Treating aged mice with NMN, a NAD+ precursor, restores capillary density and blood flow and increases exercise endurance by roughly 56-80%, reversing a hallmark of vascular aging and pointing toward NMN as a candidate anti-aging therapy in humans.
The founding mouse study of the case’s second, current commercial phase (Das et al., Cell, 2018, senior author David Sinclair). The result is a real, peer-reviewed animal finding, but it is a surrogate for a human anti-aging claim: capillary density and treadmill endurance in mice are not lifespan, and no controlled human trial has replicated a comparable functional benefit. A 2026 review in The Conversation, surveying the subsequent human NMN literature, found the strongest confirmed human effect is a rise in blood NAD+-related markers, with recent analyses finding no convincing evidence that NMN preserves muscle mass or function in older adults and no clear effect on strength, cognition, frailty, or measured biological age.
Appears in
Sources
- Impairment of an Endothelial NAD+-H2S Signaling Network Is a Reversible Cause of Vascular Aging — Das A, Huang GX, Bonkowski MS, Longchamp A, Li C, Schultz MB, Kim LJ, Osborne B, Joshi S, Lu Y, Treviño-Villarreal JH, Kang MJ, Hung TT, Lee B, Williams EO, Igarashi M, Mitchell JR, Wu LE, Turner N, Arany Z, Guarente L, Sinclair DA. Impairment of an Endothelial NAD+-H2S Signaling Network Is a Reversible Cause of Vascular Aging. Cell. 2018;173(1):74-89.e20. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.008. PMID: 29570999.
- Can supplements containing NMN, NAD+ and resveratrol really slow ageing? Here's what the evidence says — Elbediwy, Ahmed, and Nadine Wehida. Can supplements containing NMN, NAD+ and resveratrol really slow ageing? Here's what the evidence says. The Conversation (US edition), 20 May 2026.