Rev 9/13/21 (see Notes)
In April of 2021 I found a January 2021 article entitled Niacin and Cancer: How vitamin B-3 protects and even helps repair your DNA (http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v17n05.shtml), and from there discovered Niacin: The Real Story by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., which is available as a paperback and in a couple of ebook formats. I also found a review of NTRS and some good articles on niacin by going to DoctorYourself.com and searching for 'niacin.'
It appears that niacin deficiency might be the central underlying cause of cancer which the medical establishment is concealing from us to protect their wealth and power. NTRS mentions that Dr. Hoffer gave large doses of niacin and ascorbic acid to a 75-year old with terminal lung cancer, and heard a year later (from the oncologists who had given up on him, apparently) that his cancer had disappeared. Still, he died two years or so after Dr. Hoffer first saw him, although the book doesn't indicate a cause of death, but does indicate that no autopsy was performed.
But niacin does much more that to protect and repair DNA. I've enclosed the following excerpts from NTRS, some of which overlap the aforementioned review:
Excerpts and paraphrased passages from Niacin: The Real Story by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
Once niacin is transformed to NAD inside the cell, it is used in more bio-chemical reactions than any other vitamin-derived cofactor (over 450).... Does it not therefore come as little surprise that niacin works to provide relief for so many conditions? [Dr. Hoffer indicated that many people doubted his findings because they simply could not believe that anything could be so effective. Others obviously knew he was right, but wanted to suppress the truth to protect the interests of drug manufacturers.]
Aside from [Abram's and Harold's] research, reports of high-dose niacin treatment do not exist in the standard medical education literature.... It is an invaluable resource for everyone interested in maintaining optimal health.
from Foreward
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from Preface
Many people have no idea how many illnesses are caused by too little niacin, and practically no one realizes just how many illnesses can be cured with megadoses of niacin.... These conditions, successfully treated by pioneering niacin researcher Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., are based on his more than fifty years of medical practice.... Dr. Hoffer was the world authority on niacin.
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from What is Niacin?
Niacin's original name was nicotinic acid. The name was changed to remove confusion with nicotine.... There is a question whether it should have been classed with the vitamins because it can be made in the body from tryptophan and is used by the body in quantities more appropriate to amino acids. It has been suggested that it should be classed as an amino acid, but it is now too late to do anything about this.
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from Ch 3
According to Miller, tuberculosis (TB) is one such example of niacin deficiency and a very important factor in the evolution of schizophrenia.
Some 50% of the population of the developed world seems to suffer from disorders or diseases that respond beneficially to niacin or niacinamide supplementation. This figure is probably an underestimate. Sufferers from arthritis (20%), addictions (10%), children with learning or behavioral disorders (5%), cardiovascular disease, coronary disease and stroke (30%), cancer (50%), schizophrenia, or severe stress (unknown) would very likely improve if given more niacin.
Out of over 5,000 schizophrenic patients and over 1,500 cancer cases that I (AH) have treated since 1955, only eleven have had both diseases. All but one recovered with orthomolecular treatment combined with standard treatment for their cancer.
[Chapter 3 also mentions Dr. Hoffer's experience with treating what we now know as PTSD or PTSS with niacin:
The second major cause [of niacin dependency, besides long-term deficiency] is prolonged stress of any type.... [PTSD] is a very common diagnosis....
[...]
GP ... also suffered from chronic anxiety and fear for which he received psychotherapy. For example, he would not sit in any room with his back to the door.... In 1960 I started a project to study the effect of niacin on aging patients. GP was the director of the institution housing the patients, so I described the effects of niacin, its flush, and so on to him. A few months later he asked me whether he could also take the vitamin [and so it was provided to him].... A few months later he told me that he was okay - and I did not know what he meant. Then he told me about his forty-four months in the prisoner of war camp. Two weeks after starting the niacin, his arthritis was gone ... and he was no longer anxious. He suffered a relapse several years later when he forgot to take his niacin on a trip to the mountains with his son.
[I also found some information on this by Googling "niacin PTSS."]
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from Ch 4
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is condemnation without investigation. William Paley (1743-1805)
The RDA for niacin is under 18 mg per day. That is far too low. In 2007, an independent review panel of 22 researchers and physicians issued their recommendation for niacin intake for an adult: 300 mg per day.
The toxic dose for dogs is about 5,000 mg per 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of body weight. We do not know the toxic dose for humans since niacin has never killed anyone.
Niacin is not liver toxic, but niacin does increase liver function tests.
In spite of all this, there is now a government-sponsored "Safe Upper Limit" ... for niacin consumption. It is 35 mg per day.... Among many reasons why it is preposterous is that the so-called Safe Upper Limit is only about twice the RDA!
[...]
Instead, authoritative-sounding speculation is offered to the public in the form of statements like this: "Supplement users at risk from ignorance of tolerable upper limits ... Consuming too many nutrients can lead to harmful side-effects.... The authors of this paper claim that side-effect symptoms will likely occur in half of those persons taking 100 mg of supplemental niacin.... We consider such statements to be scare-mongering and sensationalism.
In his 55 years of experience with thousands of patients, Dr. Hoffer found that even 40,000 mg of niacin daily is not toxic. He estimated that over 200,000 mg per day is fatal. There is a built-in safety valve with niacin: vomiting.... The safety margin is very large.
[...]
The Niacin Flush
(Not a quote from the book)
I gather from reading the section on the niacin flush in Ch 4 that the flush is basically caused by the release of histamine, although it's more complex than that, and nobody seems to understand it precisely. So the idea is to work your way up to your desired dose (take it after each meal, and increase the dosage a little every day) without triggering an intense flush, which makes you feel warm, dry, and itchy and can last for an hour or so, and then to keep taking niacin with every meal to prevent the histamine from building back up. I was able to work up to taking 1 gram after each meal in a few days by starting out with 100 mg and increasing my dose by about 100 mg whenever I thought I could handle an increase. I like to feel a slight flush to confirm that I took actual niacin and that it's working.
However, I caution against taking a lot of tablets because the binders will build up in your body and make you sick. Even capsules contain ingredients besides niacin. I got some Nutricost 500 mg caps from Amazon which seem to be good, but I got some Vitacost 500 mg caps which caused some problems, so you can't assume that all niacin is high-quality stuff. So I suggest getting pure niacin powder in bulk from Amazon and a set of dark-colored plastic measuring spoons (the contrast makes it easier to get a good measurement).
When I actually got some and tried to mix it with water, I found that it doesn't dissolve very well by itself in water. I also learned the hard way that it's very acidic, by getting a cap stuck in my esophagus and having it partly dissolve before I could wash it down. It burned my throat and it took a couple of days for my throat to feel normal after that. Fortunately, both of these problems are easily solved by mixing it in water with half as much baking soda, and letting it fizz for a while to neutralize the acid, which is also how I take ascorbic acid. It's not as tasty as ascorbic acid, but it's not bad when diluted sufficiently. I still get about as much of a flushing-effect as I did with capsules, which isn't much after using it for a few months, and which I like to feel to know that it's working.
I suggest putting perhaps a week's worth in a small vitamin bottle, and use it as your source for individual doses. Be sure to mark the bottle to identify the contents and to warn people that taking it can induce a very uncomfortable flushing-effect which can last for about an hour (which isn't necessarily accurate, but the idea is to scare them), although it probably won't harm them. ("Warning: Pure niacin powder. To avoid intense itching that can last over an hour, do not consume any until you have read trustworthy instructions such as those found at www.doctoryourself.com/niacin.html.) If you need small doses, you can mix larger doses in water and discard some of the mixture.
Start out with 25 mg and work your way up. Niacin: The Real Story indicates that a panel of experts recommended an RDA of 300 mg. The author, Dr. Hoffer, recommends a therapeutic dose of 3 grams per day.
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Ch 9
Vitamin B3 deficiency produces a large variety of psychiatric syndromes.... It appears that a good deal of modern psychiatry depends on patients suffering from unidentified pellagra [B3 deficiency] for its bread and butter.... This includes the psychoses of aging, bipolar disease, and schizophrenic psychoses.
In 1952 ... Abram Hoffer ... had just completed his psychiatry residency ... [and] proven, with the very first double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in the history of psychiatry, that vitamin B3 could cure schizophrenia. You would think that psychiatrists everywhere would have beaten a path to Saskatchewan to replicate [Hoffer's] findings....
In modern psychiatry ... patients, tranquilized into submission or Prozac-ed into La-La Land, are often sitting at home or wandering the streets. Either way, it is doubtful that they will get much in the way of daily vitamin intake. Those in institutions fare little better nutritionally. For everyone "knows" that vitamins do not cure "real" disease.
[...]
For over a half a century, Dr. Hoffer has dissented. His central point has been this: Illness, including mental illness, is not caused by drug deficiency. But much illness, especially mental illness, can be caused by a vitamin deficiency. This makes sense and has stood up to clinical trial again and again.
[...]
[The book then refers to the case of a "bona fide, properly diagnosed, utterly incurable, state-hospitalized schizophrenic patient" who was "so unmanageably violent" that he was kicked out of the asylum and sent to live with his parents. They somehow got him to take 3,000 mg of niacin and 10,000 mg of Vit C, and this hyperactive insomniac responded by sleeping for 18 hours, and he became surprisingly normal within days (I assume that he took some each day).
[End of excerpts from NTRS]
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I've been taking 3 grams per day and have noticed benefits, although I haven't been taking it long so it's too early to know how it will ultimately affect me.
Another interesting book is Death by Calcium by Thomas E. Levy, M.D. He later wrote a book on magnesium entitled Magnesium: Reversing Disease. Magnesium deficiency is a major cause of depression, along with our consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (for which omega-3 is the antidote).
Chinese physicians, with assistance from the Chinese government, have been curing hospitalized Covid-19 patients with intravenous sodium ascorbate (the IV form of Vit C). For information on this, see DoctorYourself.com. You can protect yourself from viral infection (although not necessarily totally) by taking ascorbic acid in sufficient quantities every 3-4 hours. I take it by mixing ascorbic acid powder and half as much baking soda in about 1/4" of water in a glass, allowing it to fizz for a couple of minutes to neutralize the acid (which is bad for teeth), and then adding more water and drinking it. Ascorbic acid powder is available in bulk from Amazon.
Notes
Rev 8/27/21 - Added recommendation to mix niacin powder with half as much baking soda in water so that the niacin mixes better with the water and to neutralize its strong acidity, which can burn.
Rev 9/13/21 - Added passage about PTSS from NTRS.
