Should I take NAD+ supplements or IV NAD+?

NAD+ precursor supplementation (NMN, NR) raises blood NAD+. Whether that translates to any health outcome in humans is unproven. IV NAD+ is a clinic-marketing phenomenon with no human RCT evidence for the claimed benefits.

Our read is Not Supported for the longevity claim as marketed. The biochemistry is real — you can move the NAD+ number — but a moved biomarker is not a health outcome, and the human trials that would close that gap do not exist. Oral NMN/NR is a low-stakes "watch and wait" at best; IV NAD+ is the part we actively flag, since it adds infection and cost risk on top of a benefit that has never been demonstrated in a controlled trial. Spending around $140/month here is buying surrogate-marker movement, not proven healthspan.

No single audit yet. Cross-checked Sinclair lab claims against recent NR human trials, FDA correspondence on NMN, and the more skeptical reads from Kaeberlein, Attia, and Patrick.

• 01Blood NAD+ rises with NMN/NR supplementation — the one claim that consistently holds.
• 02No human outcome trial demonstrates benefit at the doses commercially sold.
• 03IV NAD+: zero supportive human RCTs, plus the added risks of an infusion.
• 04Surrogate-to-outcome gap: raising a metabolite is not the same as changing how someone ages.

NPR critiqued the NAD+ marketing in May 2026; multiple academic voices have publicly distanced from the most aggressive claims. Oral precursors are generally well tolerated; the IV route carries infection and sterility risk that the marketing rarely foregrounds.