10 replies to this topic

[doug123]

Zee News.com: News Source



Common vitamin may be fatal if taken in excessive amount

Washington, April 12: A new study has found that taking excessive doses of a common vitamin, niacin, in an attempt to defeat drug-screening tests may be fatal.

Niacin is easily available as an over-the-counter vitamin supplement. As a vitamin, the daily recommended intake is 15 milligrams, but niacin is used in much larger doses to treat vitamin deficiencies and other conditions.

The research was conducted by a team of researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and The University of Pennsylvania. The lead researcher of the study is Manoj K. Mittal, M.D., a fellow in Emergency Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

As part of the study, researchers examined two adults and two adolescents who suffered toxic side effects from taking large amounts of niacin, also known as vitamin B3, in mistaken attempts to foil urine drug tests.

Both adult patients suffered skin irritation, while both adolescents had potentially life-threatening reactions, including liver toxicity and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), as well as nausea, vomiting and dizziness. One of the teens also had disrupted heart rhythms.

"People often assume niacin is completely safe," Dr. Mittal said.

"As a water-soluble vitamin, it is easily excreted from the body. However, the body has its limits, and some of these patients took 300 times the daily recommended dose of niacin," he said.

Researchers found, that the vitamin, which is often believed to foil drug test is can actually be toxic and moreover it does not work to defeat the doping test.

"Testing urine for drugs is becoming increasingly common for job applicants. Because niacin is known to affect metabolic processes, there is a completely unfounded claim that it can rapidly clear the body of drugs such as cannabis and cocaine. However, niacin is toxic when taken in large amounts," he added.

"Many Internet sites promote the misconception that niacin can be used to pass urine drug screening tests. We hope that our study will alert emergency medicine physicians and other health care providers to this hazardous practice," he said.

Bureau Report

[lucid]

300 x dv = 4.5 g which is a whole lot. They failed to say what the doses of people trying to beat the drug test were... I imagine they were higher than 4.5......

[roidjoe]

Nicotinic acid has been used for decades (and safely) for lowering LDL cholesterol and improving HDL cholesterol - it has also been used to treat a variety of mental disorders, by which mechanism it works i do not know. I would assume that the intense vasodilatation reduces anxiety within the organism - if one is to reason that anxiety causes subconscious muscle tension and hinders the blood flow throughout various organs of the body, and, thus, through the disruption of energy flow has a negative impact upon the mind.

http://www.doctoryou...fer_niacin.html

"Doses of 200 mg to 10 g daily of the acid have been used therapeutically to lower blood cholesterol levels under medical control for periods of up to 10 years or more and though some reactions have occurred at these very high dosages, they have rapidly responded to cessation of therapy, and have often cleared even when therapy has been continued.

[luv2increase]

Too much of anything is not beneficial unless it is vitamin C

[lunarsolarpower]

Interesting to hear about toxicity of a water based vitamin. Oh, and taking huge amounts of Vitamin C might not cause any problems but diarrhea but when you stop taking so much, your body's set point will be so high for eliminating it that you can very well contract scurvy.

The only thing you REALLY can't overdo is balance

[Shepard]

Oh, and taking huge amounts of Vitamin C might not cause any problems but diarrhea but when you stop taking so much, your body's set point will be so high for eliminating it that you can very well contract scurvy.

Has there ever been any real evidence of this?

I stopped my intake completely for a little while to try to get scurvy for Halloween. I had my peg leg and eye patch all ready for it.

[krillin]

Oh, and taking huge amounts of Vitamin C might not cause any problems but diarrhea but when you stop taking so much, your body's set point will be so high for eliminating it that you can very well contract scurvy.

Has there ever been any real evidence of this?

I stopped my intake completely for a little while to try to get scurvy for Halloween. I had my peg leg and eye patch all ready for it.

http://books.nap.edu...d=9810&page=158

"Evidence of systemic conditioning (the accelerated metabolism or excretion of ascorbic acid) exists from uncontrolled observations in humans following abrupt discontinuation of prolonged, high-dose vitamin C supplementation (Rhead and Schrauzer, 1971; Siegel et al., 1982). Omaye et al. (1986) showed increased turnover of plasma ascorbic acid in apparently healthy human adults who abruptly decreased their vitamin C intake from 605 to 5 mg/day. Two other studies showed that high intakes resulted in increased clearance but did not result in blood levels lower than normal (Schrauzer and Rhead, 1973; Tsao and Leung, 1988). Other studies have reported no rebound scurvy or excessive lowering of ascorbate blood levels after cessation of high intakes (Hoffer, 1973; Ludvigsson et al., 1979). Evidence that rebound scurvy may appear in infants whose mothers ingested large doses of vitamin C during pregnancy is limited to one anecdotal report of 2 infants (Cochrane, 1965). Overall, the evidence is inconsistent and does not suggest that systemic conditioning occurs to any significant extent in infants and adults."

[woly]

What would you guys call "excessive"? it seems that orthocore and lef mix contain around 150-190mg of niaicin in their formulations yet the upper limit seems to be 35mg. could these doses be hepatoxic?

[maxwatt]

A gallon and a half of water, drunk in about half an hour, is usually fatal. Don't tell the FDA, or they might require a doctor's prescription and we'll all have to drink beer.

[krillin]

What would you guys call "excessive"? it seems that orthocore and lef mix contain around 150-190mg of niaicin in their formulations yet the upper limit seems to be 35mg. could these doses be hepatoxic?

The upper limit is based on the niacin flush. It usually takes grams of niacin to cause liver damage.

http://books.nap.edu...d=6015&page=138

[OutOfThyme]

What would you guys call "excessive"? it seems that orthocore and lef mix contain around 150-190mg of niaicin in their formulations yet the upper limit seems to be 35mg. could these doses be hepatoxic?

Unlikely... for a healthy liver that is. Therapuetic levels are far higher than that. Having said that, supplement under your doctor's care. I'd highly recommend blood tests before/after any unconventional supplementation.

The dietary reference intake established by the Food and Nutrition Board for niacin (in the form of niacin equivalents, 1 milligram niacin = 60 milligrams tryptophan) ranges from 16 to 18 milligrams daily for adults, with a maximum intake of 35 milligrams daily. 50 milligrams to 6 grams has been taken in divided doses for other conditions based on physician and pharmacist recommendations.

http://www.nlm.nih.g...ent-niacin.html