Tru Niagen Review at 71: Why I Chose the Clinical Dose

I have been taking NAD precursors on and off for a while now. I took NMN powder, and I dropped it. What I have never taken is the one with the deepest research behind it, and after a conversation about Dr. Bill Andrews’ top three supplements I finally noticed the gap.

So I ordered Tru Niagen Pro. One thousand milligrams a day. This post is the starting line, not the finish.

What Nicotinamide Riboside Actually Is

Nicotinamide riboside is a form of vitamin B3 that your body converts into NAD+, a coenzyme every cell needs for energy production and DNA repair. NAD+ falls as you age. The idea is straightforward: put the precursor in, get the NAD+ back up.

Nearly every credible NR product on the market uses the same patented ingredient, called Niagen, made by Niagen Bioscience. If Niagen is on the label you are getting the material used in the clinical trials, whoever is selling it.

Why I Chose the 1,000 mg Instead of the 300 mg

Because that is the dose the research actually used.

The dose-response work (Conze et al, Scientific Reports 2019) put 140 adults on 100, 300 or 1,000 mg a day for eight weeks. Whole blood NAD+ rose 22 percent, 51 percent and 142 percent respectively, and stayed up. That is not a small gap between the low and high dose.

More to the point, the trials in people my age used 1,000 mg. If I am going to run this on myself and write about it honestly, I would rather be doing what the studies did than a lighter version of it.

It comes as two 500 mg capsules a day, which slots into my existing stack without any trouble.

Why I Went From a Needle Back to a Capsule

This is not my first try at raising NAD+. Earlier this year I injected NAD+ itself every day for 45 days: 0.25 mL under the skin of my belly. I wrote about starting that protocol, and my argument at the time was absorption. A needle skips the gut and the liver, so what goes in is what your body gets.

That argument sounds right. The research behind it is thin. The best-known human study of NAD+ delivered straight into the bloodstream is a small 2019 pilot in which healthy men received a six-hour IV infusion, and the researchers reported, to their own surprise, that plasma NAD+ did not change at all for the first two hours (Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience). I have not found a comparable study of the at-home injection route.

Oral nicotinamide riboside is the opposite situation. It is the form with controlled human trials behind it.

When I interviewed Dr. Bill Andrews, he called NAD+ injections “a complete waste of time.” I was injecting every day when he said it. I had been told I would feel the effect quickly, and I never did. After that conversation, I quit.

What the Research Shows, and Where It Stops

NR reliably raises NAD+. Whether raising NAD+ makes a healthy person better off is a different question, and it is not settled.

That distinction is the whole story with this compound, and most of what you will read online skips straight past it.

The strongest positive result I can find is the NICE trial (McDermott et al, Nature Communications 2024) — 90 people with peripheral artery disease, six months of NR. Walking distance improved by about 18 meters over placebo, and by 31 meters among the people who actually took at least three quarters of their pills. That is a real functional outcome in a real randomized trial.

But read what it is. Those were people with diagnosed vascular disease and severe walking disability. Finding an improvement in a group with something broken is much easier than finding one in a healthy 71-year-old who already walks two miles every morning.

That is the pattern across this whole literature. The trials mostly show that NR does the biochemistry without delivering the outcome, and the clearest wins come from populations with a deficit to correct.

The Things I Am Not Going to Pretend Away

Three of them.

The product testing problem is real. A survey of 39 NR products found a third contained almost no NR at all, and more than 70 percent had significantly less than the label claimed. Counterfeit Tru Niagen listings have turned up on Amazon. That is why I bought direct from the brand rather than through a marketplace. Worth knowing, though: that survey was run by the company that sells the ingredient, so it is not a neutral source even though independent testing has found similar things.

There is one unresolved safety signal. A mouse study found NR associated with increased brain metastasis in an aggressive breast cancer model. It has not been replicated in humans, and mouse cancer models frequently do not translate. But it is the reason “more NAD+ is always better” is not something I am willing to say. If you have a cancer history, this is a conversation for your doctor and not for a blog post.

I am not measuring NAD+ directly. There are consumer tests for it. I decided not to buy one. That means I cannot tell you in six months whether my NAD+ went up, and I am telling you that now rather than quietly leaving it out later.

What I Am Measuring Instead

What I already track, which is not nothing.

My next full blood panel is January, and everything from it goes on my test and stats page like all the others. My ring gives me sleep, resting heart rate and HRV every single night, so I will have months of that on both sides of this. And I walk two miles most mornings, which — given what the NICE trial measured — is a more relevant comparison than it first appears.

None of that proves a mechanism. It might show an outcome, and outcomes are exactly what this compound keeps failing to produce in healthy people.

Come Back in January

I will report what the panel says and what the ring says, including if the answer is that nothing changed. That result is just as publishable as any other, and with this supplement it is the more likely one.

If you want to try it, Tru Niagen sells direct here. Buy from them or another authorized seller rather than a third-party marketplace listing, for the reasons above.

Keep Going

Everything I take is listed with its dose on my supplement stack and on my protocols page. What I do to stay strong is on my fitness page, and every blood number I publish is on my test and stats page.

Live long and prosper,
Gary

A note from Gary: I am not a doctor, and I am definitely not your doctor. I am a 71-year-old man running a 129-year experiment on himself in public. Talk to your physician before changing anything you take, and especially before adding an NAD precursor if you have a cancer history. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.