The Pill of Immortality

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By Jair Martinez

Nowadays there are pills to cure all types of diseases, whether it’s to get rid of your cold, or to prevent severe infection from getting your leg blown off at war. Thanks to pills, humans have been able to live much longer lives than before, although if not used responsibly, pills can be deadly. But it could very well be that death itself might become something of the past due to a compound called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+ for short.

Anti-aging products, from skin creams to chemical peels, are part of a $250 billion industry, but those are just temporary solutions to wrinkles and other issues that people suffer from as they reach old age. Unlike NAD+, which can be a permanent solution to prevent your body from ageing. Sounds a little too Sci-fi doesn’t it? Well in this age of technological and medical advancements, anything is possible.

“NAD+ is the closest we’ve gotten to a fountain of youth,” says David Sinclair, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. Sinclair plans to take his NAD+ research through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process and eventually create a pill that could be prescribed by a doctor or purchased over the counter. Although, Sinclair already has some competition. A company known as Elysium is already selling a supplement called Basis that contains compounds known to boost NAD+ levels. Although, this won’t be much of an obstacle for Sinclair if his product proves to be as effective as he hopes it to be.

This pill would most likely run other companies out of business, at least the ones that have to do with skin care or “Anti-aging” products. Well, that would also rely on how popular it would be amongst the public.

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t take the pill. I wouldn’t mind looking young in my late 50’s or 60’s,” commented Marcos Chino, a student here at Tustin High School. For the most part, it would seem that people would think that way about the pill, but others might be more cautious.

“I don’t know, actually. I see what the pill would try to accomplish, but if the side effects include something not worth the pill, like a certain disease or disorder, I probably wouldn’t take the pill,” explained Jorge Ramirez, a senior at Tustin High School.

The hope is that Elysium’s and Sinclair’s research may finally reveal whether NAD+ is the health-extending compound. If so, it would only be a matter of time before some sort of pill or other product is produced out of NAD+ which would hopefully improve the health and life span of human beings.

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