Health Library / Longevity tech
This content is for education only and is not medical advice. I'm a fitness coach, not a physician. Talk to your doctor before starting any medication, hormone, supplement, or new exercise program, especially if you have a medical condition or take prescriptions.
The infusion menu is where longevity clinics make a lot of their money, and it's the category where the gap between how it feels and what it does is widest.
I'll go through what's in the bag.
The Myers' Cocktail is the original and still the backbone of most menus — magnesium, calcium, B vitamins and vitamin C. Everything else is a variation: immunity blends, hangover blends, performance blends, beauty blends with biotin, glutathione for "detox."
What's genuinely true: if you're actually deficient in something, or you can't absorb it through your gut — real conditions, from bowel disease to certain surgeries to specific deficiencies — IV delivery works and it works faster than oral. That's uncontroversial. And if you're genuinely dehydrated, a bag of fluid will make you feel dramatically better within the hour. That's the hangover drip's whole business model and it's not a trick.
What's oversold: the "direct to the bloodstream, 100% absorption" line. For most water-soluble vitamins in a person who isn't deficient, your kidneys clear the excess within hours. You're paying a few hundred dollars to raise a blood level briefly and then urinate most of it. The phrase "expensive urine" is crude but it's the accurate mechanism.
Worth knowing: not everyone can safely take everything. High-dose vitamin C is a real problem for people with G6PD deficiency, which many people don't know they have. Fluid loads matter with heart or kidney conditions. Reputable clinics screen for this — it's a reasonable thing to ask about.
Now on nearly every menu. Restore's Austin locations list NAD+ IV and NAD+ IM, advertising "anti-aging intervention," energy, reduced inflammation and improved cognition and mood. They also offer Niagen (NR), an oral-style precursor delivered by drip.
The science behind NAD+ is real and it's covered properly in its own module — short version: NAD+ is essential to cellular energy, it declines with age, the animal data is impressive, and the human data on clinical outcomes is thin and mixed.
What's specific to the IV: the argument is bioavailability, skipping the gut. That part is plausible. The missing piece is evidence that the higher blood level produces a benefit worth the price, and that evidence hasn't arrived.
Two practical things people don't get told. The infusion is often unpleasant — NAD+ pushed quickly commonly causes chest tightness, flushing, nausea and a general awful feeling, which is why it's run slowly and why a session can take two to four hours. And it's expensive, frequently several hundred dollars, often sold in packages.
People do report real effects: mental clarity, energy, and it's used anecdotally in addiction recovery settings. I take those reports seriously. I'd also note that several hundred dollars and three hours in a recliner creates a strong expectation, and nobody's run the blinded trial that would separate those.
This is the one where I'd most want you to have the facts, because it's growing fast — Austin has multiple clinics specializing in it — and the regulatory position is stronger than most customers realize.
What it is: ozone is O₃, a reactive form of oxygen. In major autohemotherapy, blood is drawn, mixed with ozone, and returned. EBOO — extracorporeal blood oxygenation and ozonation — is the intensive version: blood is drawn continuously from one arm, run through a filter and ozonated, and returned to the other, cycling a large volume. It looks like dialysis, takes an hour or more, and clinics often show you the filter afterward.
HOCATT is an ozone steam cabinet. There's also insufflation and topical use, and UVBI, where blood is exposed to ultraviolet light.
What clinics claim: Austin Ozone describes EBOO as addressing mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation, and markets it for Long COVID. Ways2Well calls it "the most advanced ozone therapy, detoxifying and revitalizing your blood in one session." Broader claims across the industry include immune support, chronic infection, fatigue and detoxification.
What you should know: ozone is a lung irritant — it's the thing air quality alerts are about — and the FDA's regulatory position on medical ozone has long been restrictive, holding that it requires a demonstrated safe and effective level to be useful. Ozone therapy is not an FDA-approved treatment for the conditions it's marketed for in the US. There is a European and Latin American clinical literature, some of it positive, and it has not persuaded US regulators.
The theory is hormesis — a controlled oxidative stress that provokes an adaptive antioxidant response, the same logic as exercise. That's a coherent idea. Whether it delivers the advertised outcomes in humans is unresolved, and the seeing-your-own-blood-in-a-machine experience is unusually persuasive in a way that has nothing to do with the biology.
Risks are real if done badly: ozone must never be given directly into a vein as gas, and infection and air embolism are the hazards of any procedure cycling blood outside your body. This is not the category for whoever's cheapest.
Also on some Austin menus. Legitimate medicine for diagnosed heavy metal poisoning, full stop — that's a real diagnosis with real testing. Sold more broadly for cardiovascular disease and general detox, where the evidence is weak and the treatment carries actual risk, including to the kidneys. If you're being offered chelation without a confirmed heavy metal diagnosis, ask what's being treated and how it was established.
Am I actually deficient in this? If yes, IV can genuinely help and a blood test will tell you. If no, you're buying a feeling.
Would oral do the same job? For most vitamins in most people, largely yes, for a fraction of the price.
What's the evidence for this specific thing, in humans? Not the mechanism — the outcome.
Is somebody screening me? Fluids, high-dose vitamins and anything cycling blood outside your body all have real contraindications. A clinic that asks you nothing is a clinic to leave.
A drip when you're genuinely depleted, hungover or sick can be a good afternoon and I won't pretend otherwise.
As a monthly longevity strategy at several hundred dollars a session, the evidence isn't there yet, and I'd rather see that money go to a DEXA scan, a proper blood panel, and whatever it takes to get you sleeping.
These are listed for reference, not as recommendations. Ockerman Health has no financial relationship with any provider listed here, receives nothing for these links, and does not endorse, vouch for or verify any of them. They appear because they publicly advertise the services this article explains, so you can see for yourself what's being offered and what it costs. Anything on this list is between you and them — and anything medical is between you and your doctor.
Last updated September 30, 2026