Reprogramming NAD+ homeostasis and FOXO3a-Nrf2 signaling mitigates bleomycin-driven pulmonary fibrosis
- Design
- Animal study · Biomarker outcome
- Match to healthy normal-weight adults aged 55–75
- Not human evidence[Auto] Non-human (animal or cellular) evidence; no direct inference to any human population.
- Could weight loss explain it?
- Unknown[Auto] Non-human study; weight-loss mediation not assessable.
- Study tier
- Study tier 4[Auto] Preclinical evidence; not clinical evidence for any human population.
- Assessment
- Version 1 · automatic, not yet reviewed by a person · Sep 20, 2026
Study facts come from the paper. Population match, weight-loss explanation and study tier are our judgments, made against the reference group of healthy normal-weight adults aged 55–75.
[Auto, unreviewed; last sentences of abstract] These findings indicate that NA-driven NAD+ metabolic support can amplify the protective profile of SEMA in experimental pulmonary fibrosis. Dose-response matrices, pathway-inhibition studies, temporal profiling, and lung-function testing remain required to establish definitive synergy, mechanism, and translational relevance.
01Findings
What the study reported
- Drugs
- Semaglutide
- Comparator
- SEMA alone
- Primary outcome
- Not extracted
- Effect
- Not extracted
- 95% confidence interval
- Not extracted
- Follow-up
- Not stated
- Adverse events
- Not extracted
- Limitations
- Auto-classified from abstract only; effect estimates, adverse events and limitations not extracted. Requires manual review.
Who was studied
Study quality details
- Study design
- Preclinical (animal)
- Sample size
- not extracted
- Randomization
- no
- Blinding
- not stated
- Comparator
- not stated
- Follow up duration
- not stated
- Outcome type
- biomarker
- Replication
- not assessed (auto)
- Consistency with other evidence
- not assessed (auto)
- Population applicability
- VERY_INDIRECT
- Statistical precision
- not extracted
- Risk of bias
- not assessed (auto)
- Funding conflicts
- unclear
- Peer review status
- yes
02Funding
Funding and conflicts
- Funding
- not reported in abstract
- Industry funded
- Unclear
- Manufacturer
- None identified
- Sponsor role
- not reported in abstract
- Author conflicts
- Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
- Independent replication
- unknown
Funding is shown on every study and never used to score it.
04Source
The source, as retrieved
Abstract
Pulmonary fibrosis arises from intertwined oxidative, inflammatory, and profibrotic processes, whereas current therapies target only parts of this network. Here, we evaluated an adjunctive strategy in which nicotinic acid (NA), a NAD+-supporting supplement/adjuvant, was added to semaglutide (SEMA), a GLP-1 receptor agonist. The prespecified objective was to determine whether adding NA to SEMA provides greater protection than SEMA alone in bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis. Rats were challenged with BLM and treated with SEMA, NA, or SEMA+NA for 21 days. Biochemical, molecular, histological, and western blot endpoints were assessed, and the fixed-dose Highest Single Agent (HSA) and Bliss independence models were used as exploratory interaction metrics. BLM induced oxidative stress, inflammatory cytokine elevation, NAD+ and SIRT1 depletion, FOXO3a suppression, TGF-β/SMAD activation, and collagen deposition. Compared with SEMA alone, SEMA+NA produced broader protection, restoring NAD+/SIRT1-FOXO3a-Nrf2 pathway-associated readouts and suppressing NF-κB/TGF-β-linked inflammatory and fibrotic markers. Exploratory HSA and Bliss analyses suggested enhanced fixed-dose effects across several endpoints but were interpreted descriptively, not as definitive pharmacological synergy. These findings indicate that NA-driven NAD+ metabolic support can amplify the protective profile of SEMA in experimental pulmonary fibrosis. Dose-response matrices, pathway-inhibition studies, temporal profiling, and lung-function testing remain required to establish definitive synergy, mechanism, and translational relevance.