NRPT dosage and evidence
Written by Aaron CuhaReviewed Sep 2026
The short answer
In 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80, it raised NAD in whole blood by about 40 percent at the normal dose and about 90 percent at double dose, and held it there for 8 weeks.
Evidence grade for NRPT: Moderate. The rule: at least one finished study in people, and at least 100 people who took it. The sum on this page: 3 completed trials, 176 people given it. A grade counts how much has been done to people, not whether it works.
- People given it
- 176
- Human studies
- 3
- Found nothing
- 2
Dose
No human dose established
Amounts that were given in studies sit in Human evidence on this page. None of them is a personal dose.
3 completed trials, 176 people given it
3 effects reported, 2 unwanted, 1 wanted, by people using it, not a trial
Goal pages: Ageing and longevity, Hormones and growth hormone, Heart and circulation
In plain English
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.
NRPT is a two-part supplement sold as Basis. It mixes NR, which the body turns into NAD, with pterostilbene, a cousin of resveratrol. It is sold for healthy ageing. It is not approved for anything.
What people take it for
- Raising NAD.
- Healthy ageing.
- More energy.
What studies in people showed
In 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80, NAD in the blood rose about 40 percent on the normal dose over 8 weeks. It rose about 90 percent on double. The maker paid for that study. In 32 older adults, muscles were hurt on purpose. The supplement did nothing for repair. In 24 hospital patients with kidney injury, it raised NAD, but nothing about their kidneys changed. In mice, its main ingredient did not help them live longer.
What people report
Reports, not study results
The good
- A few people report noticing a small change. Most of them say they cannot tell if it was the product.
The bad
- Cost is the main complaint. Many say cheaper NMN makes it hard to justify.
- In the kidney study, 3 of 20 patients had minor stomach upset.
Where these come from: NAD threads on LongeCity about Elysium Basis, as collected for this page. The stomach upset line is from the kidney study on this page.
My bottom line
It raises a blood number. That is all it has shown. I would put the money into sleep, lifting and blood work.
An opinion, not a finding. I am a coach, not a doctor.
What it has been measured to do
Measured in people
Goals NRPT has been tested for in people, biggest studies first. We count only what the studies on this page say, so the real numbers may be higher.
- Cell energy and mitochondria144 people · 2 studies · 1 found nothing
- Kidney function24 people · 1 study · 1 found nothing
What people using it report
Real people telling you what happened to them. Nobody checked it, and the people who post are not a fair sample, so it cannot prove anything works. It is still the best guide on this page to what people actually do with NRPT, what they expect, and what goes wrong. The full account, including the negative reports, is below.
Animal and lab work, not yet tested in people
Real results, but from animals or cells, not people. What works in a mouse often does not work the same way in a person. Nobody can patent this, so nobody would ever earn back the cost of a study in people. That is usually why there is none. The record on this one is set out below.
- Testosterone and male hormones1 animal or lab study
- Living longer1 animal or lab study
32 of the 36 indexed goals have no study of any kind behind NRPT
No study in people, animals or cells on this page reports a result for these. That does not prove NRPT does nothing for them. It does mean anything you have heard about NRPT and one of these did not come from a study cited here.
Show full evidence
What is NRPT?
In 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80, it raised NAD in whole blood by about 40 percent at the normal dose and about 90 percent at double dose, and held it there for 8 weeks. Every published NRPT study has measured blood NAD or safety. The one study that measured something in the body, muscle repair after a deliberate injury in 32 older adults, found nothing.
NRPT is a two-part supplement. One part is nicotinamide riboside, or NR, which the body turns into NAD. The other is pterostilbene, a cousin of resveratrol that is said to switch on sirtuins. Elysium Health sells it as Basis. What sets it apart from other NAD products is that it has published studies in people at all.
The main study is exactly what it says it is. 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80 took a dummy pill, the normal dose, or double, for 8 weeks. By week 4, NAD in whole blood was up about 40 percent on the normal dose and about 90 percent on double. It stayed up through week 8. No serious side effects. NAD on the dummy pill did not move. An independent research company in Ontario ran the study. Elysium paid for it, and six of the seven authors were company staff and shareholders.
That is a clean, believable blood result. It is also the entire claim that it works.
The second study gave rising doses to 24 hospital patients with sudden kidney injury, for two days. It is worth reading for one side finding. The kidney injury itself cut blood NAD in half within 48 hours in patients on the dummy pill. Pooling all the dose steps, NRPT raised NAD 37 percent at 48 hours. Only one dose step stood out on its own, and results varied a lot between people. It was a safety study. It found no change in kidney blood tests, which it was not built to detect.
The third study matters most and gets quoted least. 32 adults aged 55 to 80 took 1000 mg of NR plus 200 mg of pterostilbene a day. Then their muscles were injured on purpose, using electric stimulation during hard lengthening work. The injury was real. The supplement made no difference to muscle stem cells: how many there were, how fast they grew or how big they got. It made no difference to muscle fibre size or to the markers of new muscle. A research foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, paid for it, not the maker.
How does NRPT work?
Two parts, two ideas. The body turns nicotinamide riboside into NMN and then into NAD. That raises the supply for the enzymes that use NAD, like sirtuins, PARPs and CD38. Pterostilbene is a cousin of resveratrol that the body absorbs better by mouth. The idea behind adding it is that supplying NAD without switching on the enzymes that use it is only half the job. That makes sense. But no study in people has tested the combination against either part alone. So whether pterostilbene adds anything, to the NAD rise or anything else, is unknown.
What have studies in people found about NRPT?
Three published studies with a dummy pill group, 176 people in all. Two measured blood NAD and safety, and found what they were looking for. The one that measured something in the body found nothing.
- 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80, 8 weeks: NAD in whole blood up about 40 percent at the normal dose and about 90 percent at double, and it stayed up. No serious side effects. The maker paid, and the authors are company staff and shareholders.
- 32 adults aged 55 to 80, muscle injured on purpose: no effect on muscle stem cells, how many, how fast they grew or how big, and no effect on fibre size or markers of new muscle. Paid for independently by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
- 24 hospital patients with sudden kidney injury, 2 days: pooled across doses, NAD up 37 percent at 48 hours. Only one of four dose steps stood out on its own, and results varied a lot between patients. Safety blood tests did not change.
- A side finding from that study that deserves its own line: the kidney injury itself cut NAD in whole blood in half within 48 hours in patients on the dummy pill.
- No published study has compared NRPT with nicotinamide riboside alone. So what pterostilbene adds is untested in people.
- A large study of nicotinamide riboside with pterostilbene in ALS, NCT04562831, with 380 people, is still running and no longer signing people up. Its results are not published.
What this does not tell you: The main study measured a blood chemical and safety, and nothing else. So it cannot back any claim about how a person feels or functions. The company that sells the product paid for it, and six of seven authors were company staff and shareholders. That does not make the NAD result wrong. It does mean someone with a stake chose what to measure. The only study that tested a result in the body was paid for independently, and found nothing. Nothing here covers ageing, thinking, energy or lifespan. And the best mouse lifespan test of the main ingredient found nothing too.
What do people who took NRPT report?
This is what real people say happened to them, good and bad. Nobody measured it. A report cannot tell a real effect from the lift people get just from expecting it to work, from a diet or training change made at the same time, or from what was really in the vial. We still put it near the top. It is the next best thing to a study in people: what happens when real people use it, including what goes wrong.
- Discussed almost entirely as a branded product rather than as a combination, and the discussion is more about the company than about anything anyone felt.
- Reports of noticing a difference are sparse. The accounts that do exist tend to describe a change in something incidental, and the people making them usually say themselves that there is no way to attribute it to the product rather than to anything else they were doing.
- Cost is the dominant objection. The repeated framing is that it was arguably worth the price only while the nicotinamide riboside supply was restricted, and that cheaper NMN has made the case for it hard to sustain.
- A formulation dispute runs through the threads, with members arguing from the physical appearance of the powder that the nicotinamide riboside in it was no longer the branded ingredient it had been, against the manufacturer's position. That argument is unresolved in the discussion and is presented here as a dispute, not a finding.
- Side effect reports are close to absent. Combined with how few people report feeling anything at all, that is uninformative.
- The company's other products draw sharper criticism in the same threads, described as underdosed and overpriced, and the general view offered is that buying the components separately would cost less.
Sources: NAD+ subforum threads on Elysium Basis, the published NRPT trial and nicotinamide riboside vendor discussion on LongeCity, found by site-restricted search, September 2026. Nothing above is attributed to any specific post and no post is reproduced.
The state of the research
NRPT is the clearest case in this batch of a company doing real research, and that research answering a question nobody was really asking.
The 2017 study was properly designed. It had 120 people, a dummy pill group, an independent research company, a double-dose group, and full disclosure of who paid and who owned shares. It showed, convincingly, that the product raises NAD in whole blood by about 40 percent at the label dose and holds it there. That claim is true, and this site does not dispute it.
The question is what the reader is meant to do with it. The product is not sold as a way to raise a blood chemical. It is sold on the hint that raising it does something. The only published NRPT study that tested whether it does something in the body injured the muscles of 32 older adults on purpose. The supplement changed nothing about how the muscle repaired itself. An independent foundation paid for that study.
There is also the lifespan result for the main ingredient. The US government mouse testing program fed nicotinamide riboside to mixed-breed mice from middle age, at three separate labs. It found no effect on lifespan in either sex. In the same group of mice, a comparison drug made males live 19 percent longer, so the test could spot a real effect. That is the strictest lifespan test in mammals there is, and sales copy for NAD products almost never mentions it.
One thing on the plus side deserves saying. The kidney injury study found that the illness itself cut blood NAD in half within 48 hours. That is a real and interesting finding about NAD as a sign of illness, and it came out of a safety study the company paid for.
In this field, the maker paying for the study, and the maker employing the authors, is normal, not a rare footnote. It is spelled out on each page here rather than buried. Elysium Health paid for the NRPT studies, and company staff and shareholders were among the authors. The MIB-626 studies list Metro International Biotech as a funder, with company staff among the authors. ChromaDex paid for the nicotinamide riboside dose study, and two company staff were authors. Nestle Research staff wrote most of the study comparing three NAD boosters. None of that makes a result wrong. It does mean the studies paid for by someone else deserve more weight than their size alone suggests. And those independent studies are mostly the ones that found nothing.
The evidence, in charts
Fig. 1a · how many people
176people, across 3 studies in people cited here
| Study | People | Share |
|---|---|---|
| npj Aging and Mechanisms of Disease 2017 | 120 | 68% |
| JCI Insight 2022 | 32 | 18% |
| BMC Nephrology 2020 | 24 | 14% |
One study holds 68% of these people, so the total rests more on one study than its size suggests. Counts are the number of people each study on this page says it signed up. That includes studies that only watched people and gave nobody the compound. Studies still signing people up are left out, and only studies cited on this page are counted.
Fig. 1b · evidence mix
3 of 4 sources here are studies in people. The rest is not.
- Study in people · done in people375%
- Animal study · done in animals125%
Counted from the list of sources on this page. It counts only what we cite, so there may be more studies out there. A review counts once, however many studies it sums up.
Fig. 2 · evidence over time
The studies cover 4 different years, 2017 to 2022, counted from the list of sources 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 countries shown. This is what the law says, not a verdict on the science. See Legal status below for the full text and any notes.
Fig. 4 · how much does what
Nobody has tested different amounts in people
This chart would show how the effect changes as the amount goes up. For this compound, nobody has measured that in people. So we leave it empty. We will not borrow an animal chart and pretend it works the same in people.
Fig. 5 · what the molecule is
- Kind of compound
- Supplement
- Molecule weight
- Not applicable to a two-ingredient product. Nicotinamide riboside chloride is 290.7 Da and pterostilbene is 256.3 Da.
- Half-life
- Stated in words, not a numbersee the exact wording below
- Chain length
- None on file
Half-life as stated on file: Not a single molecule, so a single half-life does not apply. The relevant kinetics are those of nicotinamide riboside and pterostilbene separately, and the measured effect in the trials is the downstream whole blood NAD rise, which built over weeks and persisted for the duration of dosing.
No amino acid sequence is on file for NRPT, which is expected: a supplement is not built from amino acids.
The studies we cite
- Study in people2017Repeat dose NRPT (nicotinamide riboside and pterostilbene) increases NAD(+) levels in humans safely and sustainably: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study
The pills raise NAD in the blood, and that is all this trial measured. 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80 took a dummy pill, the recommended dose, or double, every day for eight weeks, and nobody involved knew which. NAD rose about 40 percent on the normal dose and about 90 percent on the double, and stayed up for the full eight weeks. Nothing rose on the dummy. No serious side effects. Nobody measured whether anyone felt or functioned better. Elysium Health, which sells the product, paid for it.
The pivotal trial. 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80 randomised to placebo, recommended dose NRPT, or double dose, taken daily for 8 weeks. Whole blood NAD rose approximately 40 percent at the recommended dose and approximately 90 percent at double dose after 4 weeks compared with placebo and baseline, and the increase was sustained through the full 8 weeks. Placebo NAD did not rise. No serious adverse events. The endpoints are blood NAD and safety; no functional or clinical outcome was assessed. Funded by Elysium Health, which sells the product as Basis, and conducted by an independent contract research organisation, KGK Synergize. Six authors are Elysium employees and shareholders. A correction was published in the same journal in 2018.
- Study in people2022A randomized placebo-controlled trial of nicotinamide riboside and pterostilbene supplementation in experimental muscle injury in elderly individuals
When this combination was finally tested on something that matters, it did nothing. 32 people aged 55 to 80 took nicotinamide riboside with pterostilbene daily, then had muscle damage deliberately induced by electrical stimulation. The damage was real and the repair machinery was clearly under demand. The supplement changed none of it. Muscle stem cell numbers, growth and size were unaffected, and so were fibre size and the markers of new muscle. Funded by a research foundation, not by the manufacturer.
The functional test, and it was null. 32 elderly participants aged 55 to 80 received NR 1000 mg plus pterostilbene 200 mg daily and underwent experimental muscle injury induced by electrically stimulated eccentric work. Substantial injury was induced and muscle stem cells showed large recruitment demand, but muscle stem cell content, proliferation and cell size were not affected by supplementation. There was no effect on muscle fibre area, central nuclei or embryonic myosin heavy chain. NCT03754842. Funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, not by the manufacturer.
- Study in people2020Nicotinamide riboside with pterostilbene (NRPT) increases NAD(+) in patients with acute kidney injury (AKI): a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, stepwise safety study of escalating doses of NRPT in patients with AKI
The pills raised NAD in patients with sudden kidney injury, and nothing about their kidneys changed. 24 hospital patients took rising doses of the combination or a dummy for two days. The kidney injury itself halved NAD in the untreated patients, which is a finding in its own right. Pooled across doses the supplement lifted NAD by about a third, though results jumped around between individuals and only one dose step stood out alone. Kidney and liver blood tests were unchanged. Two authors work for Elysium Health.
NCT03176628. 24 hospitalised patients with acute kidney injury received escalating doses of NRPT or placebo twice daily for 2 days across four dose steps up to 1000 mg NR with 200 mg pterostilbene. Acute kidney injury itself reduced whole blood NAD by 50 percent at 48 hours in placebo patients (P=0.05). Pooling all steps, NRPT increased NAD by 37 percent at 48 hours (P=0.002), but only one individual step reached significance and interindividual variability was considerable. Creatinine, eGFR, electrolytes, liver function tests and blood counts were unchanged. Three of 20 patients on NRPT reported minor gastrointestinal effects. Two authors are Elysium Health employees.
- Animal study202117-a-estradiol late in life extends lifespan in aging UM-HET3 male mice; nicotinamide riboside and three other drugs do not affect lifespan in either sex
In mice. In the US government mouse testing program, mixed-breed mice fed nicotinamide riboside from 8 months old did not live longer, male or female, across three labs. In the same group, a drug called 17-alpha-estradiol made males live 19 percent longer on average. That shows the test could spot a big effect.
The relevant lifespan null for the nicotinamide riboside half of this product. In the National Institute on Aging Interventions Testing Program, genetically heterogeneous UM-HET3 mice fed nicotinamide riboside from 8 months of age showed no significant effect on lifespan in either sex in the pooled three-site dataset, the programme's primary endpoint. In the same cohort and the same three sites, 17-alpha-estradiol extended median male lifespan by 19 percent, demonstrating the experiment could detect a large effect. Funded by the National Institute on Aging, conflicts declared as none.
Common questions
Has NRPT been tested in people?
Yes. 176 people given it across 3 completed trials cited here, 2 of which found nothing. In 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80, it raised NAD in whole blood by about 40 percent at the normal dose and about 90 percent at double dose, and held it there for 8 weeks.
What is the NRPT dosage?
No human dose established. Amounts that were given in studies sit in Human evidence on this page. None of them is a personal dose. 3 completed trials, 176 people given it
Is NRPT FDA-approved?
Sold as a dietary supplement in the United States. Not approved as a drug for any use. Nicotinamide riboside chloride has new supplement ingredient safety filings with the FDA, and is generally recognised as safe for certain uses. Pterostilbene is also sold as a supplement ingredient.
Does Basis actually raise NAD?
Yes, and the evidence for that one claim is good. In 120 healthy adults aged 60 to 80 over 8 weeks, NAD in whole blood rose about 40 percent at the normal dose and about 90 percent at double dose. It stayed up for the whole study, and it did not rise on the dummy pill. An independent research company ran the study, and the maker paid for it.
Does raising NAD by 40 percent do anything?
No published NRPT study has shown that it does. The only study that tested a result in the body looked at muscle repair after a deliberate injury in 32 older adults. It found no effect on muscle stem cells, their growth or size, fibre size or markers of new muscle. It was paid for independently.
What does pterostilbene add?
Unknown in people. No published study has compared NRPT with nicotinamide riboside alone. So there is no way to credit the NAD rise, or anything else, to pterostilbene. The idea is that supplying NAD without switching on the enzymes that use it is only half the job. That is reasonable, and untested in people.
Is it safe?
The published safety record is good, within its limits. No serious side effects in 120 healthy older adults over 8 weeks. Safety blood tests did not change in hospital kidney injury patients over 2 days. In that study, 3 of 20 patients on NRPT had minor stomach upset. Eight weeks is the longest anyone has taken it in a published study, and nobody with an active cancer was in any of these studies.
Do NAD supplements extend lifespan?
The main ingredient here was tested in the US government mouse testing program, which feeds products to mixed-breed mice at three separate labs. Nicotinamide riboside had no effect on lifespan in either sex. In the same group, a comparison drug made males live 19 percent longer. There is no human lifespan data for any NAD booster.