Board-certified in family medicine, regenerative and functional medicine, and obesity medicine, Dr. Krishna Doniparthi has been practicing pain management since 2014. He is a member of American Academy of Pain Management (AAPM), American Academy of Pain Medicine, Georgia Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (GSIPP). He trained in intravenous NAD administration with Dr. Richard Mestayer and BR+MD Consultants and is a member of the NAD Research Advisory Board and the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). He is also the founder of Doniparthi Neurogen Academy, where he serves as the primary educator on phospholipids and NAD. Separately, he is a certified Medical Review Officer (MRO) for urine drug testing.
His expertise in using biological substrates, such as phospholipids, NAD+, and other essential compounds like vitamins and minerals, to support cellular health and detoxification aligns with functional medicine principles, which seek to address the root causes of health issues. He spoke with us via Zoom.
NAD Research: How did you become interested in combining phospholipids and intravenous NAD?
Dr. Doniparthi: My background is in family medicine, to which I began incorporating different types of alternative medicine early on. After I completed my residency, one of the first things I did was learn more about nutrition, which I applied to obesity medicine. A lot of people got better when they lost weight and reduced their inflammation. That led me into functional medicine, which is about addressing the root cause of an ailment, not merely treating the symptoms. But even functional medicine has its limitations. That’s when I learned, back in 2011 or so, about phospholipids. Phospholipids gave me the missing link of understanding how cells actually work. Since that time, I’ve applied that understanding to a variety of conditions, and it’s proven very beneficial.
NAD Research: How did you determine that phospholipids were the missing link in understanding how cells work?
Dr. Doniparthi: Phospholipids provide the framework, the structure, of a cell. Let me use the analogy of a house to explain. Say that you want to create a home for yourself. You can’t just buy furniture, artwork, windows and doors, and nice, fancy appliances. You need a structure first, a house. Phospholipids provide the house. They make up the walls in which the cells can function. Doors in the walls of the cell enable nutrients to enter and toxins to exit.
I had already been working with phospholipids and fatty acids before I started incorporating NAD. I realized that infusing patients with phospholipids before infusing them with nutrients would increase the efficacy of the treatment. So if I want NAD to work better, I want NAD to enter the cell, reach its intended target, which would be the mitochondria and also the DNA, particularly of brain cells. And when I put the two together—phospholipids and NAD—they were, indeed, very synergistic.
NAD Research: What did physicians think the cell was made up of before they realized there was a membrane made of phospholipids?
Dr. Doniparthi: That’s an interesting question. We all learn in medical school about phospholipids and fatty acids. Fatty acids, by the way, are the building blocks, which get modified into phospholipids, which are the molecules that actually make the cell membrane and all the inner structures of the cell. So, it’s not that other practitioners don’t know about phospholipids. It’s just that they have either forgotten about what phospholipids do, or really it was not emphasized enough in training during medical school, or even in residency training.
NAD Research: What is your understanding of how phospholipids help NAD enter the cell?
Dr. Doniparthi: Yes. So, as I said, NAD functions in both the mitochondria and the DNA of the cell. NAD can get to where it needs to go on its own, but what phospholipids do is enhance the effect. So, for instance, infusing 1000 mg of phospholipids prior to infusing NAD will greatly increase the NAD’s effectiveness because of the permeability of the cell. The phospholipids guide the NAD into the cell and mitochondria, enabling it to function better. Researcher Garth Nicholson, one of the pioneers of lipid replacement therapy, has postulated that mitochondrial function decline is the underlying problem in many chronic diseases and that damage to the inner membrane of the mitochondria is the most common cause of this damage.
NAD Research: Have you been able to measure the NAD intracellularly, or do you just judge by the effects?
Dr. Doniparthi: I use a laboratory in Germany that is able to measure three levels of NAD: in the blood/serum, in the red blood cell itself; and in the white blood cells. I’ve taken before and after measurements for two reasons. One is academic: “Is the person low on NAD, yes or no?” And then after the infusion, you measure to see, “Did the levels change?” So yes, the results can be measured.
NAD Research: That’s excellent. Has any of your data been published?
Dr. Doniparthi: It has not. However, there is good data on the effects of phospholipids and fatty acids that show how it can re-engineer or regenerate a cell so that it operates better. And that is the work of Dr. Garth Nicholson, mentioned above, who has done a lot of this work about how phospholipids enhance cellular function.
NAD Research: Thank you. Can you describe for us your treatment protocol? And the conditions for which you find it beneficial?
Dr. Doniparthi: When I first started using NAD, it was strictly for addiction detox—the protocols I learned from Dr. Richard Mestayer and BR+MD Consultants. As time went on, I found that the German laboratory I was using was testing NAD levels. And I thought, “It would be interesting to see how NAD helps other people, say, with mitochondrial disorders or Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, as well as conditions caused by other environmental insults, autism, and so on.” So I was able to measure NAD in a variety of different patients of all ages. And I found that when NAD levels were low, NAD infusions were beneficial, so I incorporated them into my treatments. But NAD is just part of the puzzle, at least as far as non-addiction cases are concerned. It has proven beneficial, even if it is only one of the missing components. The fact that I can actually measure NAD levels and predict how much a patient will need to change the course of their cellular function has been very helpful.
NAD Research: That’s great. That needs to be published.
Dr. Doniparthi: I agree. I just need money to fund data collection on more patients. The testing is not super expensive, but it’s not cheap either. It’s somewhere around $500 to test all three levels of NAD just for one test for one patient.
NAD Research: I understand. Can you tell us more about the protocols you use for the various conditions you treat?
Dr. Doniparthi: When I first trained with Dr. Mestayer, he of course advised us on how many milligrams of NAD for a detox patient. For instance, the first two days of treatment might be 1,500 milligrams of NAD. One of the challenges of getting NAD into the cell, however, is that the infusion can cause a histamine response or an adenosine-release response that can cause nasal and chest congestion, and so on. When that happens you have to slow down the rate of infusion. However, when I infuse phospholipids prior to NAD, I can increase the rate of NAD infusion without the patient feeling the effects of that adenosine response. That means I can reduce the infusion time and still give the patient the same amount of NAD. I’ve also found that I can reduce the number of milligrams—say, from 1,000 mg to 500 mg—and still get the same effect. So combining the two therapies has a multiplier effect where less NAD provides just as much benefit as the usual amount that other practitioners are using.
NAD Research: That sounds like something that all of our BR-plus Fellows would want to know.
Dr. Doniparthi: Right. However, it does require a bit of training to understand effective use of the phospholipids, because they perform various roles in the cell. For example, they can remove foreign materials from the cell, which is fine if the foreign material is a toxin. If it’s a prescribed medicine, however, you wouldn’t want to remove it, or you’d want to compensate for its removal. You might want to be careful infusing phospholipids in a patient taking blood pressure medication, for example. On the other hand, phospholipid infusion can enhance the effect of nutrients like NAD, or hormone replacement therapy, or other supplements. On a protocol level, I might infuse anywhere from 1,000 milligrams to as much as 2,500 milligrams of phospholipids. After that infusion, I’d start the NAD infusion.
NAD Research: Are there certain phospholipids that you rely on and as opposed to others?
Dr. Doniparthi: The human body and its cells are composed of four kinds of phospholipids: phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylinositol, and phosphatidylethanolamine, or PC, PS, PI, and PE. The one that is most abundant in most cells is PC, phosphatidylcholine. That’s the one I infuse. It must be pharmaceutical grade. Otherwise, phosphatidylcholine is a very generic label and your results will not be the same. This is true of the NAD we infuse, as well.
NAD Research: Understood. Do you have a specific list of conditions that you would immediately consider for this treatment, or would almost any condition potentially benefit from it? Especially since almost all of us are low in NAD once we’re past our 20s.
Dr. Doniparthi: You’re asking what medical conditions would I recommend this treatment for? Any condition in which there is cellular breakdown or deficiency. Virtually any condition would improve as a result of infused phospholipids. No matter what has caused damage to the structure of the cell, phospholipids are the structural repair components. So any condition: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative conditions, addiction, vaccine injury, environmental toxicity, autism, all would benefit from phospholipids because they’re the common building block of all cells. Any good thing that needs to get in or any bad thing that needs to get out, is facilitated by the phospholipids that create the cell structure.
NAD Research: Great. We can obviously take phospholipids orally. Have you noticed a difference in infusing them?
Dr. Doniparthi: Yes. Just as with NAD, you can infuse phospholipids, or take them orally; however, the results will be different. Oral is great because it’s quick and more convenient than an infusion. But, just as with NAD, an infusion of phospholipids will have a more immediate and dramatic effect at the cellular level. And particularly when you want to follow the phospholipid infusion with an NAD infusion, you want the response from the phospholipids to be quick to prepare the cells for the NAD. You can also use intravenous phospholipids prior to, say, infusion of nutrients like a Myer’s cocktail, or high-dose vitamin C, or glutathione.
NAD Research: Right. So if you’re going to infuse anything, you might as well infuse phospholipids first.
Dr. Doniparthi: Correct. For instance, I have a physician colleague in Germany, an oncologist. He uses phospholipids prior to giving chemotherapeutic drugs. He’s noticed that he doesn’t have to give the full dose of the chemotherapeutic drug; he can use one-third or one-fourth the amount, and still create that chemotherapeutic effect for cancer treatment. That’s beneficial for the patient because that reduces the side effects—the nausea, vomiting, and so on—they might also get from the drug.
NAD Research: That sounds great—and seems like something that should be more widely known. I understand that your organization, Doniparthi Neurogenic Academy, is affiliated with the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs. What is your academy’s role and how did you choose to work with this population?
Dr. Doniparthi: I founded Doniparthi Neurogenic Academy (DNAdr.org) to inform other physicians about how to incorporate phospholipids and Lipid Replacement Therapy (LRT) into their treatment of all kinds of medical conditions. I perform a similar role as an adjunct faculty for the Medical Academy of Pediatrics for Special Needs, which serves the pediatric population with conditions such as autism.
Autism has a lot to do with cellular toxicology. One of the topics I’m interested in is what’s called generational toxicology, which has to do with toxins that are passed from generation to generation, as well as environmental influences, whether that’s nutrition, environmental chemicals, vaccines, the mother’s health during pregnancy, and so on. One of the factors contributing to autism is autoimmunity, where the body suddenly starts to attack the brain cells. This is very crucial for kids when they’re first growing and developing their brain. And when they get exposed to, say, an adjuvant like aluminum—although it doesn’t have to be just aluminum—that’s found in vaccines, that can create a neurotoxic effect. That neurotoxic effect starts to destroy nerve cells in the brain and does not allow them to communicate. This affects the phospholipids of those cells, and one of the functions of phospholipids is that they allow for cells to talk to another cell, or what we call cell signaling. Cell signaling is very crucial to brain functioning because you need multiple connections at any given time to execute motor skills, verbal skills, or other kinds of skills. Autism can also be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction in the brain. The same European lab that tests NAD levels for me offers specialized testing to see what’s going on with the mitochondria, the DNA, cell structure, and other factors that may be contributing to disease, whether it’s autism or something else.
One of the newer conditions I’ve been able to use lipid replacement therapy for, both oral and IV, is long COVID. Long COVID is a very cellular issue, where the COVID virus or vaccine has pretty much hijacked the DNA and the inner workings of the cell. Phospholipids can be very instrumental in getting rid of the spike protein.
NAD Research: I believe many of our readers would be interested in the lipid replacement therapy training you offer. Will you tell us more about it, please?
Dr. Doniparthi: It’s a three-part series that includes an online, self-paced course designed to provide a foundational understanding about fatty acids and phospholipids. Participants work through the material that includes knowledge check quizzes at the end of each module. The second part is an in-person workshop for practitioners where we introduce the specialized testing, how to interpret the results, how to administer the infusions, and how to incorporate them into treatment plans. In part three, practitioners return home and begin to incorporate lipid replacement therapy in their treatment plans, but are free to consult with me regarding patient cases. People who are interested can find more information at www.dnadr.org. At the conclusion of the course, participants are listed on our website as a certified practitioner in PRT or phospholipid replacement therapy, which would help physicians and patients find each other.
NAD Research: Wonderful. Publicizing that list sounds like something that would benefit both practitioners and the public. One final question: you mentioned that your therapy relies on pharmaceutical grade phosphatidylcholine, or PC. Can you recommend a source for that?
Dr. Doniparthi: Yes. A company in Europe, Sanofi, makes a product called Essentiale, which is a pharmaceutical grade phospholipid. That’s the only one that I would recommend to use for an IV infusion.