Rapid weight loss is physically demanding. Long after your appetite has settled and your clothes start fitting differently, your energy can take a while to catch up. NAD+ is a compounded injectable Sunlight may offer to patients seeking additional support with perceived energy levels during a caloric deficit.
**Important** Compounded NAD+ is not FDA-approved for any indication. It is prepared by a licensed compounding pharmacy and offered only to Sunlight patients after a licensed clinician reviews eligibility. NAD+ therapy is considered investigational for most wellness applications, and current use in this context is based on biological plausibility and patient interest rather than established clinical outcomes. Individual results vary.
Compounded NAD+ side effects are usually mild: flushing, warmth, or minor discomfort at the injection site, and occasionally nausea or headache in the first few doses. NAD+ is not prescribed during pregnancy or breastfeeding, to patients under 18, or to patients with active or prior hormone-sensitive cancers, uncontrolled liver disease, or certain other chronic conditions. A licensed clinician reviews your medical history before any prescription. NAD+ is not a weight-loss medication and should not replace foundational interventions such as nutrition, sleep, and medical evaluation of fatigue. Dosing is determined by your clinician; do not self-adjust. If you experience persistent or unusual symptoms, message the Sunlight care team.
If your NAD+ prescription is part of a GLP-1 program, see the safety information for compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide for GLP-1-specific side effects, pancreatitis and gallbladder risks, and the MTC / MEN 2 contraindication.
The reasons vary, but the through-line is the same: you are in the middle of a real weight-loss effort, the caloric deficit is doing its job, and you want more than the GLP-1 alone provides. Here is what most often comes up when NAD+ is on the table. These are patient-reported experiences, not guaranteed or clinically proven effects.
More consistent daily energy. Midday fatigue is the most common complaint from patients eating at a deficit. Many patients report more consistent energy throughout the day on NAD+, instead of spiking at breakfast and cratering by 3 pm.
Workout recovery. Training through rapid weight loss is hard on the body. Many patients who added NAD+ report improved perceived recovery between workouts and less next-day soreness, especially if they were already active before starting a GLP-1 and have leaned into strength training during the loss phase. If you are not exercising, you may not feel this benefit at all.
Feeling more like yourself. This is the vaguest benefit anyone describes, and also the most common. Rapid weight loss changes how your body feels day to day, and not every change is comfortable. NAD+ is what many people reach for to stay recognizable to themselves through the transformation, rather than depleted by it.
Staying consistent through long days. Early starts, late nights, or long weeks. When your schedule is the obstacle, NAD+ is a way to keep enough in the tank to hit your protein and movement goals instead of skipping them because you are too tired. The framing is not “push harder.” It is “have what you need to stay on plan when you would otherwise slip.”
Getting through the mid-program slump. Around months two to three, the initial novelty of a GLP-1 program wears off, the appetite reduction normalizes, and the work starts to feel like work. NAD+ is one way to reset the physical sense of the program when it starts feeling heavy.
Feeling your best on your best days. The people who get the most out of NAD+ are already doing the work: eating the protein, moving their bodies, sleeping when they can. NAD+ makes good weeks feel fuller. It is a complement to those inputs, not a substitute.
NAD+ stands for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. It is a coenzyme involved in cellular energy metabolism and redox reactions, the set of chemical processes that ultimately support ATP production. Every cell in your body uses it. Your mitochondria, the tiny engines inside your cells, need it to work.
Here is the part worth knowing: NAD+ levels can change with age and metabolic stress. However, the clinical significance of modifying NAD+ levels, particularly through injections, remains an area of ongoing research. Increasing NAD+ through injections has not been clearly shown in clinical trials to translate into improved energy or performance. When Sunlight patients say “I feel depleted on my GLP-1,” there are a lot of reasons why. NAD+ is one of the things your body draws on, and making more of it available is what a compounded NAD+ injection is meant to do.
If you have looked into NAD+ at all, you have probably run into confusion about the three different ways it shows up in the wellness space.
Sunlight’s compounded NAD+ is a small injection you give yourself at home, similar to a GLP-1 injection. It ships from a licensed compounding pharmacy after a clinician reviews your eligibility.
IV NAD+ drips are what medspas sell. You sit in a clinic for an hour or more while NAD+ goes in through a vein. Different delivery, different cost, different experience. Sunlight does not offer IV NAD+.
Oral NAD+ supplements (usually called NR or NMN) come as pills or capsules. You can buy them over the counter, no prescription needed. Most of the published human research on NAD+ is on these pills, not on injections. Sunlight does not sell NAD+ supplements.
The at-home injection is what Sunlight’s pharmacy ships and what your clinician prescribes if you are a fit. You do not need to choose between it and an IV drip or a supplement. When a Sunlight patient asks about NAD+, this is what we are talking about.
GLP-1 drugs cut your appetite and slow how fast food leaves your stomach. You eat less. You lose weight. What the GLP-1 does not do is make up for the calories you used to eat. Your cells still need the same energy. They are just pulling it from a smaller daily supply.
For most patients, the body adjusts. For some, especially patients who are training hard, working long weeks, or losing weight fast, the energy takes longer to catch up than the appetite does. That is when NAD+ usually comes up.
NAD+ is not the only option. Your clinician will check the obvious things first: is your protein intake high enough, is your sleep holding, do your labs (iron, B12, thyroid, vitamin D) suggest an easier fix, and NAD+ is generally considered only after more common and evidence-based causes of fatigue have been addressed. For many patients, those basics are the answer and NAD+ is not needed. For others, the basics are already handled and they want to try something else. That is what NAD+ is for at Sunlight.
This is the part of the page we cannot promise. Clinical evidence supporting injectable NAD+ for energy, recovery, or weight-loss support is limited, and reported benefits are largely subjective. Here is what patients most often describe when NAD+ is working for them.
In the first one to two weeks, most patients describe subtle shifts rather than dramatic ones. Energy that holds a little longer through the afternoon. Waking up slightly less drained. Nothing dramatic, but a direction of travel.
By weeks three to six, the benefits patients talk about become more concrete. Workouts feel easier to return to. Recovery days feel more restful. The consistency of energy across the week, not just within a single day, starts to settle.
At one to three months in, the benefits are typically stable. Patients who are going to feel NAD+ working have felt it by then. Patients who were hoping it would produce bigger changes than it has usually make that judgment around this point and decide whether to continue.
Some honest caveats that matter. NAD+ is not a stimulant. It does not produce the sharp energy of caffeine or the euphoric energy of a mood-changing drug. The experience patients describe is closer to the absence of depletion than the presence of a lift. If you were expecting a buzz, this is not that.
Also: NAD+ is not a weight-loss accelerator. The weight loss on your program is coming from the GLP-1, the deficit, and the inputs you are putting in. NAD+ is there to help you feel well enough to keep doing the work. Patients who stop doing the work and expect NAD+ to compensate will be disappointed.
NAD+ is available to a range of patients. Most try it alongside a compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide program for energy support during rapid weight loss. Some come to NAD+ on its own, because they want the energy support without pursuing GLP-1 weight loss. Both paths start with a clinician reviewing your medical history.
The patients who tend to get the most out of NAD+:
Who should probably skip it:
Some patients are not candidates for NAD+ regardless of how well it might otherwise fit. Your clinician reviews your history before prescribing. Common reasons NAD+ is not offered:
Your clinician asks about these during review. There is no check-the-box form that qualifies you automatically. It is a real conversation.
If you are already a Sunlight patient, log into your patient portal and message the Sunlight care team to ask about NAD+. A licensed clinician reviews your history and follows up with whether it is a fit for you.
If you are not yet a Sunlight patient, you can reach out about NAD+ directly, or explore Sunlight’s compounded semaglutide and compounded tirzepatide programs first. Either path starts with a clinician conversation.
