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VITAMIN B3 (NIACIN)
What is niacin?
Niacin is one of the eight B vitamins and is also called vitamin B3 (1).
Niacin has two main chemical forms:
1- Nicotinic Acid
2- Niacinamide (sometimes called nicotinamide)
Both forms are found in foods and supplements (1).
The main role of niacin in your body is to synthesize the coenzymes nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP), which are involved in over 400 biochemical reactions in your body, mainly related to obtaining energy from the food you eat (1).
Niacin is water-soluble, so your body does not store it. This also means that your body can excrete excess vitamin through urine if it doesn’t need it (1).
As with all B vitamins, niacin helps convert food into energy by assisting enzymes. Specifically, niacin is a major component of NAD and NADP, two coenzymes involved in cellular metabolism. It also plays a role in cell signaling and DNA construction and repair, as well as acting as an antioxidant (2).
Some symptoms of niacin (vitamin B3) deficiency (1):
– Skin rash or discoloration
– Bright, red tongue
– Vomiting
– Constipation or diarrhea
– Depression
– Burnout
– Headache
– Memory loss
– Loss of appetite
However, deficiency is very rare in most Western countries. People with malnutrition (which can be caused by HIV/AIDS, anorexia nervosa, liver failure, alcohol abuse, other medical problems or poverty) are most at risk. Severe niacin deficiency or pellagra occurs mostly in developing countries where diets are not very varied. It can be treated with niacinamide supplementation (1).
BENEFITS OF NIACIN (VITAMIN B3)
Improves brain function
Your brain needs niacin as part of the coenzymes NAD and NADP for energy and to function properly. In fact, brain fog and even psychiatric symptoms are associated with niacin deficiency (1, 3).
Some forms of schizophrenia can be treated with niacin as it helps to undo the damage to brain cells caused by niacin deficiency (4).
Preliminary research shows that it may also help keep the brain healthy in cases of Alzheimer’s disease (5, 6).
Improves cholesterol levels
– Increasing your HDL (good) cholesterol
– Lowering your LDL (bad) LDL cholesterol
– Lowering your triglyceride levels
High doses (typically 1,500 mg or more) of niacin are needed to achieve improvements in cholesterol levels that increase the risk of potentially harmful side effects (7).
May lower blood pressure
One role of niacin is to trigger prostaglandins, or chemicals that help your blood vessels dilate, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure. Niacin may therefore play a role in preventing or treating high blood pressure (8).
In an observational study of more than 12,000 adults, researchers found that every 1 mg increase in daily niacin intake was associated with a 2% reduction in the risk of high blood pressure (8).
Another study also noted that single doses of 100 mg and 500 mg niacin slightly reduced right ventricular systolic pressure (9).
May help treat type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which your body attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas.
There is research showing that niacin may help protect these cells and possibly reduce the risk of type 1 diabetes in children who are more likely to develop the condition (10).
On the one hand, it can help lower the high cholesterol levels often seen in people with type 2 diabetes, but on the other hand, it has the potential to raise blood sugar. As a result, people with diabetes who take niacin to treat high cholesterol should also carefully monitor their blood sugar (11).
Fortunately, a more recent review of studies found that niacin had no significant adverse effects on blood glucose management in people with type 2 diabetes (12).
Improves skin health
Niacin, whether used orally or applied as a lotion, helps protect skin cells from sun damage (13).
It may also help prevent some types of skin cancer. A study of more than 300 people at high risk of skin cancer found that taking 500 mg nicotinamide twice a day reduced rates of non-melanoma skin cancer compared to a control (14).
REFERENCES
- National Institutes of Health. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Niacin-HealthProfessional/
- B Vitamins and the Brain: Mechanisms, Dose and Efficacy–A Review. David O Kennedy. 2016 Jan 27;8(2):68. doi: 10.3390/nu8020068.
- Case report of mental disorder induced by niacin deficiency. Wei Wang, Bo Liang. 2012 Dec;24(6):352-4. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1002-0829.2012.06.008.
- Niacin-respondent subset of schizophrenia – a therapeutic review. X J Xu, G S Jiang. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2015;19(6):988-97.
- Nicotinamide riboside restores cognition through an upregulation of proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator 1α-regulated β-secretase 1 degradation and mitochondrial gene expression in Alzheimer’s mouse models. Bing Gong, Yong Pan, Prashant Vempati. Neurobiol Aging. 2013 Jun;34(6):1581-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2012.12.005.
- Effects of homocysteine lowering with B vitamins on cognitive aging: meta-analysis of 11 trials with cognitive data on 22,000 individuals. Robert Clarke, Derrick Bennett, Sarah Parish. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014 Aug;100(2):657-66. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.113.076349. Epub 2014 Jun 25.
- Niacin Therapy, HDL Cholesterol, and Cardiovascular Disease: Is the HDL Hypothesis Defunct? Preethi Mani, Anand Rohatgi. Curr Atheroscler Rep. 2015 Aug; 17(8): 521. doi: 10.1007/s11883-015-0521-x.
- Evaluation of Dietary Niacin and New-Onset Hypertension Among Chinese Adults. Zhuxian Zhang 1 2, Mengyi Liu 1 2, Chun Zhou. JAMA Netw Open. 2021 Jan 4;4(1):e2031669. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.31669.
- A randomized pilot study on the effect of niacin on pulmonary arterial pressure. Martin J McNamara, Jason J Sayanlar, Daniel J Dooley. Trials. 2015 Nov 21;16:530. doi: 10.1186/s13063-015-1013-6.
- Primary and secondary prevention of Type 1 diabetes. J S Skyler. Diabet Med. 2013 Feb;30(2):161-9. doi: 10.1111/dme.12100.
- Effect of niacin on lipids and glucose in patients with type 2 diabetes: A meta-analysis of randomized, controlled clinical trials. Yi Ding 1, YuWen Li 2, AiDong Wen. Clin Nutr. 2015 Oct;34(5):838-44. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2014.09.019.
- Effectiveness of niacin supplementation for patients with type 2 diabetes: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Dan Xiang, Qian Zhang, Yang-Tian Wang. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020 Jul 17;99(29):e21235. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000021235.
- Nicotinamide for photoprotection and skin cancer chemoprevention: A review of efficacy and safety. Victoria A Snaidr , Diona L Damian, Gary M Halliday. Exp Dermatol. 2019 Feb;28 Suppl 1:15-22. doi: 10.1111/exd.13819.
- A Phase 3 Randomized Trial of Nicotinamide for Skin-Cancer Chemoprevention. Andrew C Chen, Andrew J Martin, Bonita Choy. N Engl J Med. 2015 Oct 22;373(17):1618-26. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1506197.