September – Oct. 2023 Newsletter
Vitamin B3 is… niacin. It has two forms, nicotinic acid (niacin) and nicotinamide (niacinamide). Normally, I strongly advocate taking B vitamins as a B-complex. Vitamins B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4, B-5, B-6, B-9, and B-12 are meant to work together. That said, niacin or B3 caught my attention in an article that linked it as a preventative to catching a virus like Covid. Niacin deficiency was the cause of the only widespread epidemic from vitamin deficiency in the United States. In 1918, over 200,000 people had pellagra, and severe dementia happened, as well as over 10,000 deaths in 1915. Can niacin help prevent viral infection? What does niacin do for the human body?
A large dose of niacin will cause blood vessels to dilate. In light of the phenomena of a niacin flush, I attributed a lot of B-3 claims to the dilation of blood vessels and the increase to general circulation. After researching and learning that four hundred genetic functions that require vitamin B-3, I withdrew that assumption. However, there’s much more to it.
Dr. Andrew Saul wrote a book called, Niacin: The Real Story. In this book, different chapters focused on different ailments and the use of vitamin B-3 to help. Physicians have found success using niacin in preventing cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases, and reversing arthritis, along with also helping to prevent a host of mental illnesses. Dr. Abram Hoffer, a psychiatrist who treated thousands of patients with niacin is a leading contributing author of this book. Note: the body can convert tryptophan to niacin.
Now, let’s get back to prevention of viral infection. A physician in India, named Dr. Gharote, noted that fifty-percent Covid-19 cases in India were concentrated in one area (Mharashta). The B-3 connection occurred because the main staple food is jowar (or sorghum). Jowar has excess leucine-3, which inhibits a body’s ability to convert tryptophan to niacin. Dr. Gharote also noted that B-3 in 1000 mg doses resulted in a 25% lower deathrate because it helps the kidneys regenerate.
We know that Covid-19 and also the drug Remdesivir hurt the kidneys. Vitamin B-3 reverses chronic kidney disease. Deficiency in B-3 is known to cause pellagra, but now India knows it also makes people more susceptible to contracting viruses. These doctors are even recommending B-3 supplements to prevent transmission! Before I continue, let me emphasize how B-3 helps kidneys. According to Dr. Todd Penberthy (whose doctorate is in biochemistry), “There is research that shows that B-3 reverses chronic kidney disease. This doesn’t usually happen.”
In regards to vitamin B-3, diabetes and the heart, B-3 increases insulin sensitivity and decreases a diabetic’s risk of cardiovascular disease. This has been studied for over fifty years. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for persons with diabetes. Numerous clinical trials have focused on this disease, and B-3 is “unparalleled in its ability to safely reduce cardiovascular disease risk.”
- Dr. Penberthy.
Niacin inhibits the depositing of plaque in the arteries, protecting the heart and brain. It has the best record of lowering cholesterol levels, triglycerides and lipoprotein, along with significantly elevating the HDL.
Alcoholism also often comes with heart as well as liver problems. Alcoholics as a group can be observed to suffer from malnutrition as well as B-3 deficiency. Alcoholism is also well known to shorten life spans. Some interesting history is that Mr. Bill Wilson, founder of AA and the twelve-step program met Dr. Hoffer, who is widely recognized as the greatest authority on the effectiveness of B-3 therapy. Wilson was suffering from depression and anxiety after taking his last drink. He began taking 100 mg niacin, three times a day and felt normal within two weeks’ time. Before this, Dr. Hoffer had been treating mental patients with niacin for some time. Mr. Wilson convinced thirty of his friends in AA to try niacin. Twenty of them became well within a couple of months. There were some AA doctors who opposed the use of B-3. Undaunted, Mr. Wilson distributed literature to AA physicians using a little booklet titled “The Vitamin B-3 Therapy.” Mr. Wilson died three years later at the age of seventy-five. Had he lived longer, perhaps the effectiveness of B-3 therapeutics would have advanced further. The philosophy of AA that Mr. Wilson promoted was that alcoholics could recover with treatment that was spiritual, mental AND medical.
Another aspect of B-3 and alcoholism is healing ‘leaky’ gut. Dr. Hoffer applied his orthomolecular, nutrition-based program that helped alcoholics suffering with malabsorption because of gastrointestinal permeability (‘leaky’ gut). Research was done on this in Brazil at the University of Sao Paulo. Ten patients that had pellagra, took niacin for twenty-seven days, 100 mg/ three times a day. Now this would be considered a small sample and also a study that was short in length. Yet evidence still showed a significant decrease in permeability. Researchers concluded that this therapy could lead the patient to recover normal gastrointestinal values as long as abstinence from alcohol and a balanced diet were also maintained.
This suggests that the amazing attributes of B-3 can affect the brain in terms of mental function, mood and emotions, even schizophrenia. What if schizophrenia appears to be genetic to us, but the connection is from a familial inability to absorb B-3 normally?
In the early 1950’s, Dr. Hoffer identified the psychosis associated with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia as identical to the psychosis diagnosed in pellagra patients. He conducted a series of double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on non-chronic patients. His tests results showed that the administration of niacin doubled the recovery rate of patients from thirty-five to seventy-five percent (compared to placebo). He wrote that once you see schizophrenic patients become normal, “it becomes unforgettable.”
Longevity IS affected. B3 contains anti-aging properties that work at a cellular level. Many deaths are the result of damage to neurons and blood vessels. Any substance that can prevent damage to these could be classified as an anti-aging substance. There was a person who died in 2006 at the age of 112. She skied cross-country and rode horses until she was 110. She played the piano right up until her death. She had a clear mind her entire life. She gave credit to niacin, which she took for the final forty years of her life because Dr. Hoffer told her (and all his patients) that they would feel better and live longer if they took niacin.
Niacin is found in these foods: peanuts, mushrooms, meat, chicken breast, beef liver, canned tuna, salmon (canned or raw), halibut, sardines, turkey, cooked wheat bran, brewer’s yeast, and enriched breads, rolls, crackers and cereals. Niacin is heat stable; little is lost in cooking.
Niacin status can be determined by measuring its breakdown product, N-methyl nicotinamide in urine. When needed for low intake, 60 mg of tryptophan can be converted into 1 mg of niacin. The minimum requirement for B-3 was 15 to 19 mg a day. The average diet contains 26.8 mg. Intakes of 100 mg or more of nicotinic acid can lead to an increase in blood flow to the skin, aka a “niacin flush, which is a general blood vessel dilation. Symptoms include headache and itching, a prickly feeling, some redness. Sometimes this is used as a relatively safe and inexpensive way to lower elevated blood cholesterol.
So, here we have an inexpensive nutritional supplement with some long-range research and much evidence of what it can do for people. Why have we not heard of it? This is another example of how each of us needs to try and learn what we can to deal with our own health needs. The places you will read about these things is at health food stores, in nutrition books and from alternative health advocates like, yours truly, i.e., chiropractors.
Vitamin B3 is… niacin. It has two forms, nicotinic acid (niacin) and nicotinamide (niacinamide). Normally, I strongly advocate taking B vitamins as a B-complex. Vitamins B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4, B-5, B-6, B-9, and B-12 are meant to work together. That said, niacin or B3 caught my attention in an article that linked it as a preventative to catching a virus like Covid. Niacin deficiency was the cause of the only widespread epidemic from vitamin deficiency in the United States. In 1918, over 200,000 people had pellagra, and severe dementia happened, as well as over 10,000 deaths in 1915. Can niacin help prevent viral infection? What does niacin do for the human body?
A large dose of niacin will cause blood vessels to dilate. In light of the phenomena of a niacin flush, I attributed a lot of B-3 claims to the dilation of blood vessels and the increase to general circulation. After researching and learning that four hundred genetic functions that require vitamin B-3, I withdrew that assumption. However, there’s much more to it.
Dr. Andrew Saul wrote a book called, Niacin: The Real Story. In this book, different chapters focused on different ailments and the use of vitamin B-3 to help. Physicians have found success using niacin in preventing cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases, and reversing arthritis, along with also helping to prevent a host of mental illnesses. Dr. Abram Hoffer, a psychiatrist who treated thousands of patients with niacin is a leading contributing author of this book. Note: the body can convert tryptophan to niacin.
Now, let’s get back to prevention of viral infection. A physician in India, named Dr. Gharote, noted that fifty-percent Covid-19 cases in India were concentrated in one area (Mharashta). The B-3 connection occurred because the main staple food is jowar (or sorghum). Jowar has excess leucine-3, which inhibits a body’s ability to convert tryptophan to niacin. Dr. Gharote also noted that B-3 in 1000 mg doses resulted in a 25% lower deathrate because it helps the kidneys regenerate.
We know that Covid-19 and also the drug Remdesivir hurt the kidneys. Vitamin B-3 reverses chronic kidney disease. Deficiency in B-3 is known to cause pellagra, but now India knows it also makes people more susceptible to contracting viruses. These doctors are even recommending B-3 supplements to prevent transmission! Before I continue, let me emphasize how B-3 helps kidneys. According to Dr. Todd Penberthy (whose doctorate is in biochemistry), “There is research that shows that B-3 reverses chronic kidney disease. This doesn’t usually happen.”
In regards to vitamin B-3, diabetes and the heart, B-3 increases insulin sensitivity and decreases a diabetic’s risk of cardiovascular disease. This has been studied for over fifty years. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for persons with diabetes. Numerous clinical trials have focused on this disease, and B-3 is “unparalleled in its ability to safely reduce cardiovascular disease risk.”
- Dr. Penberthy.
Niacin inhibits the depositing of plaque in the arteries, protecting the heart and brain. It has the best record of lowering cholesterol levels, triglycerides and lipoprotein, along with significantly elevating the HDL.
Alcoholism also often comes with heart as well as liver problems. Alcoholics as a group can be observed to suffer from malnutrition as well as B-3 deficiency. Alcoholism is also well known to shorten life spans. Some interesting history is that Mr. Bill Wilson, founder of AA and the twelve-step program met Dr. Hoffer, who is widely recognized as the greatest authority on the effectiveness of B-3 therapy. Wilson was suffering from depression and anxiety after taking his last drink. He began taking 100 mg niacin, three times a day and felt normal within two weeks’ time. Before this, Dr. Hoffer had been treating mental patients with niacin for some time. Mr. Wilson convinced thirty of his friends in AA to try niacin. Twenty of them became well within a couple of months. There were some AA doctors who opposed the use of B-3. Undaunted, Mr. Wilson distributed literature to AA physicians using a little booklet titled “The Vitamin B-3 Therapy.” Mr. Wilson died three years later at the age of seventy-five. Had he lived longer, perhaps the effectiveness of B-3 therapeutics would have advanced further. The philosophy of AA that Mr. Wilson promoted was that alcoholics could recover with treatment that was spiritual, mental AND medical.
Another aspect of B-3 and alcoholism is healing ‘leaky’ gut. Dr. Hoffer applied his orthomolecular, nutrition-based program that helped alcoholics suffering with malabsorption because of gastrointestinal permeability (‘leaky’ gut). Research was done on this in Brazil at the University of Sao Paulo. Ten patients that had pellagra, took niacin for twenty-seven days, 100 mg/ three times a day. Now this would be considered a small sample and also a study that was short in length. Yet evidence still showed a significant decrease in permeability. Researchers concluded that this therapy could lead the patient to recover normal gastrointestinal values as long as abstinence from alcohol and a balanced diet were also maintained.
This suggests that the amazing attributes of B-3 can affect the brain in terms of mental function, mood and emotions, even schizophrenia. What if schizophrenia appears to be genetic to us, but the connection is from a familial inability to absorb B-3 normally?
In the early 1950’s, Dr. Hoffer identified the psychosis associated with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia as identical to the psychosis diagnosed in pellagra patients. He conducted a series of double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on non-chronic patients. His tests results showed that the administration of niacin doubled the recovery rate of patients from thirty-five to seventy-five percent (compared to placebo). He wrote that once you see schizophrenic patients become normal, “it becomes unforgettable.”
Longevity IS affected. B3 contains anti-aging properties that work at a cellular level. Many deaths are the result of damage to neurons and blood vessels. Any substance that can prevent damage to these could be classified as an anti-aging substance. There was a person who died in 2006 at the age of 112. She skied cross-country and rode horses until she was 110. She played the piano right up until her death. She had a clear mind her entire life. She gave credit to niacin, which she took for the final forty years of her life because Dr. Hoffer told her (and all his patients) that they would feel better and live longer if they took niacin.
Niacin is found in these foods: peanuts, mushrooms, meat, chicken breast, beef liver, canned tuna, salmon (canned or raw), halibut, sardines, turkey, cooked wheat bran, brewer’s yeast, and enriched breads, rolls, crackers and cereals. Niacin is heat stable; little is lost in cooking.
Niacin status can be determined by measuring its breakdown product, N-methyl nicotinamide in urine. When needed for low intake, 60 mg of tryptophan can be converted into 1 mg of niacin. The minimum requirement for B-3 was 15 to 19 mg a day. The average diet contains 26.8 mg. Intakes of 100 mg or more of nicotinic acid can lead to an increase in blood flow to the skin, aka a “niacin flush, which is a general blood vessel dilation. Symptoms include headache and itching, a prickly feeling, some redness. Sometimes this is used as a relatively safe and inexpensive way to lower elevated blood cholesterol.
So, here we have an inexpensive nutritional supplement with some long-range research and much evidence of what it can do for people. Why have we not heard of it? This is another example of how each of us needs to try and learn what we can to deal with our own health needs. The places you will read about these things is at health food stores, in nutrition books and from alternative health advocates like, yours truly, i.e., chiropractors.
