7 replies to this topic

[hughbristic]

My doctor just prescribed time-release niacin for me for my cholesterol, but I thought i remebered reading recently that it might actually have a pro-aging effect. I forget where I read that. Anybody know anything about it?

Thanks,
Hugh

[kevin]

Hi Hugh.

This is just one thread from sci-life.extension newsgroup that deals with niacin..

Niacinimide might block the life-span extending effect of calorie restriction

If you do a search on the newsgroup you will find more than enough information to choke a horse on niacin..
http://groups.google...&q=niacin&meta=

There are reccomendations for taking inositol hexanicotinate rather than niacin for maintenance of cholesterol.

Good luck..

Edited by kevin, 02 September 2003 - 11:54 PM.

[Bruce Klein]

Susan on an empty stomach showed signs of rash from taking her multi-vitamin.. after her sister read the label, found that niacin can cause such rash.. just a heads up. We've since found niacin-free vitamins for her.

[hughbristic]

Thanks, guys, for the feedback!

Kevin:

Thanks for the sci.life-extension thing. That's where I'd read it. Sounds like niacin, AKA nicotinic acid, is good and nicotinamide, AKA niacinamide, is bad. A little research seems to indicate that the kind I'm on, niaspan, is the good stuff. Strange, though, that the article indicates nicotinamide is marketed as an anti-aging treatment, when the research indicates the opposite. I wonder if nictotinamide is related to nicotine? May help explain why nicotine sometimes has beneficial effects if PNC1 converts it to nicotinic acid. Maybe those who experience paradoxical effects from nicotine have an extra PNC1 genes. Don't really know what I'm talking about here, but maybe someone who does who reads this can tell me if this makes sense.

BJ:

Niacin can cause flushing. Did she have a rash or flushing? Either way, the time-released version of niacin is less susceptible to that problem. Might want to see if she could get it in that form.

Hugh

[hughbristic]

There are reccomendations for taking inositol hexanicotinate rather than niacin for maintenance of cholesterol.

Found a good source of info on niacin variants at http://www.supplemen...supplementId=32. Sounds like I should definately ask my doc about the inositol hexanicotinate. The source says it is less likely to cause liver damage, which I am a little concerned about as I am taking metformin off-label for its possible CR-mimetic effects and that can occasionally cause liver problems.

Hugh

[kevin]

Just for my own education.. I've been meaning to do a little more looking into the B family since the implication of NADH and PNC1 in caloric restriction. As NADH is essential as well for respiration, it may be that levels of NADH are influenced by B vitamins. Michael Price on sci.life-extension is very supportive that mega-dosing vitamin B related compounds is beneficial.


AKA niacin (as in nicer than nicotine from cigarettes)
- is used for the production of co-enzymes used in respiration, NAD and NADP


AKA niacinamide


Inositol Hexaniacinate/hexacnicotinate

Biological Synthesis

Humans do not have the ability to synthesise sufficient nicotinic acid, this means that it is an essential component of a balanced diet. Some mammals are able to synthesise this chemical so it is not an essential component of their diets. For example, dogs can synthesise nicotinic acid from the amino-acid tryptophan. This might be an essential amino-acid, but for dogs, nicotinic acid is definitely NOT a vitamin. Bacteria in our large intestines, the colon, may convert tryptophan into nicotinic acid; this means that we could survive if sufficient bacterial activity took place. Our intestinal bacteria would require 60 mg of tryptophan to synthesise 1 mg of nicotinic acid so don't count on them.

Mechanisms

Nicotinic acid is required by our cells for the synthesis of the co-enzymes used by dehydrogenase in tissue respiration. These are NAD and NADP (remember these from your work on tissue respiration?) If dehydrogenase does not function (it cannot do so without its co-enzymes) there will be an accumulation of various intermediates of tissue respiration. For example, succinic dehydrogenase is required to convert succinic acid into fumaric acid. The accumulation of these intermediates prevents normal tissue respiration, so how can cells obtain energy? The first cells to suffer from deficiency of nicotinic acid(niacin) are the most active ones (nerve cells) and those which readily lose nicotinic acid because it is soluble in water (epithelia).


As the use of niacin can produce liver toxicity at levels required to control cholesterol, inositol hexanicotinate has been researched and found to be effective without the problems of niacin/nicotinic acid.

Here's a pretty decent, if dated (96), discusson on the use of niacin and inositol hexanicotinate for various purposes.
http://www.thorne.co...xaniacinate.pdf

Edited by kevin, 03 September 2003 - 03:21 AM.

[kevin]

and I found the abstract for the PNC1 paper..

Nature 2003 May 8;423(6936):181-5
Nicotinamide and PNC1 govern lifespan extension by calorie restriction in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Calorie restriction extends lifespan in a broad range of organisms, from yeasts to mammals. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, including decreased oxidative damage and altered energy metabolism. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, lifespan extension by calorie restriction requires the NAD(+)-dependent histone deacetylase, Sir2 (ref. 1). We have recently shown that Sir2 and its closest human homologue SIRT1, a p53 deacetylase, are strongly inhibited by the vitamin B(3) precursor nicotinamide. Here we show that increased expression of PNC1(pyrazinamidase/nicotinamidase 1), which encodes an enzyme that deaminates nicotinamide, is both necessary and sufficient for lifespan extension by calorie restriction and low-intensity stress. We also identify PNC1 as a longevity gene that is responsive to all stimuli that extend lifespan. We provide evidence that nicotinamide depletion is sufficient to activate Sir2 and that this is the mechanism by which PNC1 regulates longevity. We conclude that yeast lifespan extension by calorie restriction is the consequence of an active cellular response to a low-intensity stress and speculate that nicotinamide might regulate critical cellular processes in higher organisms.

----------------------
so it seems that having an extra PNC1 gene would come in handy as you proposed..

a link to the full paper is http://www.jbc.org/c...77/47/45099.pdf

[Bruce Klein]

Hugh, yes.. that would be flushing... on cheeks and arms.. for a couple of hrs. Thanks for the suggestion of time release.. also eating something should help.