Niacin, or vitamin B3, is a popular supplement
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People with high levels of niacin (also known as vitamin B3) in their blood may be more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than people with low levels of niacin. Consuming too much of this vitamin, which is routinely added to fortified foods and can also be taken as a supplement, can cause inflammation in blood vessels.
Heart attacks and strokes are the leading causes of death worldwide. Over the past few decades, researchers have made great strides in discovering risk factors for these conditions, but have not identified them all.
“If treated [high] cholesterol and [high] “You can still have a heart attack even if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, and all the other pre-existing risk factors,” says Stanley Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “There’s something we’re missing.”
To fill these gaps, Hazen and his colleagues collected blood samples from 2,331 U.S. adults and 832 European adults who chose to undergo cardiovascular testing. The researchers analyzed the samples for substances called metabolites, which are byproducts of metabolic processes such as digestion. The researchers then tracked participants’ occurrence of cardiac events, such as heart attacks and strokes, over a three-year period.
The researchers found that people with high levels of a metabolite called 4PY were, on average, about 60 percent more likely to experience such an event than those with lower levels. This compound only occurs when the body breaks down excess niacin.
Further experiments revealed that 4PY inflamed blood vessels in rodents. We know that inflammation is a major contributor to the development of heart disease, Hazen said.
It’s not uncommon for people to have high niacin levels, he says. This is partly because certain foods, such as cereals and flour, are routinely fortified with vitamins in countries including the UK and US.
Hazen said niacin supplements are becoming more popular because evidence shows they have anti-aging effects. Additionally, doctors stopped prescribing high doses of niacin to people at risk for cardiovascular disease because it was initially thought that the vitamin protected people from the risk of cardiovascular disease by lowering cholesterol. It happened recently.
“I think this study really shows that when it comes to vitamins, you can sometimes have too much of a good thing,” says Jenny Jia of Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
However, this study was primarily conducted on people of European descent. So it’s unclear whether similar results would occur in people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, Zia said.
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