Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters
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Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, March 9, 2024
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n03.shtml“All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.” - Paracelsus (c. 1493–1541)
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@DavidPS Interesting, but I don't necessarily think the lipid-lowering effects is the primary cardiovascular benefit of B3 derivatives. Seems like the shift in NAD+/NADH ratio is the main benefit. Having more NAD+ benefits the heart by improving oxidative metabolism.
No body gets those expensive NAD IV drips for the cholesterol lowering effects. Granted, we're talking about something completely different with oral niacin. However you can almost replicate IV NAD by just taking nicotinamide riboside orally. Which would be the less expensive (yet still reliable) way to go.
I find it quite interesting the whole "low toxin" crowd talk about the glories of plain nicotinic acid. They also talk about copper toxicity. Most of these people are likely overmethylators and have no idea what's actually wrong with them because they're too hung up on Garrett's fringe theories. But people who respond really well to nicotinic acid and/or copper avoidance are 100% overmethylating. There's literally no other reason for this.
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@Mulloch94 - I have used plain nicotinic acid for years. It has many effects as explained in the articles at DoctorYourself.com.
Here is an article from that website that highlights some of the things that Abram Hoffer found that it was useful for treating. Only nicotinic acid and not its amide raises HDL and lowers LDL.
Dr. Hoffer died in 2009 (see) and I do not believe that he worked with any of the other more recently developed B-3's. They are much more expensive than plain nicotinic acid and I have not considered them.
The low toxin crowd has revived interest in nicotinic acid. They have not added anything new. The FDA has mandated that milk products and other food stuffs be fortified with vitamin A. It is easy to get too much in ones diet. My take is that it is best to limit your intake of vitamin A fortified foods.
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@DavidPS Yeah, I wasn't disputing that other forms of B3 lower LDL. My point is I don't think it matters much in terms of the cardiovascular implication. The rise in NAD alone seems to be a major reason for positive cardiovascular outcomes. That's one of the reasons why NAD drips have become a favorite among the "longevity crowd." However nicotinamide riboside would be a close second, and it lacks the histamine reaction in plain nicotinic acid. Meaning you can take a higher dose without adverse effect.
However in terms of lowering methyl groups, nicotinic acid may inadvertently be a better choice initially because you can gauge yourself based on whether or not you get a flush reaction. If you take 150mgs of niacin and get no flush then you've got low histamine, which likely means too many methyl groups.
I avoid fortification on most things where possible, but vitamin A is usually the least of my concerns. They hardly ever put enough synthetic vitamins in foods to cause issue. The iron however is another story. I've never met a person that had legitimate liver damage from vitamin A. They always had something else in their history, like extended accutane usage.
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@Mulloch94 - Thanks for explaining the attaction of the NAD drips. Dr. Peat explained the niacin flush as releasing serotonin and activating prostaglandin production (stuff that you do not want to happen) Listen
With regard to me monitoring my vitamin A foods, I am just hedging my bets. There are many more important things that I avoid.
The lower-your-vitamin-A crowd seemed to me be to very vague about the health benefits of their detox protocol. I am not sure how the niacin flush fits into their thinking. Perhaps it is proof positive that the detox is working.
Dr. Hoffer used niacin to send schioprenics into remission (never a cure) and it was also part of the early Alcoholic Annonomus (AA) program. Maybe that is the unidentified benefit that they are not talking about.
I enjoy reading your posts.
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@DavidPS said in Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters:
I enjoy reading your posts.
Thanks I appreciate it! I'm glad I provide some quality posts.
@DavidPS said in Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters:
Thanks for explaining the attaction of the NAD drips. Dr. Peat explained the niacin flush as releasing serotonin and activating prostaglandin production (stuff that you do not want to happen) Listen
With regard to me monitoring my vitamin A foods, I am just hedging my bets. There are many more important things that I avoid.
The lower-your-vitamin-A crowd seemed to me be to very vague about the health benefits of their detox protocol. I am not sure how the niacin flush fits into their thinking. Perhaps it is proof positive that the detox is working.
Yeah, the way I understand it the infamous flush is caused by serotonin and histamine. They tend to work together in many aspects. Just taking pure l-histidine will raise serotonin as well.
As I understand it the niacin thing is an adjacent protocol to aid in this "detox." Apparently not directly related to the vit A avoidance. Charlie was made some post about how Garrett Smith was against niacin but later got convinced it was alright somehow. Who knows really.
My main issue with the vitamin A detox is how one comes to define themselves as A toxic in the first place. To point out what Mike Fave mentioned, most these people aren't really getting liver biopsies, so they're more or less just relying on the radical elimination approach as their guide.
This will result in an untold amount of changes. Most notably removing any hidden or otherwise undiagnosed food sensitivities. Which will have profoundly positive outcomes. Removing food sensitivities is important for reel in inflammatory conditions, but that will have virtually nothing to do with the vit A deficiency.
I think it's always wise to take into consideration the fat soluble vitamins have a cumulative effect, and therefore have the potential to buildup if you take them in large amounts daily. But I still don't see how that makes them a toxin. Especially when we know how important A, D, and E are in hormonal balance. And to a lesser extent K as well.
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@DavidPS said in Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters:
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, March 9, 2024
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n03.shtmlIt's a great read. Thanks!
I wonder why the article mentions the other forms of NAD, but makes no mention of niacinamide. As I've been using niacinamide for a long time only because haidut talks a lot about it in RPF and very little is said of niacin except for my associating it with the flush reaction which I always had a negative association with. Although I bought some niacin from Prescribed for Life 3-4 years ago, I have not moved from thinking about trying it out and it has been in its unopened package.
What interests me more in the article is its use for patients with glioblastoma and demyelination disease. A short keyword search shows them to be neurological in nature. And since I still struggle with a mild form of ataxia now, having improved from megadosing with thiamine with the urging of @mostlylurking, I wonder if megadosing with either niacinamide or niacin would help as well.
For a long time, I couldn't make up my mind and even until now, I have just been taking niacinamide at 250mg daily. But when I moved my thiamine dosage daily from 250mg to 1500mg daily I experiences great improvement gait ataxia and another form of it involving vertigo, and the complete disappearance of ALS symptoms involving the throat retaining food that I've recently eaten.
Now, I should just start doing instead of thinking and start incorporating niacin in place of niacinamide, and go on to megadose on it to see what salutary effects it brings.
Temporal thinking is the faculty that’s
engaged by an enriched environment, but it’s
wrong to call it “thinking,” because it’s simply
the way organisms exist... - Ray Peat Nov 2017 Newsletter -
@yerrag - Just as a quick reminder, this thread is in the Not Medical Advice section of the forum. I am eminently unqualified to post medical advice.
I am surprised that niacin is being considered by others to treat glioblastoma.
Daily Lifestyle Modifications to Improve Quality of Life and Survival in Glioblastoma: A Review
The Promise of Niacin in Neurology (2023)
Nicotinic acid inhibits glioma invasion by facilitating Snail1 degradation (2017)
Glioblastoma and Methionine Addiction (2022)
Dr. Hoffer used 3 grams of niacin as his standard dose and went much higher if he deemed it necessary.
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@Mulloch94 So, are you saying that those overmethylaros should not be taking methyl-donor substances, such as TMG, along with the nicotinic acid?
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@yerrag said in Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters:
@DavidPS said in Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters:
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, March 9, 2024
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n03.shtmlIt's a great read. Thanks!
I wonder why the article mentions the other forms of NAD, but makes no mention of niacinamide. As I've been using niacinamide for a long time only because haidut talks a lot about it in RPF and very little is said of niacin except for my associating it with the flush reaction which I always had a negative association with. Although I bought some niacin from Prescribed for Life 3-4 years ago, I have not moved from thinking about trying it out and it has been in its unopened package.
What interests me more in the article is its use for patients with glioblastoma and demyelination disease. A short keyword search shows them to be neurological in nature. And since I still struggle with a mild form of ataxia now, having improved from megadosing with thiamine with the urging of @mostlylurking, I wonder if megadosing with either niacinamide or niacin would help as well.
For a long time, I couldn't make up my mind and even until now, I have just been taking niacinamide at 250mg daily. But when I moved my thiamine dosage daily from 250mg to 1500mg daily I experiences great improvement gait ataxia and another form of it involving vertigo, and the complete disappearance of ALS symptoms involving the throat retaining food that I've recently eaten.
Now, I should just start doing instead of thinking and start incorporating niacin in place of niacinamide, and go on to megadose on it to see what salutary effects it brings.
Although I did take high dose niacin for a few weeks before I found Ray Peat, I switched to niacinamide after reading Peat's articles. You might find this collection of Peat quotes about niacinamide helpful.
Peat made the point multiple times that he considered niacin to be too stressful on the body and he always made the point to specifically recommend niacinamide, probably because it is not stressful on the body. iirc, he said that because niacinamide is water soluble, it doesn't stay in the body for longer than maybe a couple of hours. I took 200mg of niacinamide 2Xday for about 5 years; around 2021, I changed that dosage to 100mg, 4Xday. When I made that change, I experienced improved body chemistry and during the first 4 months on that regimen, I lost around 35-38 unwanted extra pounds. I should also say that I also take 100mg riboflavin 4Xday too. Both are important.
Perhaps you might consider trying 100mgs dose of niacinamide, taken 4Xday? I think this would better align what Peat recommended.
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Thank you David, excellent links and information, info has been passed on to others already.
Am personally a believer that sometimes there is a proper time and place for different forms of the same vitamin e.g. Niacin vs Niacinamide, standard B1 vs Allithiamine, the different Magnesiums etc etc.
As for Niacin flush, i have read product comments from folks who have been pretty traumatized. It sounds like it can be very stressful. Low and slow seems to be the right way to start, then work your way up. Or depending on what your health goal is then maybe Niacinamide would be the easier or more proper alternate.
My curiosity has been piqued though, my next bottle may be standard flush Niacin. Going forward i'll possibly even alternate purchases of both forms.
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@tubert That would be what I recommend. I'm not exactly well invested in the methylation scene, but from what I've read nicotinic acid and TMG are basically pushing the methylation process in opposite directions. And if you're overmethylating then it seems like to me TMG would cancel out any benefits one might receive from nicotinic acid.
I think I would default back to what Chris Masterjohn said about the overmethylating. Which he's not even a fan of niacin. Not because it doesn't work, but because it's actually powerful enough to swing the pendulum in the other direction and make you an undermethylator. So if you respond well to glycine, then that might be a better option. However some people have a poor response to glycine, so B3 is basically their only choice.
I do remember Ray wrote an article on methylation. And he said CO2 activates the demethylation enzymes. So you might could use something like buteyko breathing, bag breathing, or CO2 baths to help as well.
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@Mulloch94 - I take equal amounts of both TMG and niacin to try to balance the methylation. I will still get the niacin flush if I have not taken niacin for a few days. So maybe there is something else going on.
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I feel like I am on the wrong side of the fence defending niacin. There are a few positives.
https://www.bioenergetic.life/clips/36a61?t=1361&c=30
For example, one of the basic effects of niacin is to inhibit the release of free fatty acids from our tissue stores. And free fatty acids poison our energy apparatus. And niacin is not only immediately involved in energy processes, but you've probably noticed how schizophrenics almost always are heavy smokers. And nicotine happens to have an actual brain protective and therapeutic effect against a lot of the degenerative inflammatory diseases. But I think that's because it's overlapping with the niacin pathways that are natural energy producers and anti-inflammatory nerve protective systems.
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@DavidPS If you get a flush after taking a break, but didn't get a flush while taking it daily, it might be a sign that your histamine stores have replenished enough to start causing the flush interaction again. Supposedly niacin doesn't do anything to directly increase histamine, rather it just releases it from mast cells. So overtime of consistent usage it could possibly deplete histamine. But because it reduces methylation it also lowers histamine degradation, so there seems to be some dispute here.
@DavidPS said in Niacin Was, Is, and Always will be Essential to Life and the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Just for Starters:
I feel like I am on the wrong side of the fence defending niacin. There are a few positives.
I don't think niacin is bad at all. As Ray mentioned in your example, pretty much any form of B3 does some positive things for metabolism, like lowering FFA's and increasing NAD. I think I probably question some of it's usage as a lipid lowering substance, because people typically have to take really large dosages of it. And since it does in fact raise serotonin and histamine, it's probably best to use no-flush versions of B3 if you're taking more than 500mgs. Some people get flush at even lower dosages than that.
Niacinamide was also used in a trial to restore kidney function in kidney disease. I'm wondering if the effects would be the same for nicotinic acid? Presumably so, since the mechanism behind it's action for the restorative effects is the increase in NAD. However one does have to take into account the massive dosages, and taking nicotinic acid at 1g+ would likely cause a surge in serotonin. Which lends to the notion that maybe when really large dosages are required it might be best to opt for no-flush varieties.
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Ray spoke about the no flush BB-3
https://www.bioenergetic.life/clips/423de?t=5718&c=108
“…The old, it's still popular, the nicotinic acid that makes people turn red, what it's doing is increasing the release of serotonin and activating prostaglandin production, stuff you don't want to happen. And even the kind they call no-blush, no-flush niacin, it's inositol hexonicotinate, I think is its name. It still releases nicotinic acid which releases serotonin, where the niacinamide doesn't do that. And even the slow release or the nicotinic acid are for sure going to increase the risk of diarrhea by increasing your serotonin and prostaglandins. Right. Good stuff. Once again, anything else you want to elaborate on?”
