing. Its levels decline with age and supplementation through precursors like NMN and NNR has shown benefits, but NAD is a double-edged sort. It can also be used as fuel by some cancer cell types. It's like comedy these days. It's mostly getting converted to the best medicine, laughter, but it can also be a career killer. So we've got to learn how to use it wisely. You can learn more about the potential legal issues going on with NMN and the FDA. In this episode of Lifespan News, linked right here and in the description, researchers studied the effects of NAD on triple negative breast cancer, or TNBC, which is notoriously hard to treat, which is how I thought it got its name, like it's just so bad. It's like triple negative. Like there's nothing positive we could say about this cancer. I don't know why I thought that. What, like there are other cancers that have that are really good for you? No, that's not it at all. Apparently, cells of TNBC lack the three common receptors that are usually found on the surface of breast cancer cells. No receptors means drugs don't have anything to latch on to, so it's difficult to target the cells with treatments. But this study showed that continuous use of NMN significantly impeded tumor growth and metastasis in mice with similar results on cells taken from a human cancer patient. So the researchers first did a study in the laboratory in Vitro to see what would happen when they added NMN to the cells. And what they found was pretty interesting. They discovered NMN increased the levels of NAD in the cells really quickly. And here's the kicker. While NMN didn't affect the growth of the cancer cells, it did slow down their ability to spread and invade other cells. That's pretty important because spreading and invading is kind of cancer's shtick. So how does NMN do this? Well, they sequenced the RNA of the tumor and found that NMN activated certain genes that are involved in regulating the body's antioxidants. Specifically, one of the most important antioxidants, glutathione. But that's not all. Turns out, TNBC was associated with low CERT1 protein levels. So patients with higher levels of CERT1 had better survival rates. So they tested resveratrol, another controversial supplement that might affect CERT1, and found that it also decreased the spread of TNBC cells, but again, did not affect their growth. Same thing. So pioneers like Davidson-Clair have made some strong statements about resveratrol and others have pushed back. So this study does seem to support the idea that it activates CERT1, but for more on this controversy, check out this Lifespan news episode from Ryan O'Shea, linked right here and in the video description. Finally, the researchers looked at something called oxidative stress. Oxidative stress occurs when there are too many free radicals in the body rummaging around and it's been linked to a number of health problems, including cancer. They found that both NMN and CERT1 acted to decrease oxidative stress and that this might play a role in slowing the spread of cancer. What's more, this research also seems to be pointing towards CERT1 and NMN having an impact on a specific protein. That guy. So we're zeroing in, but this study does make it seem like raising NAD levels through NMN supplementation could be useful in treating this stubborn subtype of breast cancer. If you were excited by this and you want to learn more about NMN, check out Lifespan IO where there's an entire page dedicated to what you need to know. Make sure to subscribe and click the bell so you can stay up to date on aging research. I'm Emmett Short and we'll see you next time on Lifespan News.