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Comment by acatton | Hacker News Reader

> At a long desk in the big main room sits an attractive nurse. She offers us an enhancer of B12 or NAD+, through a shot or an IV.

> I get a shot of NAD+, which is supposed to be good for energy and metabolism. NAD stands for Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, and I don’t know what the + is. (Actually, I don’t know what any of it is, but the nurse said she takes it, and if you saw this woman, you too would ask for a shot of whatever she’s on.)

Am I the only one cringing at people taking random injections from random strangers claiming they have a semi-medical degree?

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Are you taking into consideration how hot the nurse was?

Are you taking into consideration that none of that happened and it's meant to be comical?

uhh you better believe there is a staff nurse at JRE handing out NAD.

Oh, it certainly happened. Nothing else in the article seems to be made up.

My mother sells random old bric-a-brac on eBay, and came across a 1960's era reprint of an early 1900's Sears Catalog which was fascinating to me on several levels - the first being that clearly it was nostalgic for folks in the 60's. For me it was a straight up historical document in that it showed literally anything you could order for your house.

Some things would be little changed from today but obviously others would be very different. One of the weirdest things was the patent medication section. Just things like "Dr Fowler's Feminine Medicine" or stuff like that. Lots of promises to help out illness and zero lists of ingredients. It's absolutely bizarre to me, but I suppose not to everyone.

Even these days its no different. I got injured in a small Indian town and went to a local health center. The nurse never told me what they were injecting into me and frowned when I asked them if it was a tetanus injection or an antibiotic. Their tone changed to You should trust us and not question our experience

I read "a shot" as in like, a shot glass, given the alternative was an IV (which could also be referred to as a shot?).

I read that the same until the next line

> Later, just before taping, Joe goes over and gets his own jab of NAD+.

No, given the substance he probably did indeed mean intravenously. NAD is degraded significantly in the stomach.

I read it to be a syringe or an iv drip. It definitely feels like disparate levels of administering, but going around this studio with an iv seems really inconvenient. > Later, just before taping, Joe goes over and gets his own jab of NAD+.

For reference, NAD is an electron carrier in cells (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinucleot...). The (+) stands for a charge on the molecule. Roughly, it is involved in oxidative metabolism, among many other processes.

Calling it 'good for energy and metabolism' in one of those wishy-washy ideas about how the body works. It's not clear how adding more of one component of metabolism will affect how energy is moved around and released from food.

"from random strangers claiming they have a semi-medical degree?"

Who is claiming this exactly?

Well she says this person is a nurse. So this person most likely introduced themselves as a nurse. So they are claiming they are a nurse until it's proven true, right?

Who else do you get injections/supplements from other than "people claiming to have medical degrees"...

I'm not well verse in the US medical system. But in Germany, I get my injections from my doctor for which I can look up their license online.

If I were to take supplements, which I don't, since I consider it to be pseudo-science[1][2], I would get them from my local drug store which has the german equivalent of a FDA license and regular audits.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29v6rNFjlLI

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitam...

There are a zillion different substances classified as supplements. It's reductionist and intellectually dishonest to lump them all together. Some are effectively just placebos, or even harmful in high doses. Others appear to have beneficial effects. In many cases those effects are subtle, and might only be noticeable to people who push their bodies to the limit. Unfortunately, this is almost impossible to study through high-quality randomized controlled trials given the numerous confounding factors.

Let's look at it empirically. Among elite athletes, how many take zero supplements? I can't prove that they're getting any benefit but the correlation between performance and the use of certain supplements is so strong that I suspect there's something real going on. (And by supplements I mean real supplements, not PEDS which are an entirely separate category.)

People get B12 injections from nurses all the time. It's extremely common in the US. NAD+ is probably less common, but it's not the nurse's credibility that's recommending the substance. The nurse is just there to inject it safely, something any nurse should be perfectly qualified to do.

Many injections given in the US are administered by people way less qualified than a nurse. A CMA can do quite a lot after just a one-year certificate program.

There is a certain type of person who follows all the rules and regulations to the letter, implicitly trusts the authorities, and has an undisguised attitude of scorn towards anyone who does not live and act the same way. I think the relative prevalence of this attitude is a long-standing cultural difference between Germany and the US.

Go to any gym with a focus on weightlifting (ie: not a Planet Fitness). Lift weights. Strike up a conversation with other people who lift weights.

Soon a new world of injections and supplements will be yours if you want it.

>Strike up a conversation with other people who lift weights.

Nightmare fuel.

Nightmare fuel? Yeah, just got a shipment. You're gonna be ripped bro.

There are several IV 'spa' places in Austin where people presumably go if they've had too much chardonnay the night before. Apparently carrot juice is too out-dated at this point.

A nursing degree is a medical degree.

Dressing as a nurse and offering people injections doesn't mean you're a nurse.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that few nursing associations would look kindly on offering people unprescribed snake oil injections outside of a medical context and with no knowledge of their medical history.

The way this works is the person giving the injections is an actual registered nurse, injecting vitamins from a licensed source, so that's legal. The particular formulation being injected may not have scientifically proven results but that's not required, the customer just needs to be willing to pay for the injection.

I'd be willing to bet many NFL teams (for example) has one or more such nurses. I wouldn't be surprised if various executive suites have such people around, either.

Why would you find it hard to believe Joe Rogan has an actual registered nurse RN working for him? Not like he can't afford one.

My wife currently works as a nurse at a hospital. She's tired of the poor working conditions at the hospital so she's applying to work at an infusion center for better hours and pay.

Absolutely, also I wonder if it was NMN instead.

That honestly reminded me of Cuppliance from Black Mirror.

This is one thing that always puzzled me with recreational drugs.

People just snort/eat/shoot/smoke whatever? It's been through how many shady people on the way to you?

Test kits are available, lab testing is available in some places, most drugs are easy to "clean up", and some sources, while shady, rely wholly on reputation.

There's also a risk/reward factor - many drugs are incredibly enjoyable, and users feel it's worth the risk.

Oh, I've no doubt participated, it's just crazy because who knows what's actually in it.

E.g., fentanyl.

... Thats where the mentioned test kits are for :)

Yes because generally people who sell shit want to keep selling shit to the same people. So there is an incentive to sell stuff that is as close as possible to what the customer wants. Yes you get cases where people cut coke with fentanyl, but in general this is not how it works.

drug users don't care otherwise they wouldn't be drug users. Look up Krokodil, addicts don't care what it does to them as long as there's a high somewhere in the effects. It basically impossible to stop demand side which is why the (futile) efforts are spent on the supply side.

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