If you’re focused on having a healthy metabolism and managing your weight more effectively, we’re sure you have a solid foundation with a healthy diet and consistent exercise routine. You probably also take supplements and are most likely proactive about getting regular bloodwork to monitor your overall health and hormone balance.
But what about your NAD+ levels? Have you ever considered how they might be affecting your metabolism and weight loss efforts?
Outside of hearing NAD+ mentioned all over social media with athletes claiming it boosts performance and recovery, and others sharing personal success stories of why they’re supplementing with it for brain health and healthy aging, you might not know very much about NAD+ and why it’s essential for your health. Even if you do, you might not fully understand how it supports metabolic health.
If metabolic health, weight loss, or maintaining a healthy weight is important to you, it’s worth having a better understanding of NAD+, why having healthy levels matters for your metabolism (especially with age), and how it works in your body alongside key processes that influence weight and energy levels.
We hope by the time you finish this quick read, you’ll have a solid grasp of how NAD+ fits into your overall metabolic health strategy and whether it could be the missing piece in supporting your weight loss goals.
Why NAD+ Matters for Your Metabolism
NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a coenzyme found in every cell of your body that is essential for life. It helps your cells produce the energy they need to function and supports countless biological processes that keep you healthy and aging well from the inside out.
When it comes to your metabolism, NAD+ is one of the most important coenzymes in your body for supporting healthy metabolism, directly impacting several processes that are essential for optimal metabolic health.
NAD+ is required for converting the food you eat into usable energy. This process fuels everything from muscle contraction and brain function to how your body regulates energy balance throughout the day. It’s also involved in turning carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into ATP (cellular energy), and is believed to support healthy insulin signaling, helping your body maintain proper blood sugar control.
Your body naturally produces NAD+, but levels decline significantly with age. By the time you reach your 40s and 50s, research shows those levels can be half of what they were when you were younger.
Chronic stress, poor sleep, and certain lifestyle factors can also lower NAD+ production. This means you can be in your 20s or 30s and still experience the effects of suboptimal NAD+ levels.
When NAD+ levels are not where they should be, it can potentially affect how well your body burns fat, balances energy, and responds to insulin. All factors that can have a direct impact on your metabolic health and long-term weight management.
How NAD+ Is Connected to Metabolic Health
Because NAD+ is in every cell, it influences many processes that keep you healthy and aging well. When it comes to metabolism, it plays a role in several systems that determine how your body uses energy, burns fat, and stays in balance over time.
Mitochondrial Energy Production
Mitochondria are often called the powerhouses of the cell because they generate ATP, the molecule that fuels nearly every cellular function. NAD+ is a required coenzyme in this process. It helps drive the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, the pathways that convert carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into usable energy.
When NAD+ levels are sufficient, mitochondria can produce energy more efficiently, which supports steady energy output and allows your body to use stored fat as fuel when needed. This efficiency can help you feel more energized, perform better during workouts, and avoid mid-day energy slumps that can impact productivity and activity levels.
Fat Burning and Fat Oxidation
Fat burning is your body’s ability to take stored fat and use it for energy. At the cellular level, this happens through fat oxidation, where fat is broken down and sent into the mitochondria, the parts of your cells that convert it into usable energy.
NAD+ is essential for this process. It supports the enzymes and pathways that free fat from storage and move it into the mitochondria. Proteins called sirtuins, which require NAD+ to work, also help regulate when and how your body taps into fat stores, maintain metabolic balance, and make it easier to switch between burning carbs and fats based on your needs.
When NAD+ levels are healthy, your body’s fat-burning and fat-oxidation systems work efficiently, supporting steady energy and reducing reliance on quick-burning carbohydrates. This balance can make it easier to manage weight and avoid the energy crashes that often lead to cravings.
Fat Tissue Function and Thermogenesis
Your body has two main types of fat: white fat and brown fat.
White fat is the type of fat most people think of when they hear “body fat.” It stores excess energy and can build up in large amounts, which is why it’s often called “bad” fat.
Brown fat is considered “good” fat because it doesn’t store fat; it burns it through a process called thermogenesis that turns stored fat into heat and energy your body can use.
NAD+ is believed to play a role in how both types of fat function. In white fat, it helps regulate the signals that tell your body when to release stored fat so it can be used for energy. In brown fat, it supports the enzymes and pathways that drive thermogenesis, turning stored calories into heat.
When NAD+ is functioning well in both, it can help keep appetite in check, improve how effectively your body uses stored fat for fuel, and naturally increase calorie burn.
Blood Sugar Regulation and Insulin Sensitivity
Preclinical research suggests that maintaining healthy NAD+ levels may support better insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance.
Insulin is the hormone that helps move glucose, the sugar your body gets from food, from your blood into your cells, where it can be used for energy. This process is essential for metabolic health because it determines how efficiently your body can fuel itself without leaving excess sugar in the bloodstream.
NAD+ is believed to support the cellular functions that keep this process working properly. One way it does this is by helping maintain the health of pancreatic beta cells, which is important for steady insulin production.
It is also involved in key cellular processes, including AMPK activation, that help your muscles and other tissues absorb and use glucose efficiently. This matters because when your cells take in glucose easily, your body does not need to release as much insulin, helping maintain better metabolic balance.
When these systems are working well, your body can use blood sugar more effectively, keeping energy levels steady and reducing the sharp rises and drops that can trigger cravings or leave you feeling tired. Balanced blood sugar also helps minimize the insulin spikes that can promote fat storage, making it easier to maintain a healthy weight over time.
Cellular Repair and Inflammation Control
NAD+ is believed to fuel enzymes like PARPs that help repair DNA damage, which supports the health and efficiency of tissues involved in metabolism. It is also said to work through sirtuin pathways to help reduce low-grade inflammation, a common issue in conditions like metabolic syndrome and obesity.
When inflammation is kept in check and cells can repair themselves effectively, your metabolism can respond more easily to daily demands, recover from physical or emotional stress, and avoid the gradual slowdown that chronic inflammation can cause.
Circadian Rhythm and Appetite Regulation
NAD+ levels naturally rise and fall with your body’s circadian rhythm, the internal clock that guides sleep, energy use, and appetite. These daily fluctuations influence when you feel hungry and how your body chooses to use energy.
When NAD+ cycles are in sync with your circadian rhythm, appetite cues stay more consistent, energy use remains steady, and it becomes easier to follow healthy eating patterns. This can help reduce late-night cravings, support balanced energy throughout the day, and keep your metabolism working efficiently.
Healthy Metabolism as We Age
NAD+ levels naturally decline as you get older, which can affect nearly every aspect of metabolic health you’ve just read about, from how well your body burns fat to how easily it manages blood sugar. Lower NAD+ means less support for the enzymes, pathways, and repair systems that keep your metabolism running efficiently.
Over time, this can make it harder to maintain a healthy weight, keep energy levels steady, and avoid the gradual slowdown that often comes with aging. Supporting healthy NAD+ levels can help preserve these functions, giving your metabolism the tools it needs to stay resilient well into later years.
For more on NAD+ and healthy aging, read “How NAD+ Promotes Longevity and Slows Down Aging.”
How to Support Healthy NAD+ Levels Naturally
NAD+ levels naturally decline with age and can drop more quickly under stress, illness, poor sleep, or unhealthy lifestyle habits. Even small decreases can negatively affect your metabolic health as well as your overall well-being.
Supporting healthy NAD+ levels can help keep your metabolism running efficiently and maintain the cellular functions that keep you feeling and performing your best.
Here are a few of the best natural ways you can support healthy NAD+ levels:
Exercise
Regular physical activity is said to promote healthy NAD+ levels by stimulating enzymes that naturally boost its production.
While both strength training and cardiovascular exercise can support NAD+ activity, strength training offers additional metabolic health benefits.
Building muscle increases your resting energy expenditure and improves how your body uses glucose, making it a key priority if better metabolic health is the goal.
Balanced Diet
Eating a balanced diet that includes a variety of whole, nutrient-dense foods supports overall health, including metabolic health. But if maintaining healthy NAD+ levels is a goal, certain foods may be especially worth including.
Niacin (vitamin B3) is a direct precursor that your cells can convert into NAD+. Good sources include poultry, fish, dairy, vegetables like mushrooms and green peas, and whole grains.
Protein-rich foods also supply amino acids that your body can use in NAD+ production, while antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, such as berries, citrus, leafy greens, and bell peppers, may help protect NAD+ from breaking down too quickly.
While diet alone is unlikely to dramatically raise NAD+ levels, consistently eating nutrient-rich foods that contribute to NAD+ production may help your body maintain a steadier supply of NAD+ over time.
Quality Sleep
Consistent, restorative sleep supports your circadian rhythm, which influences natural NAD+ cycling and energy balance. Quality sleep also gives your cells time to repair and restore, which helps keep your metabolism running efficiently.
Beyond its role in NAD+ balance, adequate sleep is essential for metabolic health in general because it helps regulate hormones that control appetite, manage blood sugar, and influence how your body stores or burns fat.
If you want a healthy metabolism and to be able to reach your weight loss goals, you must prioritize quality sleep.
Stress Management
Chronic stress can increase oxidative stress and inflammation, which can deplete NAD+ over time by forcing your body to use more of it for cellular repair. It can also disrupt hormone balance and blood sugar control, both of which influence metabolic health.
Keeping stress in check supports healthy NAD+ levels and helps your metabolism function more efficiently. Whatever helps you feel calm, try to incorporate it into your day, whether that’s journaling, meditation, deep breathing, exercise, or spending time outdoors.
NAD+ Precursor Supplementation
Supplements like nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) are being studied for their potential to support healthy NAD+ levels. These NAD+ precursors are believed to act as building blocks your body can convert into NAD+.
While human research is still developing on whether these supplements can meaningfully increase NAD+ in ways that improve long-term health, early findings suggest they could be a useful addition to other healthy lifestyle strategies in supporting NAD+ levels.
NAD+ Therapy
For those seeking a more direct way to raise NAD+ levels, IV or injectable NAD+ therapy delivers the coenzyme itself rather than only its precursors.
By bypassing the conversion steps, this approach may provide NAD+ in a form the body can use immediately. Because it avoids the digestive process, NAD+ therapy may also offer greater bioavailability compared to oral forms of NAD+.
Human clinical trials on NAD+ therapy that would support this are still limited, but available data suggest that this direct delivery may raise circulating NAD+ more rapidly than oral precursors.
Either way, we do know that the NAD+ our bodies naturally produce plays a well-established role supporting the key processes that promote a healthy metabolism. Therefore, it makes sense that supporting optimal levels through NAD+ therapy, which shows promise as one of the most efficient delivery routes, may be the best way to support optimal NAD+ levels.
Combining NAD+ with another molecule is also becoming increasingly popular. To learn more about this powerful duo, read “NAD+ and 5 Amino 1MQ Synergy in Therapy.”
When NAD+ Therapy Might Be Worth Considering
Even with healthy habits in place, some people may benefit from additional support for NAD+ levels. In addition to lifestyle habits that help maintain these levels, NAD+ therapy may offer a more direct and efficient way to replenish them.
This option may be especially relevant for adults in midlife and beyond, when natural NAD+ production drastically declines, or for those experiencing faster depletion from chronic stress, illness, or high physical demand.
NAD+ therapy should only be administered under professional supervision at a qualified medical clinic. It is not something to order online or self-administer, since dosing, delivery method, and monitoring are essential for safety and effectiveness.
Conclusion
The NAD+ your body naturally produces works in every cell to power essential functions and is a key player in metabolic health, influencing how the body uses energy, stores fat, and regulates blood sugar. However, with age and other factors, NAD+ levels can decline.
When combined with a balanced lifestyle, NAD+ therapy may provide targeted support for maintaining healthy NAD+ levels.
If you are curious whether NAD+ therapy could support your weight loss goals or overall wellness, Relive Health centers nationwide offer medically supervised NAD+ therapy as part of a personalized care plan designed to meet your unique needs.Visit our clinic locator to find a Relive Health near you and take the next step toward supporting your long-term health and vitality.
