What is NMN?
Contents
【What is NMN?】
NMN is present in the cells of all living organisms. It is a precursor of the coenzyme NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), which is essential for the activity of our cells. NMN is naturally produced in the body from vitamin B3, but its levels are considered to decline with aging.
【History of NMN】
In 2011, a team led by Shinichiro Imai, Professor of Developmental Biology and Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, reported the existence and surprising effects of a substance called NMN (β-nicotinamide mononucleotide, β-NMN), which has greatly advanced the medical industry. Today, NMN continues to be studied around the world, and the results of this research are attracting a great deal of attention.
【Clinical studies and papers】
【Absolute purity】
From a given sample, it is possible to determine how much is NMN, of all detected substances. This is our idea of how purity should be determined.
【Relative purity】
In most analysis facilities, samples are simply compared to a standard substance, so the result is necessarily relative. What is even harder to believe is that this standard substance is usually provided by the manufacturer that requests the analysis.
【About impurities 】
A test to determine the existence of impurities was carried out on 4 samples of NMN from as many companies.
Same as measuring purity, the samples were subjected to a LC-UV analysis in the first place. The separation peaks that were detected as possible impurities were then tested by mass spectopetry to identify their components. In our NMN, the only impurity found was a small amount of nicotinamide.
【Complete β-NMN and the danger of optical isomers】
What is an optical isomer?
There are two types of NMN, α-NMN and β-NMN, which have different molecular structures.
α-NMN and β-NMN are called optical isomers because they have the same type and number of atoms in a molecule, but the directions of the connections between the atoms are different.
α-NMN and β-NMN
The NMN we need is β-NMN.
β-NMN is produced by the human body, and unnecessary α-NMN is not produced. However, if NMN is manufactured through chemical synthesis just for the sake of cutting costs, there is a high probability that the final product will end up being a mixture of α-NMN and β-NMN.
Complete β-NMN without α-NMN is produced only through a very precise manufacturing process.
The manufacturing costs are high, so precious, complete β-NMN is expensive. The effects on our bodies of α-NMN, which is not produced in the human body, are yet to be determined. And what’s even more dangerous is that science does not rule out the possibility that α-NMN may act in the opposite way to β-NMN.
