NAD+ before and after has a problem that most searches of this shape do not. The change people report is a feeling, and a feeling has no before photograph, no baseline reading and no way to be compared with anyone else's.
The vendor we point lifters to
NAD+ from Ascension Peptides
Independently assayed material, dispatched from the US. The vial drops by half with the code below.
Quoted per 100 mg because NAD+ is dosed in hundreds of milligrams, not the single milligrams a peptide vial holds. Buying 3, 5 or 10 takes 3%, 5% or 10% off the list price. Free shipping starts at $250.
- Two independent lab reports per batch
- Free delivery above $250
- Same-day dispatch on orders before 2pm CST
Research material, laboratory use only, not for human consumption. Affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Pricing verified August 20, 2026.
There is a genuine before and after in this field. It happened in blood samples during trials of oral precursors, where NAD+ related metabolites rose reliably in humans. That is a real measured change, and it is the strongest result the field has.
The difficulty is what happened next, or rather what did not, in skeletal muscle.
What a before and after would have to compare
For this to be a meaningful question, three things need to be fixed at both ends.
The same measurement, taken the same way. A blood metabolite reading and a subjective energy score are not the same instrument, and moving between them mid argument is how most claims in this area work.
The same intervention. Most of what gets cited studied oral precursors, nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide, not injected NAD+. A before and after generated by a capsule is not a before and after for a vial.
And a comparison group, because anything measured as how a person feels responds strongly to expectation. Without a placebo arm, a before and after is a description of a period of time, not of a compound.
| Claim in a before and after report | What would demonstrate it | Does that exist | Organism |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAD+ levels rose | Blood metabolite measurement | Yes, with oral precursors | Human |
| Mitochondrial function improved in muscle | Muscle sampling and functional measures | Attempted; effects limited or absent | Human |
| Energy and clarity improved | Placebo controlled subjective measures | Largely absent for infused or injected forms | Human |
| Body composition changed | Repeated body composition measurement | Not an endpoint in this literature | None |
| Strength improved | Strength testing before and after | Not reported for either form | None |
| Ageing slowed | An outcome that measures ageing | No such demonstration | None |
Two of the six rows have data. Neither of those two is about muscle.
Questions readers ask before the rest of this is useful
Are there published before and after body composition results for NAD+?
No. Body composition has not been an endpoint in this literature, for oral precursors or for injected NAD+, so there is nothing to report either way.
What actually changed in the trials, then?
NAD+ related metabolites measured in blood rose in humans taking oral precursors. That is the reliable finding, and it is a laboratory measurement rather than an outcome anyone would notice.
Do the trials apply to the injected form?
Most of them do not, because they studied oral precursors. Any claim built on them should name which intervention was tested.
Could the improvement people describe be real?
The experience is real. Whether the compound produced it is a separate question, and the settings where it is most often reported are unusually favourable to expectation effects.
Would a photograph show anything?
Only if body composition changed, and nothing in this literature suggests it does. A photograph would be recording diet and training.
NAD+ before and after, and the marker that moved instead
The honest version of this story has a specific shape, and it is worth following carefully because it is a good example of a marker and an outcome parting company.
Investigators had a reasonable premise: NAD+ declines with age in tissues, reported in rodents and in human tissue measurements, and NAD+ is central to how mitochondria generate energy. Restoring the level ought to restore something.
Oral precursors were given to people, and the before and after in blood was clear. Metabolite levels went up. As a proof that the compound is absorbed and metabolised as intended, this succeeded.
Then the same trials, in older adults, looked at skeletal muscle, and the effects reported there were limited or absent. The blood rose. The muscle did not follow.
What that dissociation means for a lifter
It means the marker cannot be used as a proxy, which removes the only measurement in this field that reliably responds.
Several explanations are possible. Skeletal muscle maintains its own NAD+ supply substantially through the salvage pathway and may be relatively insulated from circulating levels. The amounts or durations may have been insufficient. The participants may not have been depleted enough to show a response.
Each is plausible and none has been established, so they function as reasons the question is still open rather than as reasons to expect a benefit. What is established is the null result in the tissue, in humans, with the intervention that has the best evidence behind it.
The premise underneath, and how firm it is
Every before and after in this subject rests on one idea: that NAD+ falls with age, and that putting it back reverses something.
The first half has support. Declining NAD+ levels with age have been reported in rodent tissues and in human tissue measurements, with plausible mechanisms including greater consumption by CD38 and by DNA repair enzymes as damage accumulates over decades.
The second half is an assumption doing a great deal of work. A molecule that falls with age may be a consequence of ageing rather than a cause of it, and restoring a reading to a younger value does not restore the tissue that reading came from. Grip strength falls with age too, and nobody imagines that a stronger grip on its own reverses the underlying process.
This is not a reason to ignore the field. Mitochondrial function genuinely matters to how an older lifter tolerates volume and recovers between sessions, and it is a legitimate thing to study. It is a reason to hold the premise loosely, because the one time it was tested directly in human muscle, the tissue did not respond the way the premise predicted.
The infusion chair as an uncontrolled experiment
Most vivid before and after accounts come from intravenous appointments, and the setting deserves description rather than dismissal.
A person pays a significant sum, sits for several hours, is monitored by staff, is told what to expect, and endures a physically noticeable infusion that has to be slowed when it becomes uncomfortable. At the end they are asked how they feel.
Every element of that is a reason for a strong reported response, and none of the elements is the molecule. This is not an argument that nothing happened. It is an argument that the design cannot tell anyone what happened, and that a report generated inside it should carry the weight of an anecdote rather than a result.
The training log as the only honest instrument here
For anyone determined to run their own before and after, there is a better instrument than a photograph and it is already in most gyms.
A training log records load, sets, repetitions and how sessions felt, week after week, against a body weight that is also being recorded. Over a couple of months it produces something closer to a measurement than anything else available to an individual: a trend in work performed, in a context where the person knows what else changed.
Its limits should be stated too. It has no control group, no blinding, and it is written by someone who wants a particular answer. Training improves under a consistent programme regardless of what is being taken, and a person who starts a compound and a new block in the same week has confounded their own experiment. Sleep, stress, work and season all move the same numbers.
So a log will not establish that a compound worked. It can establish that nothing measurable happened, which is a useful and underrated result, and it is more informative than a subjective impression collected in a clinic chair.
What would count as a genuine result
A placebo controlled trial of the form actually being sold. Skeletal muscle sampled rather than blood, because the blood answer is known and has already failed to predict the tissue answer. Body composition and strength measured at both ends. Enough duration for muscle to change, which is months rather than weeks. And an older population, since that is where the premise of decline is strongest and where the readership of this site sits.
None of that has been published for injected NAD+. Until it is, the before and after in this subject remains a rise in a blood measurement that did not carry through, plus a large volume of personal reports collected in conditions designed to produce them.
That is a real finding and a genuinely interesting one. It is not the finding people are looking for when they type the phrase.