NAD+ captures high-energy electrons from food and converts them to NADH, which passes electrons along the electron transfer chain to drive ATP synthesis.

“So NAD+ captures high energy electrons from our food protein, fat and carbohydrate and it collects those high energy electrons as a hydide group. That's a proton with two high energy electrons forming NADH. you're being very patient that because you you learned this in first year of college, right? Um but um NAD+ collects the high energy electrons from food. It's now NADH and then it passes on those electrons along things like the electron transfer chain. And every time the high energy electrons get passed on to a lower energy carrier, right? Because things flow downhill, water flows downhill, right? You don't see waterfalls that go up. You only see waterfalls that go down. So when electrons get passed to carriers at a lower energy state, work can be done, right? So we can do things like we can pump protons across membranes and you can use the return of those protons to drive ATP synthesis.”