
The secret to staying young is broccoli and cabbage - walterbell
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-secret-to-staying-young-is-broccoli-and-cabbage-2016-10-31
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teslabox
> They found that when they fed older mice drinking water with a high dose of
> a natural compound called nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), which is found
> in [...]

This is basically Niacinamide/Nicotinamide, a form of Vitamin B3. I understand
that this vitamin helps keep the inflammatory oils from being released (edit:
from storage). Niacin causes a flush; Niacinamide doesn't have this effect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_mononucleotide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_mononucleotide)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide)

From the second wikipedia link:

    
    
      Anxiety
      
      Studies show that nicotinamide has anxiolytic
      (anti-anxiety) properties. It may work in a
      way similar to benzodiazepines.

~~~
eliasbagley
How would vitamin B supplementation compare? I know there has been a lot of
shitposting in the last few years how "multivitamins don't work", but I have a
hard time actually believing it.

~~~
gumby
I have a hard time believing vitamin supplements work that well and
multivitamins in particular. You may end up thinking they _are_ effective but
you should have to work hard to get there. There are several major conceptual
problems with vitamin supplements (this is before we get to multivitamins).

First is bioavailability. The gut isn't just a large database processing
engine in which food is disassembled and its constituents simply extracted.
Many compounds don't even survive the stomach acids. Different digestive
stages extract different components _which have to survive intact that far_.
In addition, some chemicals (vitamins) are synthesized in the body and don't
pass from the gut at all (you mention B, which can be the opposite: B12 is
synthesized in animal tissue but is not available to the body in that form;
eating animals allows the gut to extract it and supply it to cells for use).

In addition, typically 95+% of what you eat or take (yep, those medicines too)
is immediately removed by the first pass metabolism, so most of the drug you
take are pissed into the toilet. Unless the compounds you eat are structurally
appropriate to make it through the gut properly you'll lose them.

But does it matter? The second problem is dosage. You can take a worthlessly
low amount or a dangerously high amount of many chemicals: how do you know the
ultimate levels of bioavailable vitamin are useful? Studies in this area are
largely, at best, poor.

Which leads to the multivitamin itself -- they always promise several X the
"recommended daily consumption" but you have no idea what they do in
combination, where those recommendations came from (mostly pulled out of
someone's backside) and how much ends up usefully in your bloodstream. Not to
mention most are not produced under GMP and congress has explicitly removed
the FDA's oversight -- so you don't even know if you're getting what it says
on the bottle.

Now I do selectively take two supplements: D1 and EPA+DHA. I take them both in
an oil suspension (they are oils) and based on some research in German I've
read and discussed with my doctors and some specific family history (half of
which grew up at a much lower latitude, so I don't synthesize enough D in
California). But finding a dose that gave the response we were looking for in
my bloodstream was quite difficult and I take about 4X the US recommendation.
Even then the data on proper resulting D levels is quite poor.

~~~
teslabox
These are all good points about supplements vs. food.

> Now I do selectively take two supplements: D1 and EPA+DHA

niacinamide helps protect us from having excess amounts of the polyunsaturated
oils in circulation. These aren't so stable at human-temperature...

------
peller
Both broccoli and cabbage are "cruciferous vegatables".[0] Other ones you're
probably familiar with include Brussels sprouts and kale. It's a very healthy
family, and while I'm no nutritionist, I suspect the benefits are not limited
strictly to broccoli and cabbage.

[0]
[http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=btnews&dbid=126](http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=btnews&dbid=126)

