NAD+, Glutathione, Sermorelin: The Longevity Stack, Explained Without the Hype Tax

NAD+, glutathione and sermorelin are the three injectables most often sold under the “longevity peptides” banner. Each can be bought three very different ways: a $200 to $1,000 drip session at an IV clinic, a $30 to $60 research vial on the gray market, or a telehealth prescription filled by a licensed compounding pharmacy, listed by Yes Clinic from $149 a month.

This guide covers what each one is, what it costs through each route, what the evidence shows, the side effects, and why where you buy matters more than most coverage admits.

What Are Longevity Peptides?

“Longevity peptides” is a marketing label for prescription injectables sold for energy, cellular repair and healthy aging. The three driving the current market are NAD+, glutathione and sermorelin, and the same clinics tend to stock all three.

Strictly speaking, two of them are peptides. Sermorelin is a chain of 29 amino acids, and glutathione is a tripeptide, a chain of three (glutamate, cysteine and glycine). NAD+ is not a peptide at all: it is a coenzyme built from two nucleotides.

What they share is what matters to a buyer: each is sold through three different supply routes, at prices that differ by a factor of ten, with very different accountability attached.

NAD+ Injection Cost: What You Pay, and What It Actually Does

NAD+ injection cost: Yes Clinic lists compounded NAD+ at $149 for one month or $419 for three months (prices can change, so check the current figure at checkout). An IV infusion at a clinic runs $200 to $1,000 per session. A gray-market vial typically sells for $30 to $60, with no prescription attached.

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is often described as the fuel your mitochondria run on. It isn’t. It is a coenzyme found in every cell, and its main job is to carry electrons: it picks them up as food is broken down (becoming NADH) and hands them to the mitochondria’s energy-making machinery, then goes back for more. It is recycled, not burned.

NAD+ is also consumed by enzymes that matter for aging research, including the PARPs that help repair damaged DNA and the sirtuins that help regulate metabolism and stress responses. Studies in animals and in some human tissues suggest NAD+ levels fall with age. That decline is the whole engine of the hype: put the NAD+ back, the thinking goes, and you put back what went with it.

The idea went mainstream through researchers and podcasters, notably Harvard geneticist David Sinclair, whose work on sirtuins helped make NAD+ and its precursors (NR and NMN) household names in the longevity world. Most of the science behind them, though, uses oral precursors, not injections of NAD+ itself.

The reported benefits are energy, mental clarity and recovery. The evidence is thinner than the marketing, as the evidence section below shows. Our NAD+ injectable page has the compound profile.

Glutathione Injection Price, Benefits, and Why Clinics Pair It With NAD+

Glutathione injection price: Yes Clinic lists compounded glutathione at $149 for one month or $419 for three months. At a clinic, glutathione is rarely priced on its own. It is usually added to an NAD+ visit, which is why the per-session drip price above is the number to compare against.

If NAD+ is the energy story, glutathione is the cleanup story.

Your cells make glutathione themselves, and the liver holds especially high concentrations. It neutralizes reactive molecules produced by normal metabolism and helps the liver process drugs and toxins. It is often called the master antioxidant. No glutathione injection is FDA-approved, but US compounding pharmacies have prepared injectable glutathione for years.

Why the hype now? Partly because it pairs. At most longevity clinics glutathione sits on the menu beside NAD+, usually in the same visit and often in the same IV bag: the energy one and the cleanup one, sold as a set.

That bundling is also why glutathione is the easiest of the three to overpay for. When it rides along on a $500 drip, you never see its own price. Bought as a standalone prescription, you do. Our guide to glutathione injection covers its benefits and risks in more depth.

Sermorelin Cost Per Month, and What It Actually Does

Sermorelin cost per month: Yes Clinic lists it at $149 for one month or $419 for three months. Sermorelin acetate is prescription-only in the US, so there is no legitimate route to it that skips a clinician.

Growth hormone has a reputation, and it’s earned. Sermorelin became the workaround.

Sermorelin is a copy of the first 29 amino acids of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH). Instead of injecting growth hormone, it works upstream and signals the pituitary to release more of its own, in the body’s normal pulses and still under its normal feedback brakes. That design difference is why many clinicians are more comfortable with it than with growth hormone itself.

It has not, however, been “prescribed for decades,” as some clinic marketing implies. The FDA approved sermorelin as Geref in 1997 to treat children with growth hormone deficiency, and the manufacturer discontinued Geref in 2008, for reasons that were not related to safety. Everything prescribed since is compounded sermorelin, used off-label in adults.

It comes up constantly in lifting circles, usually attached to claims about body composition. Be clear about the gap: what sermorelin is popular for and what it is proven to do are not the same list. It is not approved for body recomposition or anti-aging, and any clinic that blurs the two is telling you something about itself.

Forum posts and before-and-after photos are not a clinical evidence base. A clinician setting your protocol against your own lab results, including IGF-1, is worth more than any of it.

Peptide Therapy Cost: IV Clinic vs Gray Market vs Yes Clinic

There are three different ways to buy these compounds. The cheapest route has no accountability attached, and the most expensive one is mostly paying for the room.

NPR’s review of the category put IV infusions at $200 to upwards of $1,000 for a single drip session, and Boston Magazine’s survey of that city’s longevity industry landed around $500. Most of that pays for the room, the nurse and a long, slow drip.

The gray market is where much of the internet actually buys, and the advice is always the same: any research supplier will do, just check the certificate of analysis.

That certificate is the problem. It is a document the seller provides. Sometimes a third-party lab produced it; sometimes it was edited or made up, and you can’t tell from the PDF (our guide on how to read a peptide COA shows what to look for). And purity and sterility are different tests. A vial can be 99% pure and still carry bacterial endotoxin from a non-sterile fill. You are injecting it, and endotoxin is what causes fever, chills and a very bad night.

“Not for human consumption” on the label isn’t a technicality. It’s the seller telling you in advance that if this goes wrong, you were warned.

A licensed US compounding pharmacy that prepares sterile injectables works under USP 797: controlled cleanroom air, validated aseptic technique, beyond-use dating, lot records and state board inspections. There is a licensed entity with a name and an address.

That’s the argument. Not that compounded works better, but that you know who made it.

Is It Legal to Compound NAD+, Glutathione and Sermorelin?

Yes, with a prescription, but not for the same reason, and none of the three is an FDA-approved product in its compounded form. That means the FDA has not reviewed these preparations for safety or effectiveness.

Category 1 is an interim status: the FDA has said it does not intend to act against pharmacies compounding these substances while it evaluates them, provided other conditions are met. It is not an approval, and the FDA can move a substance to another category.

The popular forum peptides are a different situation. BPC-157, TB-500, KPV, MOTS-c, Epitalon and Semax received favorable votes from the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee in July 2026, but those votes are non-binding recommendations. Until the FDA finalizes a change, a licensed pharmacy cannot compound them for you, and anyone selling them is selling from the middle column of the cost table above. Our guide are peptides legal? covers the wider regulatory picture.

The Caveat We’re Not Going to Bury

No randomized trial has shown that an NAD+ drip, a glutathione shot or sermorelin slows human aging. The preclinical work is genuinely interesting. The human outcome data is thin.

• NAD+: In mice, raising NAD+ improves several markers of metabolic and mitochondrial health (animal data). In humans, small trials of the oral precursors NR and NMN show they raise NAD+ levels in the blood, with modest or mixed effects on health measures. For NAD+ shots, NPR’s review found no published data from well-controlled human studies, and for IV infusions almost no published data at all. It is not even clear how much NAD+ from a drip enters cells intact; much of it is thought to be broken down into smaller precursors first.
• Glutathione: The role of glutathione inside cells is well established. Whether injecting it improves health or aging in healthy adults is not; the human studies of injectable glutathione are small.
• Sermorelin: The strongest human data comes from children with growth hormone deficiency, the use Geref was approved for. Small, short studies in healthy older adults found that it raises growth hormone and IGF-1 levels, with modest effects on body composition at best.

Try these, if you do, because you’ve read the research and a clinician agrees they’re reasonable for you. Not because somebody promised you a result.

Side Effects and Safety

Most reported side effects of all three are mild and short-lived, but long-term safety in healthy people using them for aging has not been studied. The route matters as much as the molecule.

NAD+

IV infusions often cause flushing, nausea, abdominal cramping, headache, lightheadedness or chest tightness, especially when run quickly; slowing the drip usually eases them, which is why sessions are long. Shots under the skin or into the muscle can sting or leave redness at the injection site. Because cancer cells also depend on NAD+, some researchers have raised a theoretical concern, based on lab and animal work, about boosting it in people with active cancer. There is no human data either way.

Glutathione

Reported effects include injection-site pain or bruising and, less often, allergic reactions such as rash. The US FDA has warned consumers not to buy injectable skin-lightening products, including those containing glutathione, because they are unapproved and may be unsafe or contaminated. If you are having cancer treatment, ask your oncologist first, because high-dose antioxidants may interact with some therapies.

Sermorelin

The most common side effects are pain, redness or swelling at the injection site. Flushing, headache, dizziness and nausea have also been reported. Because the goal is higher growth hormone and IGF-1, effects linked to those hormones, such as fluid retention, joint aches or changes in blood sugar, are possible. Clinicians generally avoid it in people with active cancer, since growth hormone and IGF-1 promote cell growth, and it should be monitored with blood work.

Who Should Talk to a Doctor First

• Anyone who is pregnant or breastfeeding (none of the three has been studied for this use in pregnancy)
• Anyone with active cancer or a history of it
• People with diabetes, heart, kidney or liver disease, or a pituitary or thyroid condition
• Anyone taking regular prescription medication or undergoing chemotherapy

Whatever the compound, the largest avoidable risk is the vial itself: a non-sterile or mislabeled product can cause infection or a fever reaction, and a wrong dose. If you’ve only ever had an infusion done for you, our guide on how to inject peptides walks through what at-home administration involves.

Where We’d Send You

Disclosure: Muscle & Brawn may earn a commission if you buy through our Yes Clinic links. That does not change our assessment, including the evidence and safety caveats above.

Yes Clinic is the best value we’ve found for all three. The company says it is LegitScript certified, uses licensed US clinicians and has prescriptions filled by licensed US compounding pharmacies.

Prices can change, so confirm the current price at checkout. Yes Clinic lists no membership fee and no contract. A clinician reviews each request and should decline if the treatment isn’t appropriate for you, and availability depends on your state.

Against the gray market you pay several times more, for a vial with your name on it, made somewhere that gets inspected. Against an IV clinic you pay a fraction of the per-session rate, though dosing schedules differ between an in-clinic infusion and an at-home protocol, so compare what your clinician actually prescribes rather than assuming one drip equals one month.

Yes Clinic Contents6 sections01What Is Yes Clinic?02Treatment Range03Three Treatments Worth Knowing04How It Works05Bloodwork, Compounding & Pricing06Frequently Asked Questions Yes Clinic is a U.S.-based telehealth provider offering online access to hormone,…

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Pros

• LegitScript-certified telehealth provider that uses licensed U.S. pharmacies.
• Licensed providers review every intake, and TRT plans include quarterly bloodwork.
• Direct-pay pricing with the consultation and shipping included and no membership fees.
• Fully remote, with no clinic visits and treatments shipped to your door.

Cons

• Serves U.S. patients only.
• Some treatments are compounded and have not been evaluated by the FDA for safety or effectiveness.

For the fuller picture on the company before you commit, see our Yes Clinic review.