by Abram Hoffer, Andrew W. Saul, and Harry D. Foster
Reviewed by
Robert G. Smith, PhD
Niacin (vitamin B3) is a biomolecule required by all forms of life. It functions as a precursor to NAD, an enzymatic co-factor in hundreds of metabolic pathways. Niacin is called a vitamin because the body can only synthesize it slowly and therefore requires a small but adequate amount from the diet. The reason that we cannot synthesize adequate amounts of niacin can be traced back to evolutionary pressure. Over millions of years, niacin was readily available from plant- and animal-based foods, so our bodies have evolved to rely on this dietary source. However, larger amounts of niacin than the minimum required by the body are helpful because they allow our metabolic pathways to function at full speed for optimal health and to prevent disease.
Some individuals are dependent upon high levels of niacin for health because of their genetic background or because of severe stress. For these individuals, much higher doses of niacin than the minimum dose can prevent and reverse disease. And for the rest of us, high doses of niacin are beneficial—and even necessary—for many aspects of health.
This new expanded edition, published in March 2023 by Turner Publishing, nearly doubles the original Niacin: The Real Story, (from 228 to now 490 pages). It has several new chapters and appendices and more than 600 references to document recent advances in scientific knowledge about niacin. Several chapters focus on the different forms of the molecule niacin, how it works, safety of niacin supplements, and how to take niacin supplements.
Other chapters describe how niacin can help to prevent and reverse a variety of diseases and other conditions, including arthritis, ADHD, many forms of mental illness, cardiovascular disease, aging, alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, cancer, cholera, Huntingdon’s disease, migraine, multiple sclerosis, nephritis (kidney inflammation), Parkinsonism, PTSD, Raynaud’s disease, and a variety of skin conditions. There is a special chapter focused on the recent Covid-19 pandemic: how niacin can help the body recover from infection and reduce the risk of “Long Covid.”
A major focus of the book is how niacin supplements, along with adequate doses of all the other essential nutrients (vitamins and minerals) and a healthy diet that avoids sugar and processed foods, can prevent and even reverse a variety of diseases. This orthomolecular theme is developed in the chapter “Pandeficiency Disease.” This theme is based on avoiding deficiencies of vitamins and minerals that contribute to a wide variety of conditions.
Some vitamins are needed only in small milligram or microgram daily doses, but others such as vitamin C and niacin are needed in much higher doses, depending on the body’s state of stress, inflammation, and disease. The optimal dose varies with the individual and the state of inflammation and disease because biochemical stress in the body can deplete vitamin and cause deficiencies — which in turn can cause many different types of disease.
The book contains several interesting and significant new sections and chapters. The chapter entitled “Reversing Arthritis with Niacinamide” has been expanded, now including some of Dr. Kaufman’s notes and a memoir written up as his final unpublished paper. Niacin: The Real Story is the only book in print to present Kaufman’s own case notes and niacinamide protocol details. In these new sections, Dr. Kaufman documents his discovery of niacin and niacinamide treatments during his medical education, along with his observations of the nutritional deficiencies in the typical diet that caused pellagra (caused by a severe deficiency of niacin) and that also tended to cause osteoarthritis.
Many of the patients in the early years of his practice in the 1940s were referred by other physicians who wanted to get rid of their most complaining and difficult patients. At the time, the only treatments for arthritis were aspirin, hot paraffin dips, or heat treatment of joints. With his careful observations of symptomatology, Kaufman realized that most had a niacin deficiency—and these symptoms are summarized in detail. He explains that he soon found that most of these patients had a deficiency of niacin in their diets—proven by rapid improvement after niacinamide treatment.
He reported that he treated all his patients with kindness, respect, and adequate doses of niacinamide—and soon after starting niacinamide treatment with up to 2000 mg or more per day, taken in divided doses, the patients “became easy to take care of medically” and had “astonishing improvements in their health.” Kaufman took their complaints seriously and found that a niacin deficiency was independent of family income. Well-to-do families could afford a nutritionally good diet, even if they did not do so. (See link for article)
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**Comment**
I highly recommend this book.
I too have benefitted from both niacin and niacinamide.
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