NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) is one of the most popular and promising longevity ingredients available to purchase today. 100,000s of people worldwide use NMN from DoNotAge and other sources every day for its anti-ageing, energising effects.
Unfortunately, this popularity brings with it a risk to consumers. As with all popular things, there are unsavoury actors trying to make a quick profit with low-quality or fake NMN.
In a 2021 review of the most popular NMN products available on Amazon, researchers found that just 14% of the products tested contained as much NMN as they claimed. A further 14% contained no NMN at all!
In this guide, we’ll help you identify red flags that may indicate fake NMN, and give you ways to verify that the NMN you’re buying is high quality.
Simply put, NMN is too popular for fake versions not to exist!
As the popularity of NMN has surged since 2020, so too have instances of people trying to capitalise with fake versions of the ingredient.
You see this with any high-demand, premium product, from concert tickets to jewelry to designer clothes.
The loose regulations in online marketplaces and advertising platforms like Facebook make fake NMN particularly easy for scammers to sell.
The fact that NMN, and the supplement industry in general, is outside of many peoples’ expertise makes it even easier. While it’s fairly straightforward to check the label and stitching of a suspected fake designer shirt, not many people feel comfortable checking the certificate of analysis for a longevity ingredient!
All this combines to create a big problem for customers looking for real NMN.
If you see one or more of these flags on an ‘NMN’ product you’re thinking of buying, consider looking elsewhere!
NMN is a premium product. It’s expensive to source high quality, tested NMN. It’s even more expensive for a company to then test each batch for purity themselves (which any reputable company will be doing).
This means that if you see ‘NMN’ that costs less than half of what most companies are selling it for, it likely contains very little or no NMN.
Companies cut costs by diluting the NMN content in their product, or by using a different ingredient entirely. Either of these methods amount to the product doing absolutely nothing for your NAD+ levels!
So, if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If a company is spending all their money on influencers and adverts telling you about their miracle product, they probably aren’t spending much on sourcing or quality control.
Things like instant benefits claimed, heavy discounting structures, and spammy ads all suggest that the company is more interested in quickly separating you from your money than providing a quality NMN ingredient.
Almost all NMN brands will claim to have verified purity. Some will even product a Certificate of Analysis (CoA) to reassure you. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean as much as it should.
Brands can fake testing and doctor COAs or use out of date ones.
Ensure that any claims about purity can be backed up by documentation that’s in date, thorough, and references the company in question.
We’ll talk more about what information should be on a thorough COA in the next paragraph.
An NMN supplement should include 1 ingredient; NMN.
If the brand’s ingredient list is much longer than that, you should be concerned.
Some companies sell NMN blended with complementary ingredients such as TMG or Resveratrol. There’s not necessarily a problem with this, as long as the ingredient contains a full dose of NMN (at least 1g!).
If you can’t see what ingredients are in an ‘NMN’ product, or how much of each ingredient there is, don’t buy it.
Now you know how to spot bad NMN, here’s what you should be looking for to separate the best NMN from the rest.
A CoA from a trustworthy supplier of NMN will include more information than just the purity of the NMN.
You should also look out for the presence of heavy metals, normally arsenic, mercury, lead, and cadmium. Any amount of these metals is harmful to humans, so there shouldn’t be any in a supplement you’re meant to consume every day.
Check that the pH level is between 2.0-4.0. Anything outside this range suggests it isn’t just NMN in the product.
Finally, ensure that the CoA is dated to within the last calendar year. If the certificate is older than that, it likely relates to a batch of NMN that sold out long ago. Responsible brands will test every batch they sell.
If you have interacted with DoNotAge’s customer support before, you will know that all enquiries are dealt with and responded to by real human beings. You can find out their names and even talk to them on the phone if you like!
You will also know our founder and clinical research advisor, Alan, who is currently creating a series of explainer videos on the latest longevity research for our social media (watch them here).
The point of mentioning this is that having a human presence on the other end of a customer service question means that we have to be accountable for the ingredients we sell. If you’re ever unsure about one of our products, you can reach out and receive an answer from someone in the team. If brands make it difficult for you to get in touch with them, they might not have any answers for you!
If you’re still not sure you can trust a brand’s NMN, just ask. While every brand will have its detractors, a quality brand will have far more positive feedback than negative.
Read reviews, watch experts on YouTube, and talk to health professionals.
If you think this is a lot of work to go through just to find a quality source of NMN, you’re right.
Unfortunately, the presence of bad actors in the industry means it’s much more difficult to find good NMN than it should be.
However, it’s absolutely worth it. NMN has changed the lives of many people, and has the potential to change yours. So taking that extra bit of time to ensure you’re actually getting the NMN you want could be the difference between throwing away $100s and adding years to your life!
If you’re looking for a trustworthy source of NMN, DoNotAge is for you. Our NMN is independently verified at 99% pure, with the latest CoA available on our website. As well as being used by 100,000s of our customers worldwide, DoNotAge NMN is also used in clinical research to further the study of human longevity.
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As with any question related to health and wellbeing, there is a lot of conflicting information out there on the correct dosage of NMN people you should take for the best results.
The dosage of NMN someone
One of the most common questions we get from our community is ‘when is the best time to take Pure NMN?’
As a rule, we recommend that people take NMN in the morning or early afternoon in order to align
