NAD+ with glutathione
NAD+ with glutathione (clinic infusion or injection protocol)
Written by Aaron CuhaReviewed Sep 2026
Also known as: NAD glutathione drip, Longevity drip
In plain English, from Aaron
This is how I would explain it to a friend. The evidence, with the numbers, is further down the page.
This is the drip clinic pair. Usually two separate bags or pushes in one visit, not one premixed bottle. NAD is sold for energy and aging. Glutathione is sold as the master antioxidant.
What people take it for
- Energy and clearer thinking.
- Feeling less worn down.
- Brighter skin.
- Hangover and recovery visits.
What the trials actually showed
Nobody has tested them together. Take glutathione first, because somebody did test it. Twenty one people with Parkinson's disease got glutathione by drip, 1,400 mg three times a week for four weeks, or a dummy drip. It was safe. There was no real difference in their symptom scores. The scores went up a little more on the drug, then went down a little more after. Neither was close to meaningful. The NAD side is thinner than it sounds. Most human work uses a pill that your body turns into NAD, not NAD itself. In one study of healthy volunteers, that pill doubled blood NAD. That is a real measurement. It is also the whole result. Blood NAD went up. What that changes for a person has not been shown.
What people report
Reports, not trial results
The good
- Feeling clearer or more energetic for a few days after.
- Skin looking brighter, which is what injected glutathione is most used for worldwide.
The bad
- Chest tightness, nausea, cramping and flushing during a fast NAD drip. Almost everyone gets this. Slowing the drip fixes it.
- A sulphur taste during the glutathione push.
- Nothing lasting, and annoyance at the price.
Where these come from: Drip clinic patient accounts and forums. People talking, in a setting built to create a strong expectation: an expensive appointment with staff watching you.
My bottom line
One half was tested properly and did not beat a dummy drip. The other half proves it can raise a number in your blood and nothing past that. That is a lot of money for a surrogate.
An opinion, not a finding. I am a coach, not a doctor.
Overview
Usually two separate preparations given in one clinic visit rather than one vial, because no premixed product is canonical. NAD+ infusions raise blood NAD, which is a measurement rather than an outcome. The best controlled trial of intravenous glutathione, in Parkinson's disease, found no significant difference in symptom scores against placebo.
The drip clinic version of longevity. A typical visit is a hydration bag, a glutathione push and a NAD+ infusion, sometimes with B vitamins alongside. Because these are given as separate preparations, this page is about a protocol rather than a vial, and no fixed ratio or premixed product is standard across clinics.
What the components are supplied at gives the scale. Compounded glutathione injection is commonly 200 mg/mL, so a 0.5 mL injection is 100 mg of glutathione. NAD+ injection is commonly supplied at 200 mg/mL, and clinic infusions are typically in the range of a few hundred milligrams per session. Those are wildly different mass scales from the peptide vials elsewhere in this database, and they are also not doses derived from trials, because no trial has established an intravenous dose of either for any longevity purpose.
On the NAD+ side, the human evidence that exists is mostly about precursors rather than NAD+ itself. In an open-label study of the oral precursor nicotinamide riboside in healthy volunteers, NAD+ rose significantly from baseline, roughly doubling at steady state, and the change in NR correlated closely with the change in NAD+. That is a real, measured pharmacodynamic effect. It is also the surrogate: blood NAD went up. A 2026 systematic review of NAD+ supplementation across preclinical and clinical evidence is the current summary of how far that has and has not translated into outcomes.
On the glutathione side there is a controlled trial and it was negative. Twenty one people with Parkinson's disease were randomised to intravenous glutathione 1,400 mg or placebo three times a week for four weeks. Glutathione was well tolerated with no withdrawals for adverse events. There were no significant differences in change in Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scores: motor and daily living scores improved by a mean of 2.8 units more on glutathione at p = 0.32, then worsened by 3.5 units more over the following eight weeks at p = 0.54. The authors describe a possible mild symptomatic effect requiring a larger study.
There is one further thing worth knowing about injected glutathione, because it is the reason a very large share of the world's glutathione injections are given. It is widely used as a skin whitening agent, and a dermatology review has examined the facts, myths and controversies around that use.
Mechanism of action
NAD+ is a central redox cofactor and a substrate for sirtuins and PARPs; the rationale for raising it is that tissue NAD declines with age. Whether infused NAD+ enters cells intact or is degraded to precursors first is not settled, which is a real gap given that the oral evidence is all precursor evidence. Glutathione is the main intracellular antioxidant tripeptide; given intravenously it is subject to rapid plasma turnover, and whether an infusion meaningfully raises intracellular glutathione in target tissues is not established.
Human evidence
One component has a surrogate result, the other has a negative controlled trial in the one condition where it has been properly tested, and the protocol has never been studied.
- The protocol: no published study of the two given together.
- NAD precursor: oral nicotinamide riboside roughly doubled blood NAD+ at steady state in healthy volunteers, with the change tightly correlated to NR exposure.
- Intravenous NAD+ itself: no adequately controlled trial establishing a dose or an outcome.
- Intravenous glutathione: in 21 Parkinson's patients, no significant difference against placebo on symptom scores, well tolerated.
- Glutathione's most widespread injected use is skin whitening, reviewed separately in the dermatology literature.
What this does not tell you: Raising a blood concentration is the entire NAD result. No trial has connected that rise to fatigue, cognition, healthspan or anything else people buy a drip for. And the glutathione data that exists is for a neurological indication, given intravenously at a defined dose, with a null result.
What it has been measured to do
Measured in people
Goals NAD+ with glutathione has been measured for in a human being, most people first. Counts come from the study lines on this page and deliberately undercount.
- Cell energy and mitochondriano headcount stated · 1 study
What people using it report
Uncontrolled and self-selected, so it cannot show that anything works. It is still the best guide on this page to what people actually do with NAD+ with glutathione, what they expect, and what goes wrong. The full account, including the negative reports, is below.
35 of the 36 indexed goals have no study of any kind behind NAD+ with glutathione
No trial, no animal work, no cell work on this page reports a result for these. That is an absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence, but it does mean anything you have been told about NAD+ with glutathione and one of these did not come from a study cited here.
Reading the research record
Two things make this protocol difficult to evaluate honestly, and both should be stated. First, the NAD field's central finding is a surrogate: blood NAD can be raised, reliably and measurably. Everything that matters downstream of that is either unmeasured or measured in animals. Second, most of the human NAD evidence uses oral precursors, and infusing NAD+ itself is a different intervention that has not been characterised in the same way.
The glutathione half is more straightforward because someone actually ran the trial and it did not show a benefit. That is worth more than a dozen mechanistic arguments, and it is the kind of result that rarely makes it onto a clinic page.
The last thing is the infusion experience itself. Fast NAD+ infusions are notoriously uncomfortable, producing chest tightness, nausea and flushing that resolve when the rate is reduced. That is not a side effect in the ordinary sense, it is a dose-rate phenomenon, and it is the most consistent thing anyone reports about these appointments.
The evidence, charted
Fig. 1a · evidence scale
21people, across 1 human study cited here
- 2009 · Movement Disorders21100%
The whole total is one study of 21. Counts are the enrollment each human citation on this page states, which includes observational cohorts where nobody was given the compound. 1 further human citation states no participant count and is not counted here. Studies still recruiting are excluded, and only studies cited on this page are counted.
Fig. 1b · evidence mix
2 of 4 citations here are human work, the rest are not.
- Human · given to people250%
- Review · summarises other work250%
Counted from the citation list on this page, typed as this page types it. It understates any literature larger than the sources we cite, and a review counts once however many studies it covers.
Fig. 2 · evidence over time
Evidence spans 4 distinct years, 2009 to 2026, counted from the citation list on this page.
Fig. 3 · legal status at a glance
US
Not approved
UK
Not approved
AU
Not approved
CA
Not approved
Not approved in any of the four jurisdictions shown. A jurisdiction's classification is a regulatory fact, not a verdict on the science; see Legal status below for the full text and any notes.
Fig. 5 · molecular identity
- Modality
- Blend
- Molecular weight
- Not on file
- Half-life
- Stated in words, not a number
- Sequence length
- None on file
see the exact wording below
Half-life as stated on file: Not defined for the protocol. Both components turn over rapidly in plasma and neither has an established intravenous dosing interval for any longevity indication.
No amino acid sequence is on file for NAD+ with glutathione, which is expected: a blend is not built from residues.
Fig. 6 · what is in the vial
No mass split can be drawn for this blend
Sellers do not publish a consistent vial size for NAD+ with glutathione, so the share of each component is not knowable from the outside. Splitting the bar evenly would invent the number this page exists to question.
- NAD+amount not stated
- Glutathioneamount not stated
Component list from the product labels we hold. Amounts are label mass, never a dose.
Key studies & citations
- Human2009
Randomized, double-blind, pilot evaluation of intravenous glutathione in Parkinson's disease
21 people with Parkinson's disease randomised to intravenous glutathione 1,400 mg or placebo three times a week for four weeks. Glutathione was well tolerated with no withdrawals for adverse events and similar adverse events in both groups. There were no significant differences in Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale change: daily living plus motor scores improved by a mean of 2.8 units more on glutathione at p = 0.32, then worsened by 3.5 units more over the next eight weeks at p = 0.54. The authors describe a possible mild symptomatic effect needing a larger study.
Movement Disorders - Human2017
An open-label, non-randomized study of the pharmacokinetics of the nutritional supplement nicotinamide riboside (NR) and its effects on blood NAD+ levels in healthy volunteers
Oral nicotinamide riboside was well tolerated with no adverse events. Significant increases from baseline to steady state were seen for both NR at p = 0.03 and NAD+ at p = 0.001, with NAD+ rising by 100%. Change in NR and change in NAD+ correlated at R squared 0.72. This is the surrogate that the NAD field rests on: blood NAD can be raised.
PLoS One - Review2026
NAD⁺ supplementation for anti-aging and wellness: A PRISMA-guided systematic review of preclinical and clinical evidence
A systematic review of the preclinical and clinical evidence for NAD+ supplementation in aging and wellness, and the current summary of how far the surrogate finding that blood NAD can be raised has translated into clinical outcomes.
Ageing Research Reviews - Review2016
Glutathione as a skin whitening agent: Facts, myths, evidence and controversies
A dermatology review of glutathione used as a skin whitening agent, covering the evidence, the claims and the controversies around intravenous use. This is the indication for which a large share of the world's glutathione injections are actually given, and it is not the one drip clinics advertise.
Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology
What users report
Self-reported experiences, not evidence. Nothing below was measured under controlled conditions, and reports like these cannot separate a real effect from placebo, from the training or diet change that accompanied it, or from what the product actually contained. They are here because knowing what people describe, including what goes wrong, is worth reading alongside the studies.
- Chest tightness, nausea, cramping and flushing during a fast NAD+ infusion, resolving when the drip rate is slowed. This is close to universal.
- Feeling clearer or more energetic for a few days afterwards.
- Skin looking brighter, which is what injected glutathione is most widely used for.
- Nothing lasting, and disappointment at the cost.
- A sulphur taste or smell during the glutathione push.
Sources: Drip clinic patient accounts, forums and clinic write-ups. Uncontrolled self-reports in a setting with an unusually strong expectation effect, since the appointment is expensive, attended and supervised.
Frequently asked questions
Does the glutathione work?
In the controlled trial that tested it, no. Twenty one people with Parkinson's disease received intravenous glutathione or placebo and there were no significant differences in symptom scores, though it was well tolerated.
Does an NAD+ drip raise my NAD?
Blood NAD can be raised, and that has been measured, mostly with oral precursors rather than infused NAD+. What that rise changes in a person is the part nobody has shown.
Why does the infusion feel awful?
It is a rate effect. Fast NAD+ infusions produce chest tightness, nausea and flushing that settle when the drip is slowed. It is the most consistently reported feature of these appointments.
Is this one product?
Usually not. These are typically two separate preparations given in one visit, and no premixed NAD+ plus glutathione product is standard, which is why this page states no fixed ratio.
What is injected glutathione mostly used for worldwide?
Skin whitening. A dermatology review covers the evidence and the controversies around that use, and it is a much larger use case than the longevity framing suggests.