Best NR Supplement

We still haven’t found the fountain of youth. One or two positive research results for a given nutritional supplement make their way into the media cycle, and you’d think the search was over, but even the most promising anti-aging gurus can take over 100 supplements per day and only see mixed results.

So, among supplemental ingredients, are there any that truly defy the aging process? Proponents of nicotinamide riboside (NR) would say so. After all, NR has been shown to boost levels of a critical component of cellular health, addressing energy and aging at the source.1 But is this enough to make a meaningful difference, and if it is, is it even safe?

We set out to understand the complex science of NR supplementation so we could translate it to you in straightforward language and make responsible recommendations for products if you’re interested in trying NR for yourself. We take a deep dive into the science in the body of this guide, but you can check out this brief summary if you’re pressed for time.

At Innerbody Research, we thoroughly investigate all of the products and services we review, including NR supplements. The process involves everything from thorough analyses of published, peer-reviewed scientific research to actually ordering and trying products for ourselves.

In the case of NR supplements, our team has spent more than 1,500 hours reading and scrutinizing research devoted to anti-aging and pro-energy supplementation, with a particular focus on products designed to increase cellular nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). We’ve ordered and tried many of these products for ourselves, including each of the products in this guide.

At a certain point, we ran up against a gap in the marketplace where a product that combined therapeutic doses of NR and another NAD+ precursor, nicotinamide mononucleotide, was missing. We set out to produce a supplement to fill the void: Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support. We’re confident that it’s the best NR supplement on the market, but we also know it isn’t perfect for everyone. Wherever alternatives seem like a better choice, we’ll be sure to explain why.

Additionally, we conferred with members of our medical review board to confirm the accuracy of this piece. We will continue to monitor the space for updates by our editorial team.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

When we set out to evaluate NR supplements, we applied the same criteria we used to compare other NAD+ supplements like nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN): effectiveness, safety, cost, and convenience. There are some similarities between these results and the results in our other guides, but there are also some stark and important differences to consider.

Let’s look closer at each criterion to see which products fared the best.

Effectiveness

Advantage: Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support

When it comes to establishing effectiveness for any NAD+ booster, the gold standard of measurement is plasma NAD+ after administration. In other words, by how much does an NR supplement boost cellular NAD+ after you take it? The majority of research we’ve seen looking into NR’s ability to boost NAD+ revolves around nicotinamide riboside chloride powder delivered in regular capsules.

In one such prominent study from 2016, researchers established a dose-dependent relationship between NR and plasma NAD+, as well as between NR and a measurement known as the area under the curve (AUC). For NR, AUC measures how long the increase in NAD+ lasts. In this study, 300mg and 1,000mg doses reached the same maximum plasma NAD+ concentration, but the 1,000mg dose held that concentration for more than twice as long. 1

That extended exposure time is likely a result of the specific metabolic processes that translate NR into NAD+ (which we’ll detail later on). Simply put, the greater supply of NR in a 1,000mg dose allows it to metabolize for a longer period before its stores expire. And given NMN’s role in the same metabolic pathway NR uses to create NMN, we could say the same about it.8

It would be tempting to pick a product for this criterion that uses liposomal technology — essentially high-tech fats that protect ingredients from first-pass metabolism and break down only in proximity to intended target tissues.2 In theory, this would be a great way to improve NR’s bioavailability. But there isn’t enough research into how liposomes can improve NAD+ precursor effectiveness at all, let alone in humans. One such study exists, but it used NMN and produced a modest 25% increase in NAD+ production within a small group of 15 participants.41 That’s not enough for a ringing endorsement, though it’s interesting enough for some users to skip ahead of the science and hope it works for them.

We prefer to make a pick here based on the wealth of available data, which say that NR and NMN, in normal capsules, stand the greatest chance of improving your NAD+ levels. To that end, the choice that makes the most sense for the most people right now is NAD+ Support by Innerbody Labs. It boasts clinically relevant doses of both NR and NMN, eliminating the need to decide between the two popular precursors. It also uses a few other well-studied ingredients to improve NAD+ production efficiency and precursor bioavailability, rather than less-studied delivery mechanisms, which we’ll discuss in the company’s dedicated section further down the page.

Safety

Advantage: Nootropics Depot NR Capsules

Research into NR’s potential to cause side effects reveals that doses as high as 2,000mg per day could be safe for up to six weeks.42 Safety-specific research in Parkinson’s disease patients employed doses of up to 3,000mg/day, and those participants reported many more adverse effects than the few seen in lower-dose studies.5 Given that information, an NR dose below 2,000mg should be safe, but that doesn’t mean the safest route is to start there. Instead, the safest route (not to mention the most economical one) would be to find the lowest possible dose that works for you. If you’re talking about just raising NAD+ levels, studies have illustrated NR’s ability to do that with doses as low as 100mg. 1 Efficacy takes a big jump at 300mg, however, so that would seem to be the best place to start, considering a good safety profile married to predictably high efficacy.

After considering dose, you’d want to look at the safety practices of a given company, and Nootropics Depot earns high marks in that regard. Its NR capsules contain 300mg each, allowing you to titrate up from a reasonable dose as needed, and the company subjects its products to independent third-party testing, with lab results available on each product page.

If you’re more interested in a complex formula, Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support boasts similar safety measures, with even more comprehensive testing than what Nootropics Depot performs. Innerbody Labs also publishes the results of these tests on each product page.

Cost

Advantage: Neurogan NAD+ Alternative

Comparing the cost of competing NR supplements requires us to look at both the cost per dose and the cost per gram of NR included in a given bottle. Sometimes, a supplement looks a lot cheaper, but its doses are so much smaller that it ends up costing you more if you want to take a higher dose. That said, when companies choose to include complementary ingredients alongside NR, a pure gram-for-gram cost comparison becomes unfeasible.

Our top pick for cost is Neurogan’s NAD+ Alternative, an NR supplement with 900mg capsules and the best cost per gram in its class. Here’s how it fits into the NR landscape:

As you can see, Neurogan boasts the best cost per dose and cost per gram of the companies listed. We don’t consider it the best single-ingredient NR supplement simply because there is no opportunity to titrate your dosage.

Among complex blends, Perpetua.Life beats out Innerbody Labs by around $0.12 per dose. However, that dose has less than half as much NAD+ precursor as Innerbody Labs, negating the savings if you end up taking more AEON capsules to make up the difference.

Convenience

Advantage: Renue by Science

We didn’t give this advantage to any one product from Renue by Science, but the company as a whole took the category for the diversity of its offerings. Whereas its competitors typically only offer one product each (and that’s a simple capsule), Renue has products containing NR that come as capsules, powders, sublingual tablets, or nasal sprays.

Having multiple delivery methods to choose from allows you to find what works best for your regimen, and it potentially improves bioavailability, albeit at the cost of dosing accuracy. Renue employs liposomal delivery mechanisms to help protect NR from degradation through first-pass metabolism. Nasal sprays and sublingual powders partially bypass this by allowing the NR to enter the bloodstream through oral and nasal membranes. It’s still more accurate to rely on traditional capsules that align with the bulk of clinical NR data, but Renue’s products are among some of the more convenient alternatives if you’re determined to seek them.

It also doesn’t hurt that the powdered NR supplement tastes pretty good. All of our testers appreciated its mild citrus flavor and lack of overt sweetness. It was like a slightly watered-down Gatorade with just enough tanginess.

Renue is also tied in our guide for the longest money-back guarantee, offering 60 days for you to try its products. Thorne has a similar policy, but others in this guide typically only offer 30 days.

NR stands for “nicotinamide riboside,” a form of vitamin B3 that’s been studied for its potential as an energy-boosting and anti-aging treatment. But NR doesn’t offer these benefits directly. Instead, it acts as a precursor for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), and studies have shown a direct relationship between NR supplementation and increased NAD+ in the blood and certain target tissues. 1

It achieves this effect by entering a specific metabolic system for producing NAD+ called the salvage pathway. Here, the body converts nicotinamide (NAM) into NMN, and then NMN into NAD+. NR can enter the salvage pathway from a different angle, converting to additional NMN before ultimately increasing NAD+ levels.

Here’s a look at the salvage pathway and how NR supplements fit into the picture:

So anyone hoping to boost their NAD+ levels can look to NR as a solution. There are other supplemental means for boosting NAD+, but NR is one of the most reliable and well-researched out there. And in addition to boosting NAD+ levels, NR supplementation has resulted in certain benefits that supplementing with other NAD+ precursors, like NMN or trigonelline, hasn’t shown, such as protection against specific biomarkers of neurodegenerative disease.43

NAD+ is a coenzyme, meaning that it serves numerous functions in support of other enzymatic activities. This mostly occurs in the mitochondria of cells that have absorbed some NAD+.7 Because of their role in turning the food we eat into energy, mitochondria are often referred to as the “powerhouses” of the cell.

You might see NAD+ carelessly written as NAD (without the plus sign), but there’s an important difference. NAD can refer to either NAD+ or NADH, both of which are forms of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide that convert into one another as part of the process that generates cellular energy.

Boosting NAD+ creates an environment in which those conversions can occur at greater rates and at a greater abundance. That's important not only because it contributes to an increase in overall cellular energy, but also because an imbalance of more NADH than NAD+ in the body is often associated with things we’d consider to be harmful oxidizing processes or events, like a night of excessive drinking or aging itself.8 9

The potential benefits of increased NAD+ levels include:10

• Cellular health
• Anti-aging support
• Increased energy
• Heart health
• Metabolic boost
• Improved cognition
• Better sleep
• Faster healing

The evidence supports some of these benefits more so than others, but the general thrust of NAD+ boosting is that it can improve your whole-body functioning, especially as it relates to aging.

When you take an NR supplement, it becomes NAD+ through three possible metabolic courses:8

• Salvage pathway: Used to convert NR and nicotinamide into NMN, then NMN into NAD+
• Preiss-Handler pathway: Used to convert nicotinic acid into NAD+
• De novo pathway: Used to convert tryptophan into NAD+

The exact degree to which a certain amount of NR will translate to NAD+ is likely to be different for every individual due to factors like body weight and metabolism. Researchers have more recently understood the critical role that gut microbiota play in this conversion process, as well,11 and variations between individuals’ microbiomes can be enormous.

NR converts to NMN in the salvage pathway before becoming NAD+. For this reason, members of the biohacking community have reasonably wondered whether it’s worth taking NR at all when NMN is readily available and has a dedicated transporter to take it into cells for conversion to NAD+.13 (You can learn more in our guide to NMN supplements.) But research thus far shows that NR has certain secondary effects that NMN hasn’t shown in studies. That’s also true of NMN; it appears to do some things that NR cannot. This is why some next-generation NR supplements include NMN, as well, to maximize your potential benefit.

The best of these supplements also include support ingredients intended to keep the salvage pathway running smoothly. These are rarely included in NAD+ booster studies, but that very research often shows a drop-off in NAD+ levels at around week 12, indicating a reversal of their efficacy likely tied to a shortage of methyl donors.52 46 That’s why companies like Innerbody Labs, Renue by Science, and Perpetua.Life often include ingredients like trimethylglycine (TMG) or spermidine to fuel and safeguard NAD+ metabolism. Of those three companies, Innerbody Labs offers the highest doses of both ingredients.

NR chloride vs. NR hydrogen malate

Depending on the brand in question, you’re either going to get your hands on NR chloride or NR hydrogen malate. NR chloride is, by far, the more commonly used and more widely studied of the two NR forms. Simply put, NR chloride is an NR salt made with NR and chlorine, and NR hydrogen malate is made with NR and malic acid.

NR chloride was the first commercially available form, developed and marketed by a company called Chromadex under the brand name Niagen. NR hydrogen malate was developed a bit later, and it may present a lower risk of side effects than NR chloride.

In separate animal studies, NR chloride was shown to produce no observable adverse effects at 300mg/kg in rats (a 4g dose equivalent in humans), whereas NR hydrogen malate boasted a threshold of 2,000mg/kg (a 26g human dose).12 13 Aspects of these studies make them difficult to compare head-to-head, but the gulf between 4g and 26g is significant nonetheless. To make matters more complicated, the fact that these are animal studies makes them less translatable to human interventions.

NR hydrogen malate tends to be harder to find and more expensive than NR chloride, however. There’s also far less research confirming its efficacy than you can find for NR chloride, while both should be safe for most consumers at average doses. Therefore, we typically recommend NR chloride for most people.

NR supplements are a potential source of increased cellular health and energy for just about anyone. If you have specific age-related concerns about your health and wellness, you might look to NR for support. These concerns can include:10

• Decreased energy levels
• Dull or unpleasant skin appearance
• Cardiovascular issues
• Cognitive impairment
• Pain conditions

That said, plenty of perfectly healthy people take NR supplements to stave off the aging process, even if they aren’t aware of any specific age-related conditions.

Who might want to look elsewhere?

While everyone is always aging, young people likely aren’t as concerned with the process as older individuals. If you’re 22, you have boundless energy, and your skin practically glows in the dark, you may benefit less from an NR supplement.

It’s also important to note that NR research into various potential benefits is still relatively limited. For example, NAD+ precursor supplementation has been shown to support healthy lipid metabolism and blood glucose in one prominent meta-analysis, but individual studies on NR specifically have yielded poor results for those specific uses.44 So, taking a NAD+ booster to help you control blood sugar or manage your weight might not be as recommendable as investing your resources in a different way.

Also, as we’ll discuss in our safety section below, there are specific concerns about NR supplementation and NAD+ boosting that could give some people pause. These include a potential unsafe drop in blood pressure for those currently on medication for hypertension, as well as potential cancer risks that researchers have yet to define clearly.14

In short-term research, NR appears to be mostly safe for most people. But there are caveats to that short-term safety, including some noteworthy contraindications. There are also significant concerns about the role NAD+ can play in cancer management, both as a tool to potentially thwart cancer and as a contributing factor in its emergence and growth.

One of the biggest concerns among NAD+ boosters is flushing (a rush of blood to the face with a feeling of overheating), which some forms of B vitamins (a category to which NR belongs) have been shown to cause. While niacin is particularly prone to causing flushing, NR doesn’t appear to cause the same kind of flushing that other B3s do, at least according to some research studies.3 4 That said, a high-dose study involving patients with Parkinson’s disease saw the following adverse effects in patients taking 3,000mg daily for four weeks:5

• Extrapyramidal disorder
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Dyspepsia
• Muscle cramps
• Tremor

Some similar effects were seen in the placebo group from this study, so it’s unclear which ones may have been caused by NR supplementation.

NR supplements have also been shown to have potential as a blood pressure treatment for people with hypertension. But if you’re already taking medication for hypertension or you deal with hypotension (low blood pressure), NR supplements may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure.14

As always, it’s wise to talk to your doctor before introducing NR (or any other new supplement) into your regimen.

NAD+ and cancer

One thing your doctor may not be able to speak to is NR’s potential to increase or decrease your risk of certain cancers. That’s not your doctor’s fault, either; the scientific community hasn’t drawn firm enough conclusions here to know where to stand. So, here’s what we know:

• Researchers have confirmed that cancer cells utilize NAD+ at a higher rate than noncancerous cells, indicating a complex relationship that may be exacerbated by increased NAD+ from exogenous NR supplementation.15
• Other research points toward increased NAD+ potentially acting prophylactically against tumor cell formation for liver and breast cancers.16 17

Does this mean that increasing your NAD+ levels can prevent cancer? Or does it mean that increasing your NAD+ levels could exacerbate existing cancer? Or is it both? These questions remain unanswered.

Ultimately, you’ll want to talk with your doctor before beginning an NR supplement, and part of this conversation should involve your underlying cancer risks due to lifestyle or genetic predispositions.

Best overall

Given the fact that individual studies looking at the secondary effects of NR and NMN have shown certain abilities unique to either, several companies have begun combining the two supplements. Among them, no company offers a dose as well-considered as Innerbody Labs with its NAD+ Support. NAD+ Support also boasts a TMG dose that no other company exceeds, along with spermidine and black pepper fruit extract to improve NAD+ production efficiency and ingredient bioavailability.

Here’s a look at the formula:

• NMN: 700mg
• NR: 400mg
• TMG: 500mg
• Spermidine: 15mg
• BioPerine: 10mg

Innerbody Labs’ 400mg NR dose safely exceeds the 300mg dose commonly seen in NR supplements, with its 700mg of NMN doing the same relative to the more common 500mg NMN dose. In addition, it has other ingredients that deserve a closer look:

Taken together, these five ingredients have the potential to increase NAD+ production from two different angles, provide the full suite of available benefits from NR and NMN, ensure consistent and reliable NAD+ production efficiency beyond 12 weeks of use, and protect against excess NAM byproducts causing unwanted harm.

Innerbody Labs pricing and returns

Innerbody Labs combines subscription and bulk pricing to offer its lowest prices, which amount to 30% off at the highest level. Here’s how it works out:

There are less expensive NR supplements on the market, but not ones that include multiple NAD+ precursors at these doses alongside support ingredients to ensure the integrity of the salvage pathway.

Shipping from Innerbody Labs is free on all orders, but it’s limited to the U.S. at this time. Customers outside the U.S. looking for a similar formula might be interested in Perpetua.Life AEON, which provides smaller doses of four ingredients seen in NAD+ Support.

You get a 30-day money-back guarantee from Innerbody Labs on its NAD+ Support. That’s about average for this space, with some companies offering more, like Renue by Science’s 60-day guarantee, and others offering less, like Tru Niagen and Nootropics Depot, neither of which has any guarantee.

Best budget pick

Neurogan has a relatively extensive lineup of single-ingredient supplements related to brain health and longevity. Among those is a pair of NR supplements that the company calls its NAD+ Alternative (formerly NR Pro, as pictured). Given NAD+’s poor bioavailability as an oral supplement, the name makes some sense, until you realize that Neurogan also sells NAD+ itself in capsule form.

Despite a lackluster name, NAD+ Alternative delivers the best price for NR you’re likely to find with rigorous third-party testing. The trade-off is that the supplement packs 900mg of NR into each capsule. If you’re looking for a dose in that ballpark, it’s an outstanding deal. If you want to take less NR per dose, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Still, for the price, and considering that several 900mg and 1,000mg NR studies have shown good results without any serious adverse effects, NAD+ Alternative could fit nicely into most regimens to boost NAD+.

The company also offers its NAD+ Alternative as a liposomal liquid preparation with a dose of 300mg per day. If this were a non-liposomal capsule, the 300mg dose would make sense. But there isn’t any good data on liposomal NR in humans in any form — capsule, liquid, or otherwise. So there’s no way to know how this dose could compare to more traditional formulations seen in the majority of the research.

Neurogan pricing and returns

Neurogan has a pretty straightforward pricing structure, with one-time and subscription purchases available.

Given the uncertainty surrounding liposomal NR doses and liquid preparations, it’s probably a good thing that NAD+ Alternative capsules offer a better cost per dose of NR.

Shipping from Neurogan is free on subscription orders, but you’d have to spend more than $70 on a one-time purchase to qualify for free shipping. If you don’t, you’ll end up paying based on weight and distance.

Neurogan’s money-back guarantee allows you 30 days to try the product risk-free. This is about the same as Innerbody Labs. Renue by Science has a better guarantee, but 30 days is still much better than the total lack of guarantee from Nootropics Depot and Tru Niagen.

Best NR-only option

You can see the broad range of potential benefits NR offers beyond just increasing NAD+ levels in research that’s used various doses, with 300mg being a strong baseline for NAD+ benefits and higher doses being associated with other specific effects. That’s why those interested in exploring NR’s multiple potential benefits might want a product like Nootropics Depot’s NR capsules, which come in 300mg per-capsule doses.

At 300mg per capsule, you can titrate up toward doses associated with specific effects, like the 1,000mg dose connected to brain health in one study and blood pressure in another.43 14 It’s also a nice interval if you simply want to push up toward what research shows to be a safe limit before adverse effects kick in and be able to pull back by as little as 300mg if you start to experience any of them.

The only downside is that the process of getting to that dose increases your capsule intake, and at a certain point you might be better off taking something like Neurogan's 900mg capsules. Nootropics Depot’s NR Capsules also lack any supportive ingredients like those seen in Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support to fuel the salvage pathway, which could result in a decline in NAD+ levels after 12 weeks.52

Nootropics Depot pricing and returns

Nootropics Depot offers bulk pricing discounts but no subscription option. This is rather inconvenient, as you’ll have to remember to reorder when you’re running low, instead of having your next batch ship automatically. Every other provider in this guide offers some kind of subscription system for added convenience and savings.

Here’s how Nootropics Depot’s three pricing tiers work:

The cost per dose at the one-year tier is pretty low, but it’s still more expensive than Neurogan’s NAD+ Alternative.

Nootropics Depot also suffers from a $50 free-shipping threshold that excludes the 30-day supply, adding about another $10 to your cost. Compared to companies like Innerbody Labs, which ships all orders for free, that's a pricey add-on. It’s made worse by the fact that Nootropics Depot doesn’t offer any kind of money-back guarantee. Once you open a product, you own it. This stands in stark contrast to the 60-day guarantee from Renue by Science and even the less impressive 30-day guarantees from Neurogan and Innerbody Labs.

Best powder and best for novel delivery (liposomal, sublingual, nasal, etc.)

Renue by Science has been on the front line of NAD+ boosting for years, and we’ve closely followed its growth. To date, we’ve tried well over a dozen of its products, and we’re confident that there isn’t a company out there offering the same variety for similar prices.

Central to numerous Renue products is liposomal delivery, which is the microencapsulation of ingredients within fat-based structures that are designed to break down in the vicinity of target tissues.6 The simplest of these can make it through the harsh acidic environment of the stomach and get to the small intestine unscathed. More complex liposomal structures can remain intact as they enter the bloodstream, releasing their ingredients only when they’ve reached the place where they might do the most good.

One significant issue for consumers is that liposomal preparations aren’t all created equal. But the big downside to liposomal options is that there’s next to no research giving liposomal NR or NMN to humans. One such NMN study exists, and it shows a reasonable 25% increase in efficacy. But the study was exceedingly small, with just 15 participants, only five of whom received the liposomal NMN.41 The results are promising, but it’s far too early to recommend a specific dose adjustment or conclude that liposomal NAD+ boosters are worth the added cost.

And if more research confirms that a 25% boost in bioavailability is what we should expect from liposomal NAD+ precursors, then there’s another problem with many lipo products on the market today: they’re dosed too low to be competitive with many of the ordinary, encapsulated NR supplements. For example, Perpetua.Life’s combined 500mg of NMN and NR would get a liposomal boost to about 625mg — still significantly less than the 1,100mg of combined NR and NMN in Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support.

A similar issue arises with Renue’s NR Powder, with no research available to guide dosing for sublingual NR delivery. That said, sublingual administration should mostly bypass the GI tract, the cost per gram is pretty low, and the flavor is pleasant, making it our preferred powder recommendation for anyone seeking NR in powder form.

Renue by Science pricing and returns

Renue offers three NR-only products and another two products containing NR alongside other NAD+ boosters such as NMN or NAD+ itself:

While Renue’s sticker prices can initially appear higher compared to other companies, some of its products come in two- and three-month supplies that bring your cost per dose closer to the competition. You can also save an additional 10% on any order by subscribing, and you can set your subscription interval to 30, 45, or 60 days. In the case of products offered in three-month supplies, like the LIPO NR Capsules, this isn’t quite as convenient as it could be. Because it would take you about three months to go through it, that particular product should be available in a 90-day refill window, but it isn’t. By comparison, Thorne has a much more flexible subscription-customization system.

Here’s a quick look at the prices with and without a subscription for Renue’s three NR-only products:

Shipping from Renue by Science costs $4.95 in the U.S. if you spend less than $50 on an order. Orders of $50 or more (which is any of the three NR products we recommend) ship for free. Renue has the most generous return policy in our guide (tied with Thorne), offering you 60 days to try its supplements and still ask for a refund.

Best NR formula for people outside the U.S.

Perpetua.Life is a relatively young supplement company (founded in 2021), with only about eight products in its current catalog:

• AEON, an anti-aging complex
• AEON White
• Urolithin A
• Magnesium gummies
• Lion’s mane gummies
• Ashwagandha gummies
• Creatine gummies
• Novaxidil, a novel, minoxidil-based topical hair growth treatment

We’re not always crazy about the gummy approach, as dosing can be really difficult to control.40 Gummy supplements can contain far more or far less than what’s listed on the label, depending on numerous variables like the time elapsed between manufacture and purchase, temperature exposure, and more. Jennie Stanford, a board-certified family medicine doctor and member of our Medical Review Board, also points out, “It is hard (if not impossible) to create a palatable supplement gummy without added ingredients you may not want, like sugar.”

The company’s hair growth foam is also almost comically overpriced compared to its competition, which we’ve studied extensively for the better part of a decade.

Urolithin A is the company’s latest addition, and it’s one of the most promising anti-aging ingredients out there. Its primary benefit is its influence on mitophagy, the removal of damaged mitochondria that accumulate with age.53 We have a dedicated Urolithin A guide you can explore to learn more.

That leaves us with AEON and AEON White. Between the two, White is inferior. It boasts fewer meaningful ingredients and some curiously suboptimal doses, like its 100mg of glycine. Better to focus on AEON.

AEON starts with what Perpetua.Life calls Nicotinamide DUO, a liposomal blend of NR and NMN delivered in a 500mg dose. The company says it’s a proprietary blend, but fortunately, it’s up front about the ratio between NMN and NR, so you know what you’re getting. Specifically, the 500mg of Nicontinamide DUO in AEON delivers 400mg of NMN and 100mg of NR.

Here’s a look at AEON’s ingredient list:

• Vitamin B2: 1mg
• Vitamin B6: 5mg
• Vitamin B12: 2mcg
• Nicotinamide DUO: 500mg (400mg NMN, 100mg NR)
• Quercetin: 250mg
• Trans-resveratrol: 150mg
• Fisetin: 100mg
• Astragalus: 100mg
• L-Theanine: 100mg
• EGCG: 100mg
• TMG: 85mg
• Piperine: 10mg
• Spermidine: 10mg

Some of the ingredients on this list serve important purposes, either as anti-aging components themselves or as supportive ingredients for other anti-aging substances. For example, piperine doesn’t boast any anti-aging properties, but it’s been shown to improve the absorption of nutritional supplements, increasing the amount of the other ingredients your body will end up using.

Here’s a closer look at some of the ingredients in AEON that have genuine anti-aging potential and appear at doses research says should be effective:

Other ingredients in AEON show promise, like astragalus, but much of the research looking into these has been conducted in rats using liquid measures that don’t cleanly translate to human dose recommendations. And things like EGCG from green tea are better served up in higher doses — closer to 200mg-300mg, as opposed to the 100mg in AEON.6

Perpetua.Life AEON pricing and returns

AEON is available at a relatively reasonable price when you compare its contents to other competitors offering nothing but NR. You can also save 20% when you sign up for automatic deliveries. A one-time purchase costs $59/bottle, and a subscription will run you $47.20/month.

Let’s compare those numbers to another product containing NR, NMN, and a couple of other ingredients to improve NAD+ production, Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support:

As you can see, AEON is the cheaper product per dose and also has a lower sticker price. But Innerbody Labs outpaces it in NR, NMN, TMG, and spermidine doses. To be fair, AEON contains a few other ingredients that could help with aging but aren’t central to NAD+ production, like quercetin, fisetin, and L-theanine.

Perpetua.Life offers free shipping on orders of $40, for which one-time and subscription orders of AEON would qualify. The company also has a 30-day money-back guarantee, similar to the one from Innerbody Labs.

If you have any reason to be significantly concerned with the safety profile of NR chloride — a.k.a. Niagen, the most widely used NR supplement — Thorne’s NR hydrogen malate could be a nice alternative. NR malate is somewhat rare on the market, with Thorne’s version being the one we found to offer the best dose and manufacturing standards.

In addition to 415mg of NR malate, NiaCel 400 contains 85mg of TMG, which we discussed in the AEON and Innerbody Labs sections as being a methyl donor in the NAD+ production process. Essentially, its presence here facilitates a greater rate of NAD+ production from the same amount of NR than you could get from NR on its own.23 However, its 85mg dose is significantly less than the 500mg dose in Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support.

NiaCel 400 is also the only product in our guide to be NSF Certified for Sport, indicating that a product has met certain safety and manufacturing standards and has nothing in it that would get flagged by international anti-doping agencies that test athletes for performance-enhancing substances.

Thorne NiaCel 400 pricing and returns

NiaCel 400 has a pretty straightforward pricing structure, though the company’s claim of up to 20% off for subscribers is a little misleading. You can certainly save 20%, but only if you have active subscriptions to two other Thorne products. Otherwise, you’d only get 10% off for subscribing. That’s still as good as the subscription discount Renue by Science offers, but it pales in comparison to the 20% off you can get on a Perpetua.Life or Tru Niagen subscription.

Here’s what NiaCel 400 costs:

Thorne is one of only three companies in our guide to offer free shipping on all orders, regardless of how much you spend (the others being Innerbody Labs and Tru Niagen).

Thorne also stands out with its 60-day money-back guarantee — tied only with Renue by Science for length.

Tru Niagen didn’t crack into the summary of recommendations in this guide, nor did it find a top spot in our comprehensive NAD+ booster guide. It’s not that the product is lacking in potential efficacy — it should be as effective as any other NR supplement at a given dose — but the company’s standard dose of 300mg is on the low end of what studies show might be effective. And you can find NR from other companies in this guide that is more potent, less expensive, or both.

So, why include Tru Niagen at all? Because its parent company, Chromadex, developed NR chloride, known commercially as Niagen and found in most NR supplements. It’s likely the most recognizable name in NR, and it’s important to understand in case you fit within the narrow band of consumers for whom it could be the right fit — specifically, people looking to NR for immune support who won’t mind spending a little more on a bundle of multiple Tru Niagen products to maximize their benefit.

Tru Niagen offers four NR products in all:

• Tru Niagen
• Tru Niagen Pro
• Tru Niagen Stick Packs
• Tru Niagen Immune

The first three items on that list include only NR as a therapeutic ingredient. Original Tru Niagen is available in 150mg and 300mg capsules, while Tru Niagen Pro provides a 500mg dose per capsule (with a two-capsule recommended serving size). And the Stick Packs come with 300mg of NR per serving.

Things get a little more diversified on Immune’s ingredient label:

• NR: 150mg
• Theracurmin: 30mg
• Vitamin C: 180mg
• Vitamin D3: 50mcg
• Zinc: 20mg

Let’s look closer at each of these ingredients to see whether there are good reasons to include them and to use these particular doses:

That’s not a bad collection of ingredients and doses to support immunity. You have something like vitamin C to stave off a cold alongside zinc to mitigate a cold’s symptoms if one sets in. As Dr. Stanford points out, “Zinc has not been shown to successfully prevent common colds; in contrast to zinc, adequate vitamin C has been shown to reduce the incidence of the common cold.”

But the 150mg dose of NR is interesting here. It’s unlikely that you’d use Tru Niagen Immune as your sole source of NR. Either the original 300mg formula or the 1,000mg Tru Niagen Pro for daily use might be something you support with Tru Niagen Immune during times when you either want to stave off illness, know you’ve been exposed to something, or have started to develop symptoms.

Tru Niagen pricing

Tru Niagen’s pricing gets a little complicated, as the company offers both bulk and subscription discounts on some products. Here’s a brief breakdown of the pricing for each of Tru Niagen’s product lines:

Shipping from Tru Niagen is free on all orders, but the company doesn’t offer any kind of money-back guarantee. You can only return products that are unopened. That’s a stark difference from the other companies in this guide, like Thorne and Renue by Science, both of which offer 60-day guarantees.

Given some of the unknowns surrounding NR’s long-term use, it’s understandable that people might be curious about alternatives. We’ll confine our investigation here to the most promising alternatives to NR to fight the aging process or increase energy, with a particular focus on NR’s cousin, NMN.

NR vs. NMN

If you’re interested in a deep dive into the science comparing NR and NMN for NAD+ support, you should check out our complete guide to NAD+ supplements. Here, we’ll try to keep things as concise as possible, and you can use that guide or our specific guide to NMN supplements to explore more products.

In a nutshell, NR and NMN both boost NAD+. For years, scientists believed that NMN had to be converted back to NR before it could enter a cell and then be turned back into NMN to be useful. There was just no evidence that NMN could enter cells on its own. But that changed in 2018 with the discovery of a dedicated NMN transporter that acts like a friendly bouncer to let NMN into the cell without having to convert to NR first.31

And along the complex metabolic pathway that turns certain foods or supplements into NAD+, NR actually converts into NMN before it can play its role in synthesizing NAD+. That might seem like all you need to know. NMN is one step closer to NAD+ and it gets into cells on its own, so why not take only it and leave NR behind?

That led many to believe you could just take NMN and leave NR behind. But secondary effect studies looking at either ingredient’s potential to do more than just raise NAD+ levels have found that NR can do some things NMN can’t and vice versa.

Here’s a simple summary:

So, if you wanted certain effects based on the available clinical research, you might choose one or the other. Or, if you wanted to maximize the potential for a regimen to deliver as many benefits as possible, you might take both.

Other anti-aging supplements

The anti-aging space evolves quickly; we have a comprehensive anti-aging supplement guide page dedicated to keeping up with it. But there are some tried-and-true options that have been on the market for years and can boast some degree of reliable success for most users. We dove into a handful of these in our sections breaking down the complexes in Innerbody Labs NAD+ Support and Perpetua.Life’s AEON, but let’s look at a few more here:

These options may not be the flashy fountains of youth some supplements claim to be, but they stand the best chance of slowing aging and improving quality of life in the long run.