Nicotinamide riboside

About Nicotinamide riboside

A form of vitamin B3 discovered in milk and now made synthetically, sold as a precursor to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). It is the most commercially successful of the compounds marketed around cellular ageing.

Nicotinamide riboside does what its manufacturers say it does at the level of blood chemistry: multiple randomised trials show it raises NAD in blood cells, dose-dependently and reproducibly. What no trial has shown is that raising NAD produces any clinical benefit in humans. Trials have measured insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial function, blood pressure, muscle strength, inflammatory markers and cognitive measures, and the results have been largely null. The animal work behind the concept is genuinely interesting; the human work so far is a well-verified surrogate marker in search of an outcome. Much of the trial base has financial links to the patent holder.

Sold as

Capsule, Tablet, Powder, Combination with pterostilbene

Standardised to

Sold mostly as the patented chloride salt, standardised by NR content — a product without this marker may not resemble what was studied.

Also known as

NR, Niagen, NAD precursor

Regulation: Notified to the US FDA as a new dietary ingredient and generally recognised as safe for use in foods at specified levels. No Tolerable Upper Intake Level exists for nicotinamide riboside specifically; the vitamin B3 upper limit of 35 mg/day was set for other forms. Sold with no pre-market efficacy review.

What the research used

The amounts, forms and durations published trials of Nicotinamide riboside actually administered.

When it was taken

Each window says whether a trial compared it against an alternative, or whether it is convention and pharmacology. Most timing advice is the second kind.