Linking excessive drinking to bad health isn’t a surprise, but how does it affect your cellular health?

Oxidative stress. 

Too much drinking triggers oxidative stress, an imbalance of antioxidants and free radicals in the body. 

During the metabolic process to create cellular energy, your cells rely on your mitochondria, an energy-generating organelle of the cell. Your mitochondria produce a byproduct—reactive oxygen species (ROS) or better known as free radicals. 

Your cells generate excess free radicals whenever you drink too much alcohol. The influx of alcohol can throw your cells into a state of metabolic stress, forcing them to shift into overdrive to metabolize those extra molecules.

Under normal circumstances, your body naturally produces enough antioxidant enzymes to neutralize most free radicals. But if your body produces too many free radicals and an insufficient supply of antioxidants to counteract them, the free radicals can damage your mitochondria. And damaged mitochondria become less and less efficient at generating energy. 

The less efficient mitochondria become, the more free radicals they tend to produce, creating a vicious cycle that further damages your mitochondria. 

Free radicals damage our DNA.

The influx of free radicals can also damage your DNA. 

One study conducted by the Research Society on Alcoholism confirms that those who drink excessively have shorter telomere lengths.

Telomeres are the caps on the ends of every strand of DNA, and they protect your chromosomes. 

When the protective layer created by telomeres wears thin, the DNA in your cells incur so much damage, they can no longer carry out their assigned tasks within the body, creating a higher risk of contracting various age-related illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and dementia. 

Counteracting oxidative stress.

There are a number of things you can do to minimize the effects of oxidative stress in efforts to preserve your cellular health:

1. Drink less alcohol. The best way to counteract oxidative stress is to get to the root of the problem by simply drinking less alcohol. Reducing your intake can help re-establish a balance between your free radicals and antioxidants.

2. Consume foods that are high in antioxidants. It should come as no surprise that the best way to combat free radicals is to consume their counterpart, antioxidants. Antioxidants such as alpha-lipoic acid and coenzyme Q10 are key to protecting your mitochondria from free radicals. These can often be found foods such as colorful fruits, vegetables, and other foods containing high levels of vitamin E, vitamin C.

3. Take a mitochondria supplement. Sometimes, it’s difficult to get the necessary micronutrients needed to protect your mitochondria. For example, NAD+, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is an essential coenzyme that supports cellular repair for critical components like your telomeres. However, elevating NAD+ levels naturally can prove difficult when NAD+ levels decrease over time. An NAD+ supplement is an easy step you can take to help fill in the gaps.

Think about your cellular stress.

Reducing oxidative stress is one of the pillars of sustaining your cellular health. While drinking may curb the stress of your every day, it creates oxidative stress in your cells. And these small reactions can create larger consequences in your overall health. 

Be mindful of your long-term goals and think about moderating your alcohol consumption so that you don’t overwork your cells.

It’s always important to know where the items we use in everyday life come from and how they’re made. Whether the products we buy are created mindfully and sustainably can make the difference for a user’s experience. 

Some manufacturers are more diligent about their production process than others, and it’s crucial to be informed about such details as a conscious consumer. Particularly when it comes to the supplements we take, knowing this background can offer huge peace of mind.

What does cGMP stand for?

Companies that are committed to ethical and accurate product development generally conduct their production work in cGMP facilities. ‘cGMP’ stands for ‘Current Good Manufacturing Practice’ regulations. 

The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) created these regulations to ensure that products including food and beverages, dietary supplements, and pharmaceuticals are manufactured ethically and accurately. CGMPs entail the utilization of systems that establish and enforce appropriate design, monitoring, and control of manufacturing processes and facilities. 

What are the requirements?

Adherence to cGMP regulations for dietary supplements assures the identity, strength, quality, and purity by requiring manufacturers to adequately control and document manufacturing operations. Acceptable observance of said regulations encompasses:

• Establishing strong management systems

• Obtaining quality raw materials

• Maintaining robust operating procedures

• Detecting product quality deviations

• Conducting reliable testing in laboratories

If practiced appropriately, this system helps assure consistency, and prevent contamination and errors throughout the production process. 

How does ChromaDex test?

ChromaDex, the manufacturers of Tru Niagen®, ensures the accuracy of their products by testing for over 240 potential contaminants, including heavy metals, residual solvents, microbes, and other impurities. Their products go through a battery of 36 tests before it reaches consumer shelves. 

The efficacy and strength of ChromaDex’s products are verified as accurate per label requirements. 

Raw ingredients are tested in addition to the manufactured product, and product formulation goes back to the drawing board if any mistake is detected. 

Though ChromaDex’s expert scientists can narrow the margin of manufacturing error down to an extremely low percentage, standards established by ChromaDex require development procedures to be recalibrated and improved anytime an abnormality arises, no matter how small. 

Even the process of ensuring each bottle has the correct number of capsules is carried out fastidiously, with multiple evaluations conducted by multiple parties on every lot. 

ChromaDex has additional safety certifications. 

ChromaDex takes their safety certification process a step further than other supplement companies by having a legitimate third party annually assess their manufacturing practices. 

Government inspections can occur as rarely as every five to seven years if a manufacturing facility is generally considered well-run. Other organizations often fill in the inspection gaps.

With quality being a strong business pillar, ChromaDex decided to partner with NSF International as its GMP auditor.

The NSF enforces standards across scientific industries to verify product. They dictate the ideal systems and procedures with sound science at the heart of their mission.

A track record of successful NSF audits serves as added credibility for companies who want to guarantee customers that their product is high quality and genuine.

ChromaDex serves quality as the standard.

When products are manufactured in a cGMP facility, consumers can feel confident that they meet premium standards. 

ChromaDex continues to seek additional certifications to further bolster the confidence of their consumers. Among these are certifications issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), plus Kosher and Halal organizations.

Few of us question why we age. We want solutions and we want them now. How do we get rid of our grey hairs, treat wrinkles, and ease the pain in our aching joints? While it’s true we haven’t invented a way to time travel (yet), recent research shows the best way to understand what’s happening on the outside is to look within.

Can I stay feeling young even as I age?

There’s no miracle pill that reverses aging. All the common advice we hear about staying physically active, mentally stimulated, and socially engaged is true. And a large body of research indicates that healthy aging is a function of our genetic makeup and staying active.

That said, there’s no single type of activity that’s best for everyone. Exercises like dance, yoga, walking, hiking, running, swimming, and biking are all good. And certain supplements may help with muscle recovery or provide that extra energy boost we need to stay alert or get out of the house. But when it comes to healthy aging, it’s in the action of motion.

Do wrinkles mean I’m aging faster than somebody without them?

Aging of the skin has a great deal to do with our environment, which is why most dermatologists and skin experts recommend moisturizing and staying out of the sun. Skin wrinkles are caused by changes to the layers of the skin and a decreased quality of those cells.

A review published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology Symposium Proceedings suggests that a type of skin cell called keratinocytes are to blame for wrinkles.

In another review published in Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, collagen proteins are to blame.

Either way, there is no evidence to support that skin aging happens at the same rate as the rest of our body’s tissues, but there isn’t much recent work done yet in this area.

Why do we age at all?

A review published in the journal, Cell, identified several hallmarks of aging. If we can understand how they all relate to one another and what they have in common, it could help us improve the way we age. Here are three key hallmarks:

Telomeres.

If you follow the science around healthy aging, you’ve probably heard of telomeres. These tiny regions protect the ends of our DNA from damage. They function like little caps. But as noted by Maria A. Blasco, telomeres get old like the rest of our DNA.

A study published in Nature Cell Biology suggests that as telomeres get old they start to degrade, decline, or take on harmful behaviors.

A.M. Olovnikov theorizes our cells can only survive for as long as telomeres allow them to.

Oxidative damage.

Most of the energy our bodies produce depends on oxygen consumption in our mitochondria. But this energy is not without cost. Michael P. Murphy concludes that these reactions also create what’s known as reactive oxygen species, which can damage our cells and tissues.

Genomic instability.

This aging hallmark is common in every organism. A review published in Ageing Research Reviews suggests that it’s a result of accumulated DNA damage from years of cells dividing and being exposed to environmental factors.

Our innate ability to replicate and repair DNA is remarkable, but sometimes that damage goes unnoticed and gets passed onto new cells. This creates an imbalance, or genomic instability. But it’s our ability to protect DNA in the first place, before it replicates, that keeps our cells working well and helps prevent health problems.

Do we really start to die the second we’re born?

Nobody really knows for sure when we begin to age. One study published in the PLOS One reported that decline in cognitive function becomes noticeable in our early twenties, suggesting it may begin even earlier than that.

Another measuring point is what the scientific community refers to as biological maturity, which happens after puberty. That’s when our bodies have completed our development into adults, and may begin to age. 

Most of the hallmarks of aging aren’t even measurable until mid-life or after. This isn’t to say there aren’t changes happening at a molecular level. But until a certain point, those changes go unnoticed.

Is there a better way to age?

It’s pretty clear now a certain molecule that is crucial to our health, also declines as we age. This molecule, known as NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), is one of the few compounds that connects all of these hallmarks of aging. NAD+ is not only required for things like controlling reactive oxygen species, but also promoting telomere function and genomic stability.

In 2004, Charles Brenner—our Chief Scientific Advisor—discovered nicotinamide riboside as a vitamin that supports NAD+ levels. He later discovered this vitamin encouraged NAD+ to continue promoting telomere function and genome stability, which extended lifespan in yeast. It stands to reason that supporting youthful NAD+ levels may also help us support that youthful resiliency as we age.