Let me ask you something: what is the point of a thread that discusses personal experiences with NR or any other supplement? To share experiences, right? To learn from each other's observations, right?
If so, may I propose to you that it is self-defeating to deride, argue, and shoot down this very self-reporting? Maybe the stated results are placebo, maybe they're another factor, maybe an atypical biochemistry, maybe something else, or combinations thereof -- but by its VERY NATURE, N=1 experiments can't be tested objectively. All bodies are unique biosystems. We can't clone ourselves (at least not yet) to have a control body and try the experiment again. We can't do a double-blind accounting for variables across a statistically significant population if there is only one of us.
N=1 testing is highly subjective, by its very nature. Even blood tests and hair tests (and I've had plenty) can miss the mark on many substances, because they only report what's in the blood or hair at that time, and often can't represent what the body is doing with the rest. Pictures and measuring hair growth is fine, but even then, someone else can argue that your data analysis isn't objective, that you aren't a proper scientist, and where did you get your credentials, and now we're all off to war again.
Look, subjective reporting is pretty much the best any of us N=1 practitioners have.
So consider, if what you REALLY want is find out about others' experiences, then, when you tell people "no, you aren't experiencing what you think you are, you are JUST WRONG because it doesn't match MY experience, and what I already (believe I) know," well. This seems counter-productive and self-defeating, if what you really want is more information.
Look, *think* whatever you like. They are fanatics, they are insane, it's placebo, they don't know any science, they are morons -- trust me, I think those things, too.
But you know what I do when I want to know more about something? I read. I listen. I absorb what's being suggested and reported. Only THEN do I decide if it applies to me or not. And not applying to me doesn't mean it doesn't apply to someone else.
Heck, even crazy people know things! Almost everyone here at longecity has some perspective that I don't have, and perspective is why I came here to this topic in the first place.
No, I haven't been here long, and maybe this is just the way things get done around here, all this arguing and insulting and snapping at each other -- though I have to say it seems a waste of time to me -- but this is by no means my first rodeo, not my first time on a forum where people are discussing experiences, and questioning what others say.
And that's fine, to question and challenge, if you're talking about research and studies and science. But on THIS forum, called "personal experiences", why not actually focus on people's PERSONAL EXPERIENCES, without arguing that they aren't actually experiencing them?
I myself am now far less likely to report my experiences than I was when I showed up. I don't think I'm the only one.
And that's too bad. Because I, for one, would *much* rather read here about what people are experiencing, than to read a ton of objections thrown at these people who, I want to point out, are taking a risk in putting up personal information, to say something that might be useful to someone else.
Can we please let people share their personal experiences here, and maybe keep the fighting and insults in some other topic?