NADMED, a spin-out from the University of Helsinki, has developed a laboratory test that measures Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide and glutathione levels, offering athletes a way to assess two key biomarkers involved in cellular energy production, muscle resilience, and recovery from oxidative stress.
NADMED's test provides a fast, reliable, and cost-effective method for quantifying the common forms of NAD — specifically NAD+ and NADH — which play distinct roles in fueling both sustained endurance activities like distance running and high-intensity anaerobic efforts such as sprinting. Glutathione, on the other hand, is known to serve as the body's primary antioxidant to neutralize exercise-induced damage.
NADMED's focus on these key biomarkers may address a significant gap in sports nutrition and performance optimization, namely that many athletes currently take NAD boosting supplements without knowing whether their levels are actually low, normal, or even excessive.
Image Credit: NADMED
What Makes This Trend Stand Out
- Personalized Biomarker Profiling
- An emerging emphasis on individual NAD and glutathione levels that reframes training and recovery around metabolic phenotypes rather than generic protocols.
- Performance Antioxidant Monitoring
- Growing demand for routine glutathione measurement that highlights recovery status and oxidative stress burdens across training cycles.
- Accessible NAD Quantification
- The availability of fast, low-cost NAD+/NADH assays that shifts supplementation and endurance strategies from guesswork to data-informed baselines.
Sectors Adopting This
- Sports Medicine
- Clinics and physiologists can leverage biomarker-informed diagnostics to redefine injury prevention and rehabilitation protocols around cellular energy metrics.
- Wearable Diagnostics
- Integration of laboratory-grade NAD and antioxidant sensing into consumer devices that creates new value propositions for continuous metabolic monitoring.
- Sports Nutrition Supplements
- Supplement manufacturers face a market pivot as objective NAD and glutathione readouts alter product positioning toward verified, targeted formulations.
