Hello, I'm Monica Reinagle, and you're listening to the Nutrition Diva

Podcast, a show where we take a closer look at nutrition news and research and answer your nutrition

questions so that you can feel more confident about your food and nutrition choices.

Today we're talking about niacin, how it affects your health, how much you need, and how much might be too much.

Nutrition diva listener Donnie wrote, I have a question about Niasin or B3 intake. The recommended daily allowance for

Nieson is 16 milligrams with an tolerable upper limit of 35 milligrams.

I eat what I consider to be a pretty healthy diet but I usually end up in the 50 to 60

milligram range. Do I need to be concerned about the long-term effects of constantly

being over that upper limit of 35 milligrams.

Donnie's question may have been triggered by recent news coverage of a study that suggested a link between high levels of niacin and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

However, I think the news coverage may have overstated the case a bit,

and in all fairness, the news media may have been led astray by a press release that

accompanied the publication which really glossed over many of the limitations

that the researchers themselves noted in the actual paper.

First, let's take a quick look at what this study found.

Researchers working at the Cleveland Clinic

measured the amount of certain niacin metabolites, these are compounds that excess niacin

breaks down into in the blood of over a thousand heart patients.

And those patients with the highest level of these compounds in their

blood had a higher risk of cardiovascular events. Now one of those compounds, the

one called 4PY, had separately been found in mouse studies to promote vascular

inflammation.

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