By Mohana Ravindranath

The cells in our bodies naturally break down as we age, making it harder to bounce back from illness and injury in our later years. What if you could make your cells more resilient to damage to stave off that decline?

That's the idea behind NAD+ boosting, a trendy longevity therapy.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+, is a molecule found in all cells that's essential for repairing damage, generating energy and encouraging healing. NAD+ levels decrease with age, and some scientists think that increasing those levels through infusions or supplements could potentially slow the aging process. But they warn that the treatments are unregulated and largely unproven.

Research on mice strongly supports using some NAD+ boosting therapies for healthy aging, said Daniel Craighead, an assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of Minnesota who has studied NAD+. But scientists don't know whether the therapies currently on the market meaningfully improve health span or life span in humans, he said.

“The literature is very scarce” on health span and life span, echoed Jonas Thue Treebak, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen's Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research.“The science is almost nonexistent.”

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