Doctors Weigh In on Where the NAD+ IV Trend Is Headed, What's in the Bag and Whether It's Worth It
When Hailey Bieber told cameras on a 2022 episode of “The Kardashians” that she was “going to NAD for the rest of my life”, the priciest item on most biohacking clinic menus picked up a new layer of celebrity wattage.
Three years later, a peer-reviewed systematic review published in early 2026 took a hard look at what the science actually supports, and the answer cuts directly against the marketing pitch.
NAD+ IV therapy is now sold at clinics like Restore Hyper Wellness and Next Health at prices ranging from a $79 promotional entry point to $1,000 a session. Here’s what’s in the bag, what the research says and how doctors are weighing the trend.
What Is NAD+ and What’s Actually in an NAD+ IV Drip
NAD+, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is a coenzyme present in every cell. It helps convert food into cellular energy and supports DNA repair, which is why anti-aging clinics have built such a robust pitch around it. The premise is straightforward, since NAD+ levels decline with age, topping them up should, in theory, help people feel and function younger.
In a clinic setting, NAD+ is mixed with saline and delivered intravenously over one to four hours. Some clinics offer intramuscular shots as a faster alternative. The slow infusion time is part of why the treatment is priced where it is, and part of why doctors have started raising flags about who’s administering it.
What the 2026 Systematic Review Found About NAD+ IV Therapy
A PRISMA-guided systematic review published in Ageing Research Reviews screened studies from 2010 through 2025 on NAD+ supplementation for anti-aging and wellness outcomes. The authors, Cory Gallagher and Owoturo Oluwaseun Emmanuel, identified 113 eligible studies, 33 of them in humans.
Here’s the finding that matters most for anyone considering an infusion. Among the human studies that met the review’s inclusion criteria, none tested IV or intramuscular NAD+ itself for anti-aging or wellness outcomes. One nonrandomized IV study qualified, but it tested NMN, a precursor molecule, not NAD+ itself, and it contributed only safety data.
Oral NAD+ precursors like NR and NMN had a stronger human evidence base in the same review, though functional outcomes were still mixed.
One caveat is worth noting. The lead review author disclosed a conflict of interest, an ownership stake in a management company serving an aesthetics clinic that doesn’t offer NAD+ infusions. And a lack of qualifying trials isn’t the same as evidence the treatment is unsafe, it’s a gap in the research, not proof of harm.
What Doctors Say About NAD+ IV Therapy
The medical skepticism isn’t subtle. Dr. Amanda Kahn, a board-certified internist and longevity medicine specialist, told TODAY, “I am not a proponent of IV therapy because I think you can get too much at once.” She also flagged added infection risk depending on who’s administering it, particularly at less regulated med spas.
Christopher Martens, an associate professor at the University of Delaware who co-led a 2018 human trial on oral NR supplements, struck a more cautious note in that same TODAY piece. His study found NR raised blood NAD+ levels in healthy adults, but he cautioned that a higher blood level doesn’t prove the increase is doing anything meaningful for the body. That gap between moving a biomarker and producing a real benefit applies to NAD+ research broadly, not just the IV route.
NAD+ IV vs Oral Supplements
One reason clinics push the IV route is that NAD+ is poorly absorbed as a standalone oral supplement. That’s the rationale for bypassing the gut entirely and delivering the molecule directly into the bloodstream.
Oral precursors are a different story. NR and NMN are designed to be absorbed and then converted into NAD+ inside the body, and they’re what most of the human research in the 2026 review actually tested.
There’s a regulatory wrinkle, though. The FDA had excluded NMN from the dietary supplement category back in 2022 over its prior investigation as a drug, but reversed that position in September 2025, confirming NMN can legally be sold as a supplement again. It still has to clear separate premarket notification requirements, so the regulatory picture isn’t fully settled
For anyone weighing IV against oral, the honest framing is that neither has bulletproof human evidence for anti-aging outcomes, but oral precursors have more published trials behind them, and they don’t carry the same infection risk or price tag.
NAD+ IV Therapy Cost and Cheaper Alternatives
Pricing varies widely by clinic, dose and provider. Restore Hyper Wellness offers a $79 promotional entry-point bundle. At Next Health, sessions run $500 to $1,000.
Cheaper options exist on the same menus. Standard IV drips at these clinics typically run $99 to $199. Cryotherapy sessions are around $50. None of those have stronger anti-aging evidence than NAD+, but they cost dramatically less if the goal is to try the clinic experience.
Is NAD+ IV Therapy Safe?
The 2026 review didn’t surface evidence that NAD+ IV therapy is dangerous in healthy adults, it surfaced a gap in qualifying human trials testing it for anti-aging outcomes at all. That’s an important distinction.
The safety concerns doctors are raising are more practical. Any IV line carries infection risk, and that risk goes up when the person inserting the line isn’t working in a tightly regulated medical setting. Kahn’s concern about “too much at once” speaks to the same issue, since IV delivery removes the body’s normal pacing mechanisms for absorbing a compound.
For anyone considering it, the questions worth asking before booking aren’t really about NAD+ at all. They’re about who’s running the IV, what their medical credentials are and what the clinic’s protocol is if something goes wrong mid-infusion.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
