NMN and Cellular Energy: The Coenzyme Behind How You Age

Every process in your body runs on energy. Every heartbeat. Every thought. Every skin cell that renews itself overnight while you sleep. None of it happens without fuel.

What most people don't realize is that cellular energy has a currency. There's a specific molecule your cells rely on to keep every one of those processes running. It's called NAD+, and its levels drop roughly in half every twenty years of your life.¹

NMN is one of the most researched ways to help your body make more of it. Here's what that actually means, and why it earned a place in Intelligent Age Delay.

What NAD+ actually does

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a coenzyme. That word gets thrown around a lot, so let me put it plainly: NAD+ is the molecule that allows hundreds of essential reactions in your cells to happen at all.² Without it, your cells can't produce energy efficiently, can't repair damaged DNA, and can't communicate the way they should.

NAD+ is in every living cell in your body. Your mitochondria (the small structures inside cells that generate energy) depend on it. Your DNA repair pathways depend on it. The enzymes that regulate cellular stress and longevity, called sirtuins, depend on it.²

If you think of your cells as machines, NAD+ is the current running through them.

Why NAD+ declines with age

Here is one of the more sobering facts in longevity research: NAD+ levels in the human body drop by roughly 50% every two decades of adult life.¹ A 60-year-old typically has a fraction of the NAD+ that a 20-year-old has.

You feel this decline in ways you might not connect to a molecule. Recovery takes longer. Energy fades faster. Skin loses some of its capacity to repair the small daily insults of sun, pollution, and time.

Restoring NAD+ directly is difficult. The molecule is too large and unstable to survive digestion intact. That's where NMN comes in.

How NMN fits into the picture

NMN, or nicotinamide mononucleotide, is a direct precursor to NAD+. It sits one enzymatic step away in the pathway.³ When your body absorbs NMN, it converts it into NAD+ efficiently, which raises the cellular pool your body can draw from.

This is why NMN has become one of the most studied compounds in longevity science over the past decade. Research groups from Harvard to Washington University in St. Louis have investigated its role in mitochondrial function, metabolic health, and the biology of aging itself.⁵

What draws me to NMN as a dermatologist is the skin-specific research. Recent studies on human skin fibroblasts (the cells responsible for producing collagen and elastin) show that NMN supports mitochondrial performance, activates repair pathways, and helps skin cells manage oxidative stress.⁴ In aging skin, all three of those functions decline. NMN offers a way to support them from the inside.

The skin-longevity connection

Your skin is metabolically demanding. It renews itself constantly, defends against UV and environmental stress every day, and repairs microscopic damage on a near-continuous basis.⁶ All of that requires energy. All of that requires NAD+.

When NAD+ levels are healthy, fibroblasts can do their work. Cellular repair can keep pace with cellular damage. The visible signs of aging that most people associate with wrinkles and loss of firmness are, at the cellular level, often signs of energy decline underneath.

This is the through-line of everything I formulated Intelligent Age Delay to support. Skin-deep is cell-deep. What you see in the mirror at 50 or 60 is a reflection of what your cells have had to work with over decades.

Why NMN is one of the four

Intelligent Age Delay is built around four ingredients: NAC, NMN, Glycine, and Quercetin. Each one addresses a different pillar of cellular aging, and each was chosen because the research supporting it is genuinely strong.

NMN's role is straightforward. It supports NAD+ levels, which supports mitochondrial function, which supports the energy your cells need to do everything else. It pairs well with NAC, which supports your body's master antioxidant, glutathione. Together, they help your cells produce energy and manage the byproducts of doing so.

This is the kind of layered thinking I want in a longevity formulation. Not a single ingredient chasing a single benefit, but a set of ingredients working in concert to support the systems that keep you functioning well over time.

The longer view

NAD+ decline is not something you fix in a week. Neither is aging. Both are processes that unfold over decades, which means the support you give your body is best thought of the same way.

What I tell patients is what I do myself: start earlier than you think you need to. Build habits that compound. Choose supplements with genuine science behind them, not ones with the most creative marketing. NMN has the science. That's why it's in the formulation.

Sleep well. Move often. Eat with intention. And give your cells the raw materials they need to keep doing their work.

The best time to start supporting your cellular health was probably ten years ago. The second best is today.

Dr. Jason S. Papenfuss, M.D.

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References

1. Yoshino, J., Baur, J. A., & Imai, S. (2018). NAD+ Intermediates: The Biology and Therapeutic Potential of NMN and NR. Cell Metabolism, 27(3), 513–528. See also: Imai, S. (2025). NAD World 3.0: The importance of the NMN transporter and eNAMPT in mammalian aging and longevity control. npj Aging.
2. Covarrubias, A. J., Perrone, R., Grozio, A., & Verdin, E. (2021). NAD+ metabolism and its roles in cellular processes during ageing. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 22, 119–141.
3. Yang, Y., et al. (2025). An Updated Review on the Mechanisms, Pre-Clinical and Clinical Comparisons of Nicotinamide Mononucleotide (NMN) and Nicotinamide Riboside (NR). Food Frontiers.
4. Distinctive Gene Expression Profiles and Biological Responses of Skin Fibroblasts to Nicotinamide Mononucleotide: Implications for Longevity Effects on Skin. Biomedicines, 13(10), 2395 (2025).
5. Imai, S. (2025). NAD World 3.0. npj Aging. Sinclair Lab (Harvard Medical School) has published extensively on NAD+ and NMN in longevity research.
6. Integrative Dermatology for Longevity: The Synergy of Topical and Internal Approaches. Dermatology and Therapy, Springer Nature (2026).

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.