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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

Airhart SE, Shireman LM, Risler LJ, Anderson GD, Nagana Gowda GA, Raftery D, Tian R, Shen DD, O'Brien KD

PloS one 2017 12; 12; e0186459

Bibliography

PubMed: PMID 29211728
PubMed Central: PMC5718430
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186459
Funding: NIH/NHLBI, translational research and diabetes-center support, plus an American Heart Association fellowship.
Competing interests: The authors reported no competing interests.

Design	Open-label nonrandomized dose-escalation PK study
Model	Human participants
Sample	8 healthy volunteers
Intervention	NR escalated from 250 mg to 1000 mg twice daily
Duration	9 days including 24-hour PK sampling
Endpoints	Blood NR and NAD+ pharmacokinetics; tolerability

The short open-label study found increased whole-blood NR and NAD+ after oral dose escalation.

Whole-blood NAD+ approximately doubled by day 9.

No placebo group and only eight participants; absence of reported adverse events cannot establish long-term safety.

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Last verified 22 October 2026