B-Complex Vitamins – Vitamin B3 (Niacin) Health Benefits
Believe it or not, there are some people who claim that smoking tobacco is beneficial for ones health. The main evidence given in support of this claim is that tobacco smoke, once inhaled, is actually quite a good source of nicotinic acid if you ignore all the other pollutants a smoker consumes.
Nicotinic acid is also known as vitamin B3, or niacin, and plays a variety of important roles within the body. The good news is that you don’t have to start smoking to benefit from this vitamin, as it is also available in a wide variety of food sources and vitamin supplements.
Why Is Vitamin B3 Important?
Niacin is one of eight members of the vitamin B group complex as shown below:
• Vitamin B1 (thiamine)
• Vitamin B2 (riboflavin)
• Vitamin B3 (niacin)
• Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
• Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)
• Vitamin B7 (biotin)
• Vitamin B9 (folic acid)
• Vitamin B12 (cobalamins)
The following videos talk about the importance of the B vitamins in general and why they are good for your health, while the rest of this article shall focus only on the health benefits of vitamin B3.
Just like the other seven B vitamins, niacin is soluble in water and so your body can only store very small amounts of it before your supplies run out. As a result, in order to prevent deficiency and obtain optimal health, you need a continuous daily supply.
Energy Metabolism
Niacin is a very important vitamin for energy metabolism as two enzymes which are required to convert food into energy, NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) and NADP (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate), cannot be produced without nicotinamide, a byproduct of niacin. So without this vitamin, you would be unable to gain full benefit from the carbohydrates, proteins and fats that you eat as part of your normal everyday diet.
At a cellular level, NAD+ is converted to NADP which is then used by the mitochondria in each of the cells in your body to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is essentially what cells use as a source of energy to fuel their biochemical reactions. This in turn allows your body to produce the enzymes that it needs to keep it running in an optimal and healthy condition.
Digestion
In addition to helping you to obtain energy from food, vitamin B3 also helps you to better digest what you eat by assisting in and increasing the production of hydrochloric acid in your stomach.
A low pH in the stomach enables the proteins that you eat to be more easily degraded by your body’s natural digestive enzymes, which subsequently helps you to better absorb nutrients in food.
This is especially true for vitamins such as vitamin B12, as the absorption of B12 is greatly enhanced by hydrochloric acid. Unfortunately however, as you age your levels of hydrochloric acid naturally start to decline, which can then result in impaired absorption of vital nutrients.
If you are supplementing with B vitamins, it is therefore best to take them as a complex, preferably in a whole food supplement like brewers yeast, as the bioavailability of each B vitamin is greatly enhanced by the synergistic effects of the other B group members.
Hormones
The production of steroid hormones such as the sex hormones testosterone, progesterone and estrogen and stress hormones such as the corticosteroids is assisted by the presence of niacin.
Niacin helps to maintain the correct levels of these hormones in the body, which is important as an imbalance of sex hormones can lead to learning difficulties and mood disorders whilst an imbalance of stress hormones can lead to adrenal fatigue and chronic stress which can weaken your immune system, make you more susceptible to disease and accelerate the rate at which you age.
Circulation
Niacin also acts as a vasodilator, which means that it helps to widen your blood vessels so that more blood can flow through them.
Niacin can therefore help to improve blood circulation within the body, which can subsequently benefit cognitive function and sexual performance by increasing blood flow to the brain and sexual organs such as the penis and clitoris.
In fact, taking too much niacin can cause what is known as a “niacin flush” which results in a reddening of the skin and a warming, sometimes itchy, sensation which can be problematic for sufferers of rosacea. The term “flush” is used because these effects are usually on temporary, lasting no more than 20 minutes.
What Are The Health Benefits Of Niacin?
Largely due to its effects on energy production, blood circulation and hormone regulation, niacin serves many beneficial roles within the human body. Some of these benefits are listed below.
• Helps to improve digestion of food.
• Is an essential macronutrient that is important for obtaining energy from proteins, carbs and fats.
• May help to lower bad low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol which can reduce your risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease.
• Can benefit cognitive and sexual function by increasing blood circulation.
• Can help to maintain stable blood sugar levels and thus control appetite.
• Makes you better able to deal with stressful events.
• Can promote mental health and reduce incidence of psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety and degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
• Can indirectly benefit your immune system by lowering stress levels.
• May help to reduce ones susceptibility to migraine headaches.
• Can act as an anti-inflammatory agent which may reduce symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.
• Regulation of sex hormones can improve memory and concentration.
• May reduce the likelihood of macular degeneration by increasing blood circulation within the eye.
• Topical vitamin B3 cream may benefit acne by reducing skin inflammation.
• Along with other B vitamins it is needed in the production of red blood cells.
Vit-B3 Videos
The following videos discuss some of the benefits that vitamin B3 has on your health and body.
How Much Niacin (B3) Do You Need?
The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for niacin is 11-13mg for women and 18-20mg for men, however, in order to achieve therapeutic benefits, higher doses in the range of 300-500mg are needed which can only be achieved with supplementation.
Where Do You Get It?
Vitamin B3 is made in the body from the amino acid tryptophan which is present in most foods except sugars, fats and alcoholic drinks. High protein foods are the best source of niacin, and fruits are the worst source.
Who Needs Niacin Supplements?
Older adults, people with poor digestive systems, people on low calorie diets, vegans, vegetarians, suffers of diabetes and pregnant women may all benefit from supplementing with extra vitamin B3.
If you have acne, varicose veins, migraine, tinnitus or depression you may also benefit from taking extra niacin.
If you are looking to reduce your levels of bad cholesterol and increase your levels of good cholesterol with niacin, a dosage of 500mg or greater is required. However, high dosages of vitamin B3 may cause liver damage and so should be taken with caution.
What Causes A Deficiency Of B3?
Excessive alcohol consumption, long term antibiotic use, contraceptive pills and a physically active lifestyle may all deplete your body of niacin.
Vitamin B3 can be destroyed once food is processed from its natural state, so if you eat a diet that is high in processed or refined food, then you may become deficient in B3.
However, most foods nowadays, such as breakfast cereals, are fortified with vitamins such as B3 to put back what was taken out during the production process. So the risk of suffering from severe deficiency in western countries is relatively low.
Signs Of Deficiency
Some of the signs of a niacin deficiency are:
• Sore Tongue And Mouth
• Dry Skin
• Fatigue
• Irritability
• Diarrhoea
• Giddiness
• Cognitive impairments
Best Food Sources
Some of the best food sources of vitamin B3 are:
• Lamb liver
• Roast chicken
• Salmon
• Sardines
• Peanuts
• Beef
• Muesli
• Wholemeal bread
