Grade any NAD⁺ claim you have been shown
Pick the benefit you were promised and the format you were sold, and see our honest evidence grade for that exact combination — plus the oral-precursor study it was probably borrowed from.
There are 30 combinations of benefit and format on this page. 1 has human trial evidence behind it, and all of them is an oral precursor.
That is the fact the marketing in this category is built to obscure. A study showing a capsule raises blood NAD⁺ is not a study of a compounded injection, and citing the first while selling the second is the most common move on a NAD⁺ landing page. Pick what you were promised and what you were offered, and the tool will tell you which of the two you have actually been shown evidence for.
More energy — from injection
No human outcome trials
No. There is no controlled human outcome trial of injection NAD⁺ for this.
More energy sold as Compounded NAD⁺ shipped for self-injection has no controlled human outcome trial behind it. That is true of every claim on this page for every format except the oral precursors, and it is the single most important fact in the category: the format that delivers the most is the one with the least evidence that delivering more helps.
The evidence you were probably shown
No controlled human trial establishes that an oral precursor makes a healthy person more energetic. Some trials have measured adjacent things — one NMN study tracked six-minute walking distance — but a walking distance is not the promise on the label.
That is an oral precursor result. You are being sold compounded nad⁺ shipped for self-injection. Different molecule in some cases, different route in all of them, different dose in every one — so the finding does not carry across, and a seller citing it is borrowing credibility the product in front of you has not earned.
About injection specifically: Injectable NAD⁺ is compounded, which means the FDA has not reviewed it for safety, efficacy or quality before it reaches you. It is not a studied product with a marketing application behind it; it is a preparation made to order.
The whole grid, in one look
One column has grades in it. That column is the oral precursors, and that is the entire honest summary of this category.
| Claim | Oral precursor | Injection | Nasal spray | Patch | IV infusion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| It raises my NAD⁺ levels | |||||
| More energy | |||||
| Sharper focus | |||||
| Better sleep | |||||
| Slower aging | |||||
| Hangover recovery |
Grades read worst to best: No evidence it delivers anything · Tested, and not found · No human outcome trials · Narrow trial support · Established in humans. “Tested, and not found” sits below “no human outcome trials” on purpose: a claim somebody measured and failed to find is in worse shape than one nobody has measured yet.
Three questions that handle almost any claim
- Was it measured in humans? A great deal of NAD⁺ marketing rests on mouse and cell work, which is where a hypothesis starts rather than where it is settled.
- Was the outcome something a person would notice? Raising a blood marker is a mechanism, not a benefit. The two get quoted interchangeably and they are not interchangeable.
- Was it the format being sold to you? This is the one almost everybody misses, and it is the one this tool is built around. A result belongs to the molecule, the route and the dose that produced it.
A grade is about the literature, not about a seller — two companies selling the same format earn the same grade here, however differently they behave. For the differences between them, take the questions to ask before you buy into the conversation, and the benefits evidence article carries every citation behind these grades. If the format itself is still open, the format finder ranks all of them on evidence, cost, convenience and dose.