Here’s where it gets interesting: Unlike the vast majority of vitamins and dietary supplements—including
resveratrol,
which has been touted as an anti-aging miracle drug by beauty companies
for years—the molecules in Basis have been demonstrated to be
bioavailable,
meaning they get into the body and do what they’re intended to,
including raising NAD+ levels. In the company’s first round of clinical
trials, Elysium conducted a double-blind study in which 120 participants
between the ages of 60-80 were divided into three groups. The first
group received the recommended daily dose of Basis (250 mg of
Nicotinamide Riboside and 50 mg of
Pterostilbene),
the second group received double the recommended daily dose, and the
third group received a placebo. After just four weeks, blood tests
revealed that the first group’s baseline levels of NAD+ had increased by
40 percent—and sustained that increase for the remainder of the
eight-week trial. Participants taking double-doses of Basis saw a 90
percent baseline increase, also sustained.
Elysium’s first product, Basis, was released in 2015. Elysium Health
While
Elysium is careful not to make claims about the health benefits of
Basis, the coenzyme NAD+ has, for years, been revered as “
the fountain of youth” among the
bio-hacker community—mostly
for its ability to improve metabolism, fight aging at the cellular
level, and reduce fatigue. Studies have also shown NAD+ is critical to
the circadian rhythm (i.e. a good night’s sleep). As
ScienceDaily reported on a Northwestern University study in 2013:
“Mitochondria regulate the supply of energy to cells when
we are at rest, with no glucose available from food. In a study of
mice, the researchers found that the circadian clock supplies the match
to light the furnace and on the match tip is a critical compound called
NAD+. It combines with an enzyme in mitochondria called Sirtuin 3, which
acts as the flint, to light the furnace. When the clock in an animal
isn’t working, the animal can’t metabolize stored energy and the process
doesn’t ignite…The results demonstrate that the circadian clock, a
genetic timekeeper that evolved to enable organisms to track the daily
transition from light to darkness early in evolution, generates
oscillations in mitochondrial energy capacity through rhythmic
regulation of NAD+ biosynthesis.”
NAD+ also plays a role in cellular regeneration, which Jim
Manzi, an investor in the company, is quick to substantiate. Reviewing
even an abbreviated version of Manzi’s resume is enough to exhaust a
normal human being: As CEO of Lotus, Manzi grew the company from 10 to
4,000 employees before selling to
IBM for $3.5 billion, then he joined
McKinsey, invested in
FreshDirect
(among many, many other ventures) and currently serves as chairman of
Thermo Fisher, home to 57,000 employees worldwide. Earlier this week at
Blue Hill at Stone Barns,
Manzi flashed the last thing you’d want to see at the start of a
six-course lunch: a photo of his bloodied, swollen, badly-bruised face.
Battle wounds from flying head-first over his handlebars while biking
this summer in Denmark.
“I avoided longterm damage to my teeth and
jaw but did need 10 stitches,” he explained. Less than two weeks later,
at a friend’s daughter’s wedding in Rome, his cuts had almost
completely healed. “All of the contusions were largely repaired, apart
from the noticeably different color from the new skin that had grown
back. I was amazed, as were all of my friends at the wedding who had
seen the crash photos. My wife could not believe the speed of recovery.”
Manzi’s wife, Kay Calvert, is a tech executive in her own right, and
credits Basis with preventing even the slightest hint of sunburn on
recent trip to St Bart’s (in a 2009 study, NAD+ was shown to
reduce sensitivity to photodamage). Both Manzi and Calvert take four Basis capsules each day—double the recommended dose.
As
TechCrunch reported
last December, Elysium received $20 million in Series B financing,
following a $157 million valuation. According to the company’s career
page, Elysium plans to quadruple in size, growing “from 25 to 100+
employees over the next 24 months.”
