Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Nov 13, 2025 2 hours, 16 minutes ago
Medical News: Rising Interest in NAD Boosters for Post COVID Symptoms
A new clinical trial led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School, the City of Hope, and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT offers important insights into whether nicotinamide riboside (NR), a supplement known for increasing cellular NAD levels, can help individuals suffering from long COVID. Many people continue to experience brain fog, fatigue, poor sleep, and mood problems long after infection, creating interest in treatments that may support energy metabolism and reduce inflammation.
New research explores whether NAD-boosting supplements can ease long COVID symptoms.
The findings, outlined in this
Medical News report, examined whether taking 2000 mg of NR daily could improve cognitive function, sleep patterns, fatigue levels, and overall symptom recovery.
What the Clinical Trial Found
The 24-week study followed 58 adults experiencing long COVID symptoms. Participants were randomly assigned to receive NR immediately or begin with a placebo phase before switching to NR. Lab analyses showed something very consistent: NR rapidly boosted NAD levels, increasing them by roughly 2.6 to 3.1 times within just five to ten weeks. This confirmed NR’s strong effect on elevating the body’s NAD, an essential molecule involved in energy production, immune regulation, and cellular repair.
However, when researchers compared the NR group with the placebo group, they found no significant differences in cognitive performance, memory tests, fatigue scores, sleep quality, anxiety ratings, or depressive symptoms. This means that although NAD levels rose sharply, the supplement did not provide clear clinical improvements over placebo during the main phase of the study.
Early Signals Suggest Some Individuals May Benefit
Researchers then combined all participants who had taken NR for at least 10 weeks. In this broader analysis, some mild improvements became noticeable. Several participants reported better sleep quality, reduced fatigue, fewer depressive symptoms, and small gains in executive functioning. These findings suggest that NR may offer benefits for certain individuals with long COVID, although the effects were modest and require larger studies to fully confirm.
Scientists from the collaborating institutions—including MGH Neurology, the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health, and the Mass General Brigham Brain Care Labs—emphasized that NR was safe and well tolerated, with very few participants discontinuing the study due to side effects.
What This Means for Long COVID Patients
Although NR effectively increases NAD levels in the bloodstream, its ability to significantly improve long COVID symptoms remains uncertain. More comprehensive and diverse clinical trials will be necessary to determine whether specific groups of patients may benefit more than others, or whether longer treatment durations or
different dosing strategies could produce stronger results.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal eClinicalMedicine.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258953702500567X
For the latest on Long COVID-19 research, keep on logging to Thailand
Medical News.
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https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/long-covid
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