NAD+ — identity, handling and published literature

An endogenous dinucleotide coenzyme — the redox cofactor NAD+, substrate for sirtuin, PARP and CD38 enzymes — supplied as 500 mg of lyophilised powder for laboratory research use.

Evidence and regulatory status

Presentation and physical properties

Reconstitution arithmetic for this vial

The arithmetic is a single division:

concentration (mg/mL) = vial mass (mg) ÷ diluent volume (mL)

Worked for the 500 mg fill of this vial. A U-100 graduation divides one millilitre into one hundred equal parts, so one unit on that scale is 0.01 mL and 0.1 mL is ten units.

The third column restates the concentration in a different unit. It is not a quantity to be measured out, and none is given anywhere on this page.

Whether a given mass fully dissolves at a given volume depends on the material, the diluent and the temperature. The table is arithmetic and assumes complete dissolution; it is not a solubility measurement.

Open the reconstitution calculator with this vial selected. The calculator fills in vial strength only.

This section computes a concentration per millilitre from a diluent volume. It does not compute a volume for a target amount, it carries no preset target amount, and it names no typical volume. The line the calculator draws holds here without exception: the volume is ours to calculate, the target amount is not.

Storage and stability

The 28-day convention, and what it actually describes

A 28-day in-use limit is widely quoted for reconstituted vials. It derives from the preservative in bacteriostatic water, which constrains microbial growth for a defined period after the closure is first entered. It is a statement about the diluent, not about the chemical stability of whatever has been dissolved in it, and it should not be read as a stability figure for this substance. For NAD+ the governing constraint is chemical rather than microbiological, which is why the laboratory convention is to prepare solutions fresh.

Analytical identity and certificate literacy

Methods

• HPLC with UV detection. The adenine chromophore absorbs at 260 nm, which is the usual detection wavelength for the oxidised form.
• The 340 nm distinction. NADH carries an additional characteristic absorbance at 340 nm, which the oxidised form does not; that difference is the basis of the standard enzymatic assays built on this redox pair, and it is also a straightforward way to tell the two apart.
• LC-MS. Expected monoisotopic mass 663.1091 Da; [M+H]⁺ ≈ 664.116, [M−H]⁻ ≈ 662.102. Both ion modes are used for nucleotides of this class.

What a purity figure does and does not measure

Area-percent purity states the proportion of the detector response, under one method at one wavelength, that falls under the main peak. It does not measure water, residual salts or counter-ions, and it cannot see anything that does not absorb at the detection wavelength. Net content is a different quantity: the proportion of the mass in the vial that is the substance itself, the remainder being water and salts. A material can carry a high area-percent figure and a lower net content, and both numbers can be true at once.

A certificate is evidence about the lot it names. Where a lot identifier cannot be matched to the material in hand, the certificate documents the supplier’s testing programme rather than the specific vial, and it should be read that way.

What the published literature investigated

Each entry below states what a named publication investigated, in what model, and what its authors reported. No entry draws a conclusion across studies, and this section contains no summary.

Review articles

Covarrubias, Perrone, Grozio and Verdin (2021) reviewed NAD+ metabolism and its roles in cellular processes during ageing, drawing on in vitro, animal and human literature, and reported that NAD+ functions both as a metabolic coenzyme and as a substrate for sirtuins and PARPs, that tissue NAD+ concentrations decline with age across several models, and that whether raising NAD+ concentrations is a viable strategy remains, in the authors’ framing, an open research question rather than a settled one. [1]

The same review describes the metabolic fate of NAD+ presented outside the cell: it is acted on by cell-surface ectoenzymes, including CD38, and its precursors are taken up, rather than the intact dinucleotide being imported by most mammalian cells. That characterisation is relevant to reading everything below, because it is one of the reasons the precursor literature and the NAD+ literature cannot be read as one body of evidence. [1]

In vitro

No study is listed under this heading in this entry’s reference set.

Rodent models

No study is listed under this heading in this entry’s reference set.

Non-rodent animal models

No study is listed under this heading in this entry’s reference set.

Human studies

Martens and colleagues (2018) investigated whether chronic administration of nicotinamide riboside raised blood NAD+ and was tolerated, in healthy middle-aged and older adults in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial, and reported that it was well tolerated and that blood NAD+ concentrations were elevated relative to placebo. The intervention was the precursor nicotinamide riboside, not NAD+. [2]

Elhassan and colleagues (2019) investigated the effect of nicotinamide riboside on the skeletal muscle NAD+ metabolome and muscle transcriptome, in aged men in a randomised placebo-controlled trial with muscle biopsy, and reported augmentation of the aged human skeletal muscle NAD+ metabolome together with transcriptomic signatures the authors characterised as anti-inflammatory. The intervention was the precursor, not NAD+. [3]

Brakedal and colleagues (2022) investigated nicotinamide riboside in a randomised phase I trial in participants with Parkinson’s disease, with cerebral NAD measurement, and reported measurable changes in cerebral NAD levels in a subset of participants together with the tolerability endpoints of the phase I design. The intervention was the precursor, not NAD+. [4]

Orr and colleagues (2024) investigated nicotinamide riboside in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, in a randomised placebo-controlled trial, and reported the trial’s pre-specified feasibility, tolerability and biomarker outcomes. The intervention was the precursor, not NAD+. [5]

Conze, Brenner and Kruger (2019) investigated the safety and metabolism of long-term administration of nicotinamide riboside chloride, in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, and reported on safety and metabolic parameters over the trial period and on NAD metabolite changes. The intervention was the precursor, not NAD+. [6]

Evidence gaps and limitations

• No randomised controlled trial exists for administered NAD+ itself, against any clinical endpoint. Every randomised trial cited in this entry studied a precursor.
• The published human exposure to administered NAD+ is very small. Fewer than thirty participants in total across the published studies identified in NovoVita’s review of this literature.
• Comparative work does not favour the assumption behind the interest. Where NAD+ and the precursor nicotinamide riboside have been compared directly, the reported change in whole-blood NAD+ following NAD+ was smaller, not larger, than that following the precursor. The comparison rests on a single small randomised pilot circulated as a preprint, which has not been peer-reviewed. [9]
• Citing precursor trials as evidence about NAD+ is citing a different molecule. This is the single most common error in the material published about this compound, and the reason the distinction is repeated in every literature entry above rather than noted once.
• Effect sizes are not established for administered NAD+ on any measured outcome, because the trials that would establish them have not been conducted.
• Toxicology to a regulatory standard is absent for this material as supplied. NAD+ is a long-standing and well-characterised biochemical reagent, which is a statement about its analytical characterisation, not about a safety evaluation.
• Biomarker outcomes are not clinical outcomes. Several of the trials above measured NAD or its metabolites. A measured change in a metabolite is not evidence of a change in any clinical outcome, and the authors do not present it as one.

Regulatory and standards position

• United Kingdom. No NAD+ product holds a UK marketing authorisation. Material supplied by NovoVita is not a medicinal product, is not manufactured to medicinal standard, and is not supplied for human or veterinary use.
• Advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority’s published advice for the category in which NAD+ preparations are commonly advertised records that the ASA “has yet to see convincing evidence” for the claims made in that advertising. [8]
• United States. Not approved by the FDA. NAD+ does not appear on the FDA’s lists of bulk drug substances eligible for use in compounding under sections 503A or 503B, and an FDA warning letter issued to GenoGenix LLC in January 2026 named NAD+ among substances not eligible for compounding.
• Anti-doping. Not named on the WADA Prohibited List. The current List is the operative document and NovoVita publishes no interpretation of it.
• Authorised-medicine match. None. NAD+ is not the active substance of a UK-authorised medicine, so the named-medicine construction used elsewhere in this library does not apply to this entry.
• Export restriction. None on this line.

Laboratory handling and safety

NovoVita does not publish a GHS classification for this material. Reagent-grade nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide is commonly supplied under safety data sheets that do not classify it as meeting CLP/GHS hazard criteria, but classifications differ between suppliers, and the safety data sheet accompanying the material in your possession is the operative document. Handle it as an uncharacterised research chemical where no such sheet is available.

• Personal protective equipment. Nitrile gloves, safety spectacles and a laboratory coat.
• Dust. The solid is hygroscopic and fine. Avoid generating airborne dust; weigh appreciable quantities in a ventilated enclosure.
• Spill. Collect dry solid mechanically without raising dust, then wipe the area with a damp disposable cloth.
• Disposal. As laboratory chemical waste under local rules. Not to drain.
• Containment. Reseal and return to desiccated storage promptly; an open vial gains water from the air.

Related library entries and consumables

• MOTS-C — same category, Longevity & Cellular
• SS-31 — same category, Longevity & Cellular
• 5-Amino-1MQ — characterised in the literature as an inhibitor of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase, an enzyme of the same salvage pathway
• Bacteriostatic water — diluent, preserved
• Sterile water — diluent, unpreserved
• Reconstitution calculator — vial strength and diluent volume only

Availability

This block is resolved by SKU when the page is rendered. Where the product is not published, it renders as “Not currently listed” and emits no link.

References and provenance

1. Covarrubias AJ, Perrone R, Grozio A, Verdin E. NAD+ metabolism and its roles in cellular processes during ageing. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2021;22(2):119–141. Review of in vitro, animal and human literature. PMID 33353981
2. Martens CR, Denman BA, Mazzo MR, Armstrong ML, Reisdorph N, McQueen MB, Chonchol M, Seals DR. Chronic nicotinamide riboside supplementation is well-tolerated and elevates NAD+ in healthy middle-aged and older adults. Nat Commun. 2018;9:1286. Human — randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. PMID 29599478
3. Elhassan YS, Kluckova K, Fletcher RS, et al. Cell Rep. 2019;28(7):1717–1728. Human — randomised placebo-controlled trial with skeletal muscle biopsy. PMID 31412242
4. Brakedal B, Dölle C, Riemer F, et al. The NADPARK study. Cell Metab. 2022;34(3):396–407. Human — randomised phase I trial with cerebral NAD measurement. PMID 35235774
5. Orr ME, Kotkowski E, Ramirez P, et al. Geroscience. 2024;46(1):665–682. Human — randomised placebo-controlled trial. PMID 37994989
6. Conze D, Brenner C, Kruger CL. Sci Rep. 2019;9:9772. Human — randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. PMID 31278280
7. PubChem Compound Summary, CID 5892 — formula, average and monoisotopic mass, CAS registry. PubChem CID 5892
8. Advertising Standards Authority / CAP advice online — healthcare: intravenous nutritional therapy. Regulatory source. asa.org.uk
9. Randomised pilot comparing administered NAD+ with nicotinamide riboside. medRxiv, 2024. Human — small randomised pilot. Preprint, not peer-reviewed. medRxiv 2024.06.06.24308565

Last reviewed 8 August 2026 · First publication of this entry. Identity data taken from PubChem CID 5892; presentation data from the NovoVita catalogue record for SKU NJ500.