The fountain of youth is an enduring legend. Different iterations of the fabled spring – which is said to give anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters the power to defy ageing – have echoed across cultures for thousands of years.

In the modern age, this quest for youthfulness is known as “biohacking” – where individuals take a do-it-yourself approach to enhance their biology, often through supplements – and the latest trend is NAD boosters.

Ever since Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber took IV drips with NAD in an episode of The Kardashians, influencers on TikTok and Instagram have followed suit, telling their followers NAD boosters will “literally give you the fountain of youth … you will stop ageing in its tracks”, in addition to other claimed benefits such as boosting energy and improving hair, skin and metabolic function.

But do any of these claims stack up or are we still in the realm of myth?

NAD (also referred to as NAD and short for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a naturally occurring molecule involved in more than 500 different reactions in the body, including energy generation, explains Prof Nigel Turner, the head of the Cellular Bioenergetics Laboratory at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

More recently – in the last 25 years – it has become apparent the molecule also has really critical functions in ageing, Turner says.

“The whole hype around the NAD boosting therapies is the fact that there’s pretty good scientific evidence that as........

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