NAD+: From Lab to Lifestyle, Mapping the Rise of a Longevity Molecule

In one sentence: NAD+ is backed by a large and still-growing body of science, with peer-reviewed output reaching a record 2,530 papers in 2025 and 748 studies registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, yet UK public interest only caught up in the last three years, so the marketing of NAD+ supplements has raced ahead of what human trials have actually proven.

NAD+ has travelled a remarkable distance, from a niche question in a 1900s fermentation laboratory to a word on wellness menus, IV clinics and pharmacy shelves across Britain. This study quantifies that journey using real data: how many research papers appear each year, how many clinical studies are registered, and the milestones that turned a molecule into a movement.

We then set that research curve next to the British public's curiosity, using UK Google Trends. The aim is simple, to give you the cleanest and most honest picture of whether NAD+ is genuinely backed by science, and how fast that science is really growing.

Is NAD+ backed by science, and how fast is research growing?

NAD+ is backed by a very large and still-growing body of research, which is exactly why it dominates longevity conversations. Peer-reviewed output reached a record 2,530 papers in 2025, up about 76% from 2010 and roughly two and a half times the level seen in 2000, based on annual PubMed publication counts for NAD+.¹

The climb is long and consistent rather than a sudden fad. Output first passed 2,000 papers a year in 2019 and has stayed above that mark every year since, with a clear step up around 2013, the year NAD+ became a longevity headline.¹

The growth is exponential in the parts of the field closest to ageing. A 2025 bibliometric analysis of CD38, a key enzyme that consumes NAD+ and drives its decline with age, found 2,070 papers between 2004 and 2025 and a strong fit to an exponential growth curve (R-squared 0.96), rising from about 39 papers a year before 2009 to a peak of 211 in 2024.⁴

"When people ask me whether NAD+ is real science or just a wellness trend, this is the data I point to. A field producing more than two thousand peer-reviewed papers a year, every year for the past six years, is unquestionably serious. The honest caveat is that most of that work is in cells and animals."

Yusra Serdaroglu Aydin, MSc RD, Head of Nutrition at Vivere

What is NAD+, and why does it matter for ageing?

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a coenzyme found in every living cell that is essential for turning food into usable energy. It also acts as a co-substrate for repair enzymes called sirtuins and the DNA-repair enzyme PARP, which is why it sits at the heart of research into healthy ageing, as a 2021 review in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology explains.¹⁴

The reason it draws so much attention is that cellular NAD+ tends to fall as we age. The theory being tested is that topping it up, using precursors such as nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), might support the processes that keep cells working well.¹²

Your body already makes NAD+ from the vitamin B3 family in your diet. The NHS notes that niacin (vitamin B3) helps the body release energy from food, which is the everyday, well-established version of the same biochemistry.¹⁵

How did NAD+ research develop, from lab to lifestyle?

NAD+ moved from the laboratory to the lifestyle aisle across four distinct eras, spanning more than a century. It was discovered in 1906, its biochemistry was mapped mid-century, its link to ageing was uncovered in 2000, and only in the last decade has it reached human trials and consumer shelves.

The annotated timeline below marks the milestones that matter most, and Table 2 sets them out with sources.

Era 1: Discovery (1906 to 1937)

1. 1906. Arthur Harden and William John Young discover a small molecule that speeds up fermentation in yeast, which they call "cozymase". It is later identified as NAD+.⁶

2. 1929. Harden and Hans von Euler-Chelpin are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on fermentation and its enzymes, cementing NAD+ as a foundational molecule of life.⁶

3. 1937. Conrad Elvehjem identifies niacin (vitamin B3), a building block of NAD+, as the anti-pellegra factor, linking the molecule directly to human health.⁷

Era 2: The ageing link (2000 to 2004)

1. 2000. Shin-ichiro Imai, Leonard Guarente and colleagues show that the sirtuin SIR2, a gene tied to longevity, only works when NAD+ is present. This connects NAD+ to the biology of ageing for the first time.⁸

2. 2004. Pawel Bieganowski and Charles Brenner discover that nicotinamide riboside (NR) is a natural vitamin precursor the body can turn into NAD+, opening the door to supplementation.⁹

Era 3: The breakthrough (2013)

1. 2013. A Harvard team led by Ana Gomes and David Sinclair reports in Cell that falling NAD+ disrupts communication between the cell nucleus and its mitochondria in ageing mice, and that raising NAD+ reverses some of those changes. NAD+ publications step up noticeably the same year.¹⁰

Era 4: From lab to lifestyle (2016 to today)

1. 2016. The first human trial to show that an oral NAD+ precursor actually raises NAD+ in people is published, as nicotinamide riboside proves orally bioavailable in humans.¹¹

2. 2020 to 2022. Registered trials and publications reach record levels, and the "longevity supplement" category takes off commercially, with the global NMN market valued at about 253 million US dollars in 2020.⁵

3. 2025. Major reviews take stock and reach a consistent verdict: precursors reliably raise NAD+ levels, but clear functional benefits in healthy people remain unproven.¹²

"In science, nothing is built overnight. The work that helped establish NAD+ was part of the research recognised by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1929, and it then took more than seventy years for scientists to connect NAD+ to ageing. It is a good reminder that today’s wellness trends are built on a century of patient, rigorous laboratory work."

Yusra Serdaroglu Aydin, MSc RD

How many clinical trials of NAD+ are there?

There are 748 studies involving NAD+ and its precursors registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a substantial but young evidence base. Of these, 619 are interventional trials, 129 are observational, and 390 have been completed, with a further 108 recruiting and 45 not yet recruiting.²

Most of this activity is recent. Grouping the studies by their registration number, a proxy for when they were registered, roughly 7 in 10 (about 516 of 748) date from 2016 onward, the year the first human precursor trial was published.²¹¹

Snapshot of the ClinicalTrials.gov registry for a NAD+ search. Registration era is approximated from the study registration number, because the export did not carry explicit dates.²

What have the human trials actually shown?

Human trials have shown two things consistently: NAD+ precursors are generally well tolerated, and they do raise NAD+ levels in the blood. What they have not yet shown reliably is a clear, meaningful improvement in how healthy people feel or function.¹²

A 2025 review in Nature Metabolism puts it plainly, noting that although preclinical studies are promising, human trials have shown limited efficacy, and that data on NAD+ in human tissues remains sparse.¹² A separate 2025 clinical evidence review narrowed to around two dozen randomised trials in the healthy-ageing space and reached the same conclusion, that biochemical changes have not yet translated into consistent, clinically meaningful gains.¹³

"Hundreds of studies are investigating the effects of increasing NAD+ in specific conditions. While studies show that some NAD+ precursors can increase blood NAD+ levels and have generally reported good short-term tolerability, these findings should not be interpreted as real-life outcomes such as reversing ageing or living longer. Current human studies have not proven that step yet."

Yusra Serdaroglu Aydin, MSc RD

How does the research curve compare with the public's interest in NAD+?

The British public caught up with the science roughly a decade late, which is the heart of the "lab to lifestyle" story. NAD+ research had already passed 2,000 papers a year by 2019, but UK searches for NAD+ supplements only took off from 2023, then climbed steeply.¹³

That public interest is strikingly commercial and hands-on. In our UK search data, "NAD supplement" has grown around tenfold since 2022, "NAD plus" (how many people write NAD+) around thirtyfold, and "NAD injection" more than fivefold in just two years.³ Top related searches include "nmn", "best nad supplement", "nad plus injection", "nad drip" and "tru niagen".

Growth compares annual averages of relative search interest. The bare term "NAD" is not shown here because it is heavily mixed with the hi-fi brand NAD and other meanings; we relied on the specific supplement and injection phrases instead.³

The money has followed curiosity. A Nature feature reports that the global NMN market was valued at about 253 million US dollars in 2020 and is projected to reach roughly 386 million by 2027.⁵

What does the science mean for people considering NAD+ in the UK?

The practical message is to treat NAD+ as promising science and optional support, not as a proven anti-ageing treatment. The biology is genuinely well established, but the consumer claims often run ahead of what human trials have shown, so realistic expectations matter most.¹²

Regulation in the UK is clear about what can be claimed. The only authorised health claim in this vitamin family, listed on the Great Britain Nutrition and Health Claims Register, is that niacin (vitamin B3) contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism and to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue. There is no authorised health claim for NAD+ itself, or for "reversing ageing".¹⁶

If you do decide to try it, buy from a regulated source, because MHRA and GOV.UK guidance warns about unregulated and counterfeit health products sold online.¹⁷ If you are considering NAD+, our clinicians can help you weigh whether it suits you, and you can read the balanced picture in our guide to NAD+ and healthy ageing, learn how NAD+, NMN and NR differ, or explore the two formats in the Vivere NAD+ range, its liposomal NAD+ capsules and NAD+ injections.

How did we carry out this study?

We combined public research data with public search data, all first-party exports. To measure the science, we used annual PubMed publication counts for NAD+, the public ClinicalTrials.gov registry, and a published bibliometric analysis of the closely related CD38 field.¹²⁴

To map the public's interest, we exported relative Google Trends search interest for Great Britain across the main NAD+ terms, their regional breakdowns and their rising and top related queries.³ All clinical and medical claims were sourced separately from the NHS, GOV.UK, the MHRA and peer-reviewed research, and the analysis was reviewed by a nutritionist.

What are the limitations of this data?

Counting science is a strong way to show a field's momentum, but it has real limits, and being clear about them matters on a health topic. The table below sets out the main ones and how we handled each.

Frequently asked questions

Final Thoughts From Our Experts

"If you take one thing from this study, let it be the difference between the molecule and the marketing. NAD+ is a well-established molecule with an important role in cellular metabolism, and it has been studied for more than a century. The 2,530 papers published in 2025 reflect the depth and breadth of research into NAD+ biology. However, strong biological foundations do not automatically translate into proven benefits from NAD+ supplementation, particularly when it comes to ageing and longevity.

Our search data shows that British interest in NAD+-related supplements has grown substantially in recent years, well after NAD+ had already become an established area of laboratory research. That gap between scientific interest and consumer marketing is where it is important to remain cautious. Human studies have shown that some NAD+ precursors can increase circulating NAD+ or related metabolites, and several trials have reported good short-term tolerability. However, clinical evidence has not yet established that increasing NAD+ through supplementation makes healthy people feel younger, slows biological ageing or helps them live longer.

So my advice is simple: approach NAD+ research with interest, but with realistic expectations. It should never be presented as a cure for ageing or as a substitute for the fundamentals of healthy living, including good sleep, regular movement, a balanced diet and not smoking. If you are considering an NAD+-related product, choose a reputable supplier, be sceptical of dramatic before-and-after claims and check that the product is appropriately marketed and labelled for its intended use. If you have a health condition or take medication, speak with a qualified healthcare professional before starting supplementation. The science is worth paying attention to. It is also worth giving the evidence time to develop."

Yusra Serdaroglu Aydin, MSc RD, Head of Nutrition at Vivere