A dodgy doctor allegedly injected a Bronx woman before she died with a trendy supposed anti-aging molecule boosted by wellness-chasing celebrities such as Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner, prosecutors revealed.
Elizabeth Baron, 27, immediately went into cardiac arrest Sunday after alleged quack Luis Rojas Cabrera, 55, hooked her up to an IV administering NAD+ — despite not being licensed to practice medicine in New York or the US, according to court documents and prosecutors.
“Administering NAD+ via an IV requires a prescription from a medical professional,” said Assistant District Attorney Ethan Reisbaum during Rojas Cabrera’s arraignment late Monday on reckless endangerment and unauthorized practice of a profession charges.
The exact cause of Baron’s death remained unclear as an autopsy by the city’s medical examiner was pending, but shined a harsh light on NAD+ — a molecule increasingly hyped in woo-woo health circles as a miracle but viewed skeptically by many experts.
Bieber, a 29-year-old model seemingly in no need of “Fountain of Youth” treatments, rhapsodized over it during a 2022 episode of “The Kardashians.” She received IV drips filled with the coenzyme alongside Jenner, 30.
“I’m going to NAD for the rest of my life and I’m never going to age,” Bieber gushed.
Podcaster Joe Rogan, who often raves about unproven and suspect health trends, has likewise claimed NAD+ benefits the immune system and cognition.
“You just feel fantastic. You feel really good,” he said in a 2024 episode of his podcast.
The buzz fueled an explosion of NAD+ offerings at wellness clinics across the US, including upscale offerings in the Big Apple.
But many experts have said the claims are greatly overblown, often nonsensical and require more research.
The molecule — technically named nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide — is a coenzyme naturally found in cells, with many researchers finding depletion could be linked to aging.
Michael Sagner, a clinical adviser at King’s College in the UK, told The Guardian that there was little evidence that NAD+ infused into the bloodstream — such as through an IV — enters cells.
“That’s why it’s completely idiotic from a biochemistry point of view to inject yourself with NAD itself,” he told the outlet.
Rojas Cabrera ran Bereshit Lifestyle Center, a Riverdale wellness center that offers “natural medicine” and therapies as well as products geared toward “making healthy living easy,” according to its website.
He told authorities that he was licensed to practice medicine in the Dominican Republican but not New York, court documents state.
After Baron went into cardiac arrest, Rojas Cabrera allegedly told a police officer, “I made a very big mistake. I need to call my family because I have a feeling I will not be home for a while,” the court documents state.
Reisbaum said prosecutors were waiting on autopsy results before deciding whether to charge Rojas Cabrera in Baron’s death.
“Before we get the results of the autopsy, we can’t make the causation and charge him with her death,” she said in court.
