YOUTH SERUM IN A SHOT?

My Roman Empire? There's this retreat the healthiest person you know as your guest, and then over the next few days, your plus-one donates their number two to gift you a health-boosting fecal transplant.

- EMILY DOUGHERTY

Surprisingly, this prospect isn't what sends me into a spiral (it's too gross for me to even consider). What keeps me up at night is thinking about whom I would take. An Olympian? A researcher at Google's longevity center, Calico Labs? Gwyneth? But the glowy Amanda Chantal Bacon, founder and CEO of Moon Juice, usually tops my list.

So when Chantal Bacon told me she could barely get out of bed due to symptoms from long COVID, I was gobsmacked. How did a super healthy superhuman recover? "It was exhaustion I've never felt before in my life," she said. What she says ended up working: 500 milligrams of the peptide NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), delivered by a medical professional directly to her bloodstream during an IV infusion lasting more than three hours.

Peptides like NAD+, small chains of amino acids that can help activate vital cellular functions in the body, are a wellness and beauty buzzword. You may have seen peptides in your skin serum, but increasingly, peptide therapy-delivered directly into the body via IV infusions, shots, or supplements-is catching on with America's most optimized.

(Technically, Ozempic is also a peptide.) NAD+ is one of the most popular forms of peptide therapy for Hollywood and fashion industry wellness obsessives, and not just for when they're sick.

Its fans use "NAD" as a verb. "I'm going to NAD for the rest of my life, and I'm never going to age," Hailey Bieber told Kendall Jenner while they were hooked up to NAD+ catalyzers during a 2022 episode of The Kardashians.

In her husband Justin Bieber's documentary Seasons, the singer filmed himself getting an NAD+ IV at his doctor's office in order to, he claimed, "flush out some of the toxins." Jennifer Aniston raved to the Wall Street Journal about the power of weekly peptide shots: "I do think that's the future." Podcaster Joe Rogan is so enthused that he and his producer have "NAD-ed" together.