Vitamin B3 (Niacin), Your Brain, & Your Gut - IBS Freedom Podcast #205

Unlocking the Power of Niacin: Energy, Immunity, and Gut Health

In this episode of the IBS Freedom Podcast, the hosts explore the critical role of niacin (Vitamin B3) in bodily functions. They discuss its importance for energy metabolism and ATP production, affecting everything from fatigue and brain fog to gut health and the gut-brain axis. The conversation delves into niacin's role in DNA repair, immune modulation, and neurotransmitter release. They also touch on the challenges of maintaining adequate niacin levels, especially for vegetarians and vegans, and share fascinating historical anecdotes, including niacin's possible link to vampire folklore. Lastly, they caution against high doses of niacin supplements and consider its implications for overall health.

00:00 Introduction and Spooky Teaser
00:19 The Importance of Niacin
00:49 Niacin's Role in Energy and Enzyme Reactions
01:54 Niacin and the Nervous System
05:34 Niacin Deficiency and Symptoms
09:15 Challenges in Nutrition Research
13:41 Niacin in Diets and Special Populations
21:46 Niacin Sources and Bioavailability
26:24 Historical Context and Fun Facts
28:12 Introduction to Homegrown Wisdom
28:46 Ancient Remedies and Tribal Knowledge
29:40 Cultural Wisdom and Modern Medicine
32:19 Niacin Deficiency and Symptoms
33:09 Sources of Niacin
36:11 Niacin in Vegetarian and Vegan Diets
37:32 High Dose Niacin and Biohacking
46:22 Niacin's Role in Gut Health
48:18 Niacin's Impact on Immune Function
51:48 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Alright, welcome back for today's episode of the IBS Freedom Podcast. There's gonna be a surprisingly spooky little Easter egg later in this episode. Amy already knows 'cause I read this to her just moments ago, but stay tuned. If you want to know the spooky side of niacin. Uh, Amy, do you have an opening line for vitamin B three?

Would you say it's important o dietician of mine? 

Yeah, for sure. I was doing a little bit of reading too just before we hopped on, um, earlier today. Just to prep, 'cause we prep, we've been prepping lately. Look at us. We have been, look at us. Go. Um, but what's interesting, one, one of the, I think one of the sites that I went to, um, said that.

Niacin is actually needed in 400 enzyme reactions in the body, and it's the most of any other vitamin. Um, so she's kind of a big deal. She is. If she is a big deal. Um, and I think when I think of niacin, I think of like a TP and energy. It's probably the most important nutrient. Um, if you had to pick one, you need more of it than a lot of the other nutrients needed.

Um, like thiamin and riboflavin we've talked about in the preceding episodes, those are definitely needed too. Um, but you need niacin. In higher amounts. Um, and it's, again, to me it's just whenever I think of a TP and energy, I'm gonna think of niacin, but it also has some other really important roles not related to energy metabolism that might get less press, but are very important too.

So I'm excited to jump into, to niacin. Um. Yeah. Do you have any other, do you have any opening thoughts about niacin? Yeah, she cute. I think 

she, she's, she's fetch Yes. We're gonna make fetch happen. Um, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head that niacin I. Is especially important for energy metabolism and making a TP, which is like the body's energy currency.

Um, and I think of niacin and riboflavin as probably like the, the number one and number two in this. Mm-hmm. Because when you draw out the kreb cycle in school and they teach you all of those reactions, it's basically niacin and riboflavin all the way around the circle. Right. Um, but that really brings to mind clinically like.

Most of our listeners don't actually give a shit about the Kreb cycle, and they've never drawn the Kreb cycle. What? And they don't care to draw the Krebs cycle, which is fine. I kind of loved it, but that's fine. You're wrong. Just kidding. What might be important to our listeners is energy production is gonna directly tie into things like, oh, I don't know.

Fatigue, brain fog, nervous system, not working quite right, so you could certainly conjure up ideas of anxiety, depression, mood, sleep problems, but also as I think we mentioned in the previous couple episodes, the gut brain axis is so important for. Gut function, like your gut doesn't do much of anything completely on its own.

It's the vagus nerve, AKA, a big arm of the gut brain axis, telling your gut to make stomach acid, make enzymes, make and secrete bile. Run the migrating motor complex. Run your motility. Do all of the stuff, heal the gut lining AKA leaky gut healing. You know it is. You need that gut brain access to work.

Correctly and do its job well if you want gut function to go smoothly. But then the nervous system is this huge energy hog. I think we talked about it in the last episode or two. The brain right? Weighs what, two, maybe three pounds. But it sucks up about 20% of your energy. Yeah. For the day. Like you've got this, this.

GL in your head that's sucking up a lot of your energy and if you are chronically short on energy because of something like B vitamin deficiency or just undereating in general, good luck getting any of your neurologic function. Yeah, working right. That's that's my opener. 

Yeah, for sure. Um, and I think, you know, it's interesting, um, we were talking beforehand how, uh, Chris, master John, um, his paid substack, I was kind of reviewing some of the, the niacin information he has on there and it's great, I think for a lot of nutrients he has like a little short video just about them, like risk of deficiency, who might need more, like all the.

Sort of ins and outs, and they're very good. So I'd highly recommend if you're like a nerd on this stuff to check him out. But in his video, the way he labeled niacin, he said like, if you want a happy brain, if you wanna, if you want good skin and you want a healthy gut, then Niacin's really important. And the way he kind of described it is, um, niacin is needed to release neurotransmitters.

So like. Your neurotransmitters can't function well and you need neurotransmitters for gut function. You need it for, for the brain to function optimally, for the nerves to, to communicate like all this stuff you need. You need neurotransmitters to be releasing properly for the gut brain access to work effectively.

So that's really interesting, even beyond the a TP situation. I think too. Another thing that we talked about, um, is that. Niacin's really needed for DNA repair. Um, and so that's why it's talked a lot about with skin, we'll probably get into it like the, the big deficiency, which most people are not gonna have pellagra, but that's sort of the big condition that comes into play.

If you have severe deficiency of niacin, you have gra and often is like this rash or like not able, it's almost like a sunburn almost. It's sort of interesting. Um, and, uh. You know, the reason you can get this rash is that there's not enough niacin to repair the DNA to help with, uh, that recovery. So you just kinda get this like, rashness, that's awful.

Um, and again, if your, your skin won't be healthy and can't recover from things like sunburn. Sunburn actually deplete niacin because you need. Uh, to be able to repair that tissue and niacin is needed for that tissue repair. But so skin, you need it for skin. We talked about brain skin and then Chris Masteron points out that you need it for the gut because the gut is turning over every two to three days.

So that's 

what I was gonna say. Yeah. Much like the skin, which is a high turnover rate tissue, you're sloughing off skid cells all day, every day, every time you touch your skin. Mm-hmm. You're also sloughing off. Epithelial cells in the gut lining every couple of days. So yeah, continue. Right? So 

you need, right, you need the a TP to help repair that tissue.

So you need it from an energy production standpoint and like having enough energy to repair that tissue, but you also need it just from like a DNA repair, uh, repairing that tissue standpoint to, to be able to have, um, optimal GI function. Um, and, and that is something that you. See in deficiency, like so especially extreme deficiency is usually like the gra, like when there actually is outright deficiency, which people could have like.

Suboptimal levels, which we can talk about the difference, but it's sometimes helpful just to see like, what does an outright deficiency bring? And then you can kind of utilize that as like, okay, this is maybe what it would look like if you were in like the suboptimal range. Um, but they, there's something, I still remember it from school, but the, like four Ds, I think it's like dementia.

Uh, dermatitis. Dermatitis, diarrhea and death. Yeah. 

And 

death. I know it's kind of crazy, but like. It really covers all those bases. Like your neurology's not gonna work well. If you're niacin deficient, uh, your skin's not gonna heal very well. Maybe 

even we could add like your external barriers. 

Yeah, 

yeah.

And that would encompass things like the gut barrier 

for sure. So, and I think, again, like diarrhea is a sign of niacin deficiency. So if there is an issue. Um, getting enough niacin in, um, or even making enough niacin, uh, 'cause we could get into that too. You could have a problem, uh, with, with diarrhea, just specifically to, because of an niacin deficiency.

Um, and I, again, I don't know how common that is. It, that's the interesting thing about working in the space nutritionally, because I feel like my role is just to really help ensure people are getting. All the nutrients on board. And usually if someone is deficient in niacin, they're probably deficient in a bunch of stuff.

So it's hard for me to be like, oh, I, I'm not someone that's throwing in like a niacin supplement by itself and saying, oh, they're getting better. But I do know, again, as you start to build up levels of all the micronutrients, including niacin, things like diarrhea and gut issues get a lot better. And it's might not be simply because of the niacin, but it could be in part.

That that's the thing that makes nutrition research so hard, right? Yeah. And maybe you could speak to this a little bit more being a dietician, but. Um, the two things that seem to make nutrition research really, really hard to do is a, you very rarely get a true placebo, at least when you're dealing with real food, right?

Like the, the people in your research study know if they're the ones eating the broccoli or if they're in the group without the broccoli, right? So, you know, that sort of stuff is really hard to do with nutrition. Um, actually another factor is that human beings are notoriously. Awful at estimating what food we actually are taking in.

Right. Um, I've ex I've experienced this. I kid you not, I've done so much chronometer over the years and I've, I've done enough nutrition. Stuff with myself that I should theoretically know this to this day, I still am incapable of eyeballing what two tablespoons of peanut butter actually looks like, right?

Or nuts if I'm eating pistachios or almonds or something. I, I've just kind of gotten in the habit in recent years of always using the kitchen scale because I will take a big scoop of peanut butter. I'll think, yeah, that's two tablespoons, that's one serving. Absolutely. And then I measure it and I'm like, oh, damn, that's four tablespoons.

Right. Whoa. And the same thing, like I measure out what I think is one ounce of pistachios or whatever, and it's like, oh no, that's almost, that's almost two ounces, two servings, right. So anyway, my point is. A, there's very rarely a placebo in nutrition research, and that makes it very challenging. Number two is that human beings notoriously suck at self-assessing their nutrition.

So when they do like food diaries or, you know, ask people to eat a certain way. W how compliant they are with that and like what they're actually taking in and how good your data is, is really a huge wild card. Hmm. But then another one that you touched on is that usually Whole Foods are gonna have multiple nutrients in them.

So it's really, really hard to find people who have. Just an isolated niacin deficiency, but they are totally replete in all of the other vitamins and minerals. And then you could give them one magical food that only contains niacin and nothing else major like that. That really isn't a thing. You would only ever see that if we treat the nutrients kind of like pharmaceuticals and we give them a supplement.

Right. But 

yeah, it's also, but even. 

That like you're not gonna find somebody with a singular niacin insufficiency. Like I don't think that really exists. Yeah, 

and I will say too, like. People aren't really testing for niacin. Like I've, you know, it's not like a, a, you know, vitamin D gets tested on blood work all the time.

So I really feel like we don't have good data on how common deficiency is like it is interesting. I went and looked at like national health data on this and they were like, oh, less than 1% has deficiency. But I believe they used like. Um, they just used recall, like food recall data. Mm. And then put like, oh, we think that they're getting this much niacin in and therefore it's, it's not something that people struggle to get in their diet, but it doesn't really show you like how, how well people are actually making niacin from tryptophan, which we, we can talk about.

Or like individual differences, like if someone's having. A lot of DNA damage or tissue damage or something, they would need more niacin for healing. True. If your gut's been kind of on an onslaught, um, I know IBD is something that can have low niacin because again, if you, your tissue's being damaged, you're one.

Might not absorb it as well, but two, you, you're gonna be using it more. Um, just like, again, how I mentioned, if you're someone that's getting sunburned a lot or a lot more sun damage, you'll need more niacin to heal that tissue. Um, so we don't really, we can't really assess very well, I think like maybe some other nutrients that we have more data on, like where people's levels actually are at the population.

Yeah. Um, which makes it a little bit tricky too. 

No, I, I think you make a good point, and I'm gonna say right now I'm gonna go on record. I call absolute bullshit that only 1% of people have trouble getting niacin in their diet A, because I've seen more than that in my practice, let alone I. You know, other practices, but also, and we could cover this next, in a moment if you want, when we talk about the foods that contain niacin and what your daily need for niacin mm-hmm.

Actually is. I think there's one group of people or like one group of people following a particular type of diet in particular that would be. Highly likely to be deficient or at least insufficient in this nutrient. Right. And I guarantee that they make up a lot more than 1% of the general population.

Yeah. So I'm calling BS again, like I think that that's, I, I, I read it and was like, uh, this doesn't, maybe if again, you're using, um. Just traditional, like, oh, this has this much. But again, uh, there's issues with that too. I, one thing Chris, master John brought up, which I found really interesting, um, is that he thinks women need more niacin, uh, than men do, especially at particular periods of time.

He said estrogen, um, increases the conversion of tryptophan to niacin. So like, uh, you make more niacin at different parts of the cycle. Interesting. And like during pregnancy, you probably need more niacins, so the body is like. Ooh, we need more niacin. We're gonna upregulate that. And estrogen gets increased and you make more niacin.

So his argument was that women might need more niacin in particular points in time and, and if you are going through even menopause and you're not making as much. Uh, estrogen that you might actually have higher needs for, for niacin, um, yeah. 

For actually taking it in, like preformed niacin, right. From your 

food.

Right. So he kind of, uh, talks a little bit about, about that as well as, you know, like, ooh, during times where estrogen isn't as high, maybe you need, like you said, more preformed and not as much tryptophan converted into niacin. 

Yeah. And maybe it's just worth briefly mentioning, although I, I don't think that.

It's gonna be too influential for our audience and I don't expect normal people to like do the calculations in their head. Mm-hmm. But just briefly, we should mention that niacin is one of the, what, two vitamins that we are capable of producing ourselves in the body. Yeah. The other one being vitamin D.

Um, you may, you can make some niacin from tryptophan, which is an amino acid. Which is one of the building blocks of protein. So your ability to make niacin is highly dependent on your protein intake, both the quantity and quality of the protein that you're eating. Um, yeah, for sure. So this also could be a callback to what we've said before, which is kind of the hierarchy of nutritional counseling.

Number one, are you getting enough calories? If not, start there. If you are, then go on to carbs, protein. Fat fiber, look at those. If you're getting those in reasonable good quantities, then you could move on to the nitty gritty of the vitamins and minerals. But eating enough protein is gonna actually help you produce more of this vitamin in-house, so to speak.

Yeah, for sure. And again, there are calculations, but I don't think normal people need to think about that. 

Yeah, I don't need to think about, I think, um. Which I think is a good, it's always good to sort of diversify your investment, so to speak, from a nutritional standpoint. So it's one thing that Chris Master John did mention too in that video, um, which I think was a good call out, is like, you don't really wanna just rely.

Necessarily on protein to, to equal all your niacin. Right. You know, you might, you might wanna still have niacin based food sources to help give you kind of a more comprehensive, um, more like s uh. Yeah, like a more comprehensive strategy to keep your niacin intake up versus just relying, especially for women, he was saying, because like there could be different periods of time where you're better at making it compared to others.

Yeah. Just because of the estrogen. Um, yeah. But, and, and some people genetically might have a harder time making tryptophan, or sorry, niacin from tryptophan. Mm-hmm. Um, the other thing is that we need other nutrients to convert tryptophan into niacin. Most importantly, iron B six and riboflavin are probably the most important for that conversion.

So like, if you're iron deficient, which is so common. In our, uh, patient population, you might have a hard time making, uh, niacin prop tryptophan, um, until you get those other nutrients up. Yeah. So just another reason why you don't wanna just necessarily focus solely on, you know, oh, I have a niacin issue.

I'm just gonna focus on niacin. I, you need to make sure you're getting a wide array of nutrient nutrients 'cause um, it'll help you overall. 

Well, they're all connected. It's right. Again, the irony of this series that we're doing right now is that we are teaching you the nutrition. In a very like westernized kind of way where it's, yeah, this molecule does this thing, here's where it's found.

And you can all, but like you could make a spreadsheet and have a column for niacin, a column for riboflavin, a column for whatever, but that's not. Really how it works in the body. Yeah. Like all of these nutrients interact with other nutrients. So when you start pulling on one quarter of the web, you, you move the whole damn web.

Right. And. You know, it's it, like you said, you need other vitamins and minerals to add protein to make niacin in the body, and they're all gonna kind of influence each other. So it's, again, it's also kind of going back to what we said earlier, which is there's probably nobody. Uh, right now in this country at least, who just has a singular niacin deficiency, absolutely nothing else.

They've got plenty of riboflavin, plenty of 

right paradox, 

plenty of whatever, and they just have the singular deficiency. I really don't think that, right. We live in a time that that exists anymore. Uh, but niacin deficiency or insufficiency compounded with other nutritional deficiencies compounded with.

Stress, shitty sleep, lack of movement. Yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. You know, like that. That is a very real world thing that happens. And I think it happens more frequently than we think. 

Yeah, for 

sure. Um, for funsies though, I. Yeah, sorry, I you, I just half opened your mouth and then I cut you off. Sorry. Um, I did wanna share this, I shared a little bit from this chart from the Nutra VRA book in the last episode too, but I'll just make mention of it.

So in this book, right out the gate, in the first few pages, she has a table from a 2011 article looking at the proportion of American adults consuming less than had the estimated average requirement of that particular nutrient. And it goes through the list, and niacin is on the table at 11.7%. And I will also throw out there, this is a study that's now what, 14 years old?

Like that's not super new research. And I, for one, don't think that people's nutrition has gotten better in the last 14 years. I think if anything, it continues to get worse. 

Yeah. 

Um, so that's, I would say at least a one in 10 chance if you're listening to this episode right now, that you are Undershooting.

Niacin. Yeah. But, uh, maybe segueing into where niacin is found in food, I would make the argument that if you are a vegan, vegetarian, or primarily plant-based eater, I think you have a really high risk of undershooting this vitamin. Yeah. And you super need to pay attention to this. 

Yeah, for sure. I, I think there's, there's ways to get around it potentially, for sure.

Um, I think you have to work harder though. Oh, for sure. And I, I do think just in general, that's one thing that is sometimes maybe hard to hear if you're falling in that category. 'cause I, I do think. You can definitely make veganism or vegetarianism work, but it does become more effort and you have to be really kind of on top of your game.

Um, and I think niacin is a good example of that, that you would not never think of. You think of iron, you think of B12, maybe omega threes being harder to get, maybe using, yeah, being harder to get on a. A vegan vegetarian diet. But I agree. I think that this could be a tricky one. Um, yeah, I, I think that that, and, and I think there's a lot of people that just might eat a little bit too low a protein that could be at risk 

even.

Well, yeah. And then you're not making it yourself either. Right, right. Yeah. Well, and if I may too. So why I say that, let me, let me bust out my. Textbook like a dork again, but, uh, under sources, let's start by saying that the RDA for niacin is 14 milligrams for women and 16 for men. That's generally what's recommended.

Mm. Um, and they say, so keep, keep those numbers in the back of your brain. The best sources of niacin include most meat and fish. A three out serving of tuna or halibut provides 11.3 milligrams or 6.1 milligrams of niacin respectively. Beef and pork contain 4.5 to 7.2 milligrams of niacin per three ounce.

A three ounce chicken, chicken breast provides 11.8 milligrams. Three ounces of white Turkey meat contains 5.7 milligrams of niacin. Beef liver is especially rich with about 15 milligrams of niacin per three ounce serving. Veal has 8.9 milligrams, and then listen to the stark contrast. Then they say a cup of spaghetti provides 2.3 milligrams.

A cup of white or brown rice enriched white or brown rice, yeah, is 1.3. Peanut butter is 4.3. So you start getting into the plant-based foods and you see a really steep drop off, not only in the niacin itself, but the protein. 

Mm, yeah. 

Really, if you want the most bang for your buck, niacin wise, you. You're gonna be getting that from meat or seafood.

And so again, I just, I really wonder about plant-based eaters and whether they're able to get enough of this through their diet on a consistent day-to-day basis. 

Yeah, and I, and I think like what's always hard to factor into this whole situation too, is that. Sometimes the databases are all often skewed too.

Um, meaning depending on the food, sometimes it could be harder to extract the niacin in food. Um, you know, one thing that I still remember, like back in the day when I'd follow some of the Western a pricey type stuff, uh, they'd talk a lot about like sprouting or. Properly preparing grains. Yeah. Because niacin is one of those nutrients that's harder to extract.

Um, so, and I know even like one of the, one of the big things we talked about in dietetic school is how, like, I think Indians would properly prepare corn by like putting lime on them. And it would, you could extract the niacin much better when it was treated with Lyme. Um. Versus if when you stop doing that, the niacin doesn't come out.

And I think there was like maybe an outbreak of gra or something when they stopped doing that. And I forget what it, I forget all the ins and outs, but, so 

I think what it was, 'cause I just, I think I was seeing this on the Neutro Vore site when I was brushing up on there. Um, so I, I don't think it's that the Native Americans stopped.

Processing the corn correctly. I think the process is called Next Civilization, if I remember right. Um, it's when we stopped, we never did it brought corn. Well, it's when Europeans brought corn over to Europe and they started eating corn and they weren't preparing it correctly. Right. And actually that segues into the spooky fact about niacin.

Ooh, I, I titillated you in the beginning of the episode and now, you know. So, um. They, so on the nut travo, uh, website, if you go to the page for Europe or for niacin, not Europe, um, basically she says that, um, although less common today, pellagra was endemic in Europe in the 17 hundreds due to widespread corn cultivation.

While corn in the Americas was traditionally prepared with methods that make the niacin. Become bioavailable. Uh, those methods didn't carry over to Europe and corn eating populations were left unknowingly niacin deficient. Fascinatingly, there's reason to believe that niacin deficiency contributed to the origin of vampire folklore.

Mm-hmm. Pellagra symptoms resemble many attributes ascribed to vampires, including photo or sensitivity to sunlight, insomnia, erratic behavior, aggression and delirium. And vampire legends famously arose from corn eating areas of Eastern Europe around the same time Pellagra was striking those regions. Mm.

How bizarre is that? Yeah. Fun fact of the day, I guess. But, uh. Yeah, so you can get niacin from plant foods. It's just not gonna be in nearly the same abundance and potentially you're gonna need to process the food correctly to actually get the niacin out of it. Yeah. Um. Shout out by the way. So I follow a bunch of forger people on Instagram.

That's like one of my hobbies. Now, as you remember when I visited you in Ohio and I was frolicking at the edge of the forest, like looking at all the plants and stuff, right? Um, there's this couple, uh, their handle is homegrown, hand gathered, and they live in Pennsylvania and they grow corn as. As one of their, their crops and they have several videos about mixed ization.

Mm-hmm. And they mix the corn and water with some wood ash and that's one way that you could do it. And then basically you cook it for a while with the wood ash and then you like strain it out and kind of ribs off the corn and then you could process it into flour or whatever. 

Yeah. I think like how cool though is that the Indians kind of knew what to do.

That like internal wisdom sort of passed down I think too. Like they, well, I wonder, 

go ahead. If people started getting right diseased and then they, they just figured it out by trial and error, I imagine that's what it was. 

Yeah. Just kind of wild. I remember one story, I forget where I read it or heard about it, where Indians knew that if someone had vitamin C signs that they would give them, like they would find the adrenal.

Or I think it was the adrenal gland, which is really high in vitamin C. Hmm. And it's like this ti it's so tiny in animals and they would find it and give it to people. Huh. It's crazy how you would make that, that, that tribal knowledge of like knowing that that's gonna help with these symptoms. It's just wild.

Isn't that funny? Um, well. And I, I'll throw out there, I think that a lot of cultures in the world still have at least some of that knowledge Yeah. Uh, that we've kind of lost in America. Um, so my best friend is first generation, um, Chinese American. So her parents immigrated from China, um, at some point in their lives.

And her mom is chockfull of like. Weird Asian wisdom that I can't even wrap my head around. And she would cook the strangest things. When she came to visit, it was great. But more recently, Mamie was telling me that her mom and her husband or partner, um, the husband was having symptoms of low testosterone 

and 

the doctor wanted to give him testosterone shots and.

Mamie's Mom was like, no, no, no, no, no. I know what to do. And I, so I guess the husband is an avid hunter and he brings home like a deer every so often. Mm. And. Pat Mamie's mom instructed him to save the testicles of the animal and she cooked them and served them, I think mixed in with something else. I don't think he knew what he was eating.

Right. But the symptoms of low testosterone went away. Whoa. Yeah, and it's, it's like, well that, okay, that makes sense. But you know, that's like ancient shit. That's so funny. Meanwhile, in this country, we would just. We would just run and get the, the shot for the record. I think my husband would personally shrivel up and die before he ate.

I, I think he would take the injection just 10 times over. Yeah. Without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. But you know, if you're willing to go the extra mile, you could do surprising things nutritionally. 

Yeah, for sure. Gotta love it. I feel like that, uh, Mamie's mom like is maybe wanting like a grandchild or something like that.

It should go an extra mile for the, to get the tee up or something hilarious like that. I feel like that's, well, no, so this, this 

was Pat's husband. I. Not Mamie's husband. 

Well, oh, oh, okay. No, I'm confused. Yeah. Okay. You get where I was saying what I was saying She wanted a good time. I don't dunno. Like I know, I thought you were saying it was Mamie's husband that she was giving the No.

No. Okay. No, it was her own. Her own. That's so funny that she was giving this to, but uh, so she doesn't wanna That's so, yeah. I get maybe she just wanted a good time herself. Yeah. You know. True. She was. You go girl, you get 'em girl. Yeah. You go. I know, you know, power, women empowerment and whatnot. Um, now how do we recover from eating deer testicles, because I feel like this episode has taken a, a 

big turn.

Well, that's all right. Well, again, I, I think, you know, I think one thing we, I mentioned at the beginning that's probably good to circle back on, it's like. I don't really think there's gonna be people that are gonna have outright pellagra. Uh, typically I think there could be like maybe some milder versions of that when there is a little bit of more deficiency.

Again, maybe it is something like I. A little bit of diarrhea or like a little bit of, uh, you know, um, fatigue, like you were saying before, a little bit of some skin stuff that's like not going away or struggling to heal brain fogs, right? Slow 

metabolism. 

Um, so again, I think that that's something, uh. Uh, you know, to keep in mind is like, you're probably not gonna have an outright deficiency.

Um, one thing in terms of getting the niacin in, um, and it's one reason that I like this Chris Master John video too, um, shout out to him again, is he talks about tears. So he, which I never heard him say before in any of his other stuff, but I thought it was really cool. So like, basically tier one is if you eat like one dose of the food.

It'll cover your whole niacin intake. Um, or if you tier two is like, oh, you would need two servings of that food to equal your whole, whole niacin. So like he starts out with the things that would lead to a lot of niacin without much effort. What do you think one of the first ones was? 

Oh, beef liver, for sure.

Yes. 

Liver was one. Um, and then one that he did say in that category, um, was nutritional yeast. He's, he talks about that a frequent amount, but nutritional yeast does have a high amount of niacin, um, even un fortified, so that could be one too. Even if you're. Vegetarian, vegan and sticking more towards plant foods, you might be able to get away with like having, um, I think he said like maybe two teaspoons of it.

Okay, so not a ton or two tablespoons. I mean, I think a two tablespoons, so I think it was a large amount. I think he was like, oh yeah, that's a significant amount, but like doable. Um. So he was talking about that. Um, things like legumes, pulses, that kind of stuff can be fairly high too. Um, but again, he talks about properly preparing those helps to extract more niacin.

Um, so something to think about too, if you are maybe more lower in protein, uh, working harder to try to extract more from the, um. From the nice and rich plant foods you're eating might be beneficial. Um, but yeah. I know you had mentioned some other, uh. Uh, options with the, with the meat 

essentially. Um, yeah.

Well, and, and again, like I pulled that from the textbook I've got here, and then I also pulled up an NIH, um, fact sheet about niacin. Mm-hmm. And similarly, beef liver, right at the tippy top. Yeah. Recurring theme for these episodes, guys, like beef liver is high in pretty much everything Yeah. That you could ever dream of.

So if you can muster away to get that in your mouth. Go for it. Right. Um, then according to this list, so it's beef liver, then chicken breast. Then funny enough, marinara sauce. 

Hmm. 

Which that didn't pop up in the book, but marinara sauce, like spaghetti sauce, ready to serve one cup is about 10 milligrams of niacin.

Yeah. 

Which is actually, that's the highest of the plant foods that I have yet to see. It's crazy. Um, and then, you know, you get into like Turkey, salmon, tuna, pork, beef, and then you start getting into, oh, rice, peanuts, fortified cereal, potatoes. So again, it's. Is it possible to get enough niacin with a vegetarian or vegan diet?

Yes. It's just you don't get to be the lazy, lackadaisical vegan who's like, I'm just eating the healthiest diet I know in my heart of hearts, and I'm not gonna measure anything like you. You just wanna super double check that you're eating. The healthiest diet ever, you know? Right. And I say that as somebody who was a vegetarian for a lot of years, and I fell into that trap of believing that I had an intrinsically healthy, perfect diet because I was a vegetarian.

Yeah. So I didn't need to do any sort of assessment. I didn't need to work with a nutritionist or dietician or do food tracking because I knew in my heart of hearts that my diet was good. Yeah. And I'll tell you, looking back. There was room for improvement had I just gotten over that little ego trip.

Yeah. And just sucked it up and actually measured shit. 

Well, and I even think. Even if you are eating meat, if you're deficient in iron, uh, B2B six, you could have a hard time converting that tryptophan. Sure. So like, you know, even if you're like, oh, I eat meat, I'm good. Uh, you wanna make sure you're getting other micronutrients that are gonna support that conversion.

Um, but yeah, I um, ha. I, have you ever had people that are doing like high dose niacin? There's kind of some people, some groups of people that you see doing this like, um, like cholesterol and that sort of thing? Cholesterol, anti-aging. So it, it's like an anti-aging supplement. It's shown to lengthen telomeres.

I probably, because it helps repair DNA. Okay. Yeah. Um. And so some people will do like really fancy anti-aging stuff with niacin. Um, 

so this is new news to me. I'm not, I guess I'm not in that corner of TikTok and Instagram, like I'm not getting the ant. I get K-pop videos, cute animal videos, and. Um, I, I also get a lot of like millennial humor videos.

Yeah. On my feet. It's great. So, you know, talk, talking about how devastated we are as a community that Forever 21 is going outta business. Gosh, rest in peace. Oh my gosh. So, you know, stuff like that. Um, I'm not in the anti-aging sector of Instagram, thankfully, but I Okay. Gather around children. It's time for story time with Nikki.

Are you ready? I'm ready. I don't know if I told you this, this, um, story. So. Funny enough, one of the symptoms of niacin deficiency can also be cold, hands and feet. 

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, or like cold. Intolerance, I guess that was mentioned on the Nutri Board website. Um, and I remember, so I've had cold hands and feet for as long as I can remember.

I've checked my thyroid. My iron is not that low, like there's a little room for improvement, but it's not that low. There can't, for life of me figure out why my hands and feet are generally cold. But that's been a recurring theme. I remember years and years ago, I went to an Apex energetic seminar and I heard Diz Ian, who is a very good salesperson, brilliant, but a good salesperson, and he was talking about their brand new product, nitric.

Balance. Mm. And he did a whole lecture on nitric oxide and how super cool it is. Side note, we need to do an episode on that coming up 'cause it is actually fascinating. But he did this whole lecture on nitric oxide, why it's important, why it's the biggest deal ever. And he introduced this new product and I was sold, I was like, done deal.

Signed my ass up. So I, I got some nitric balance, brought it home and I started fiddling with it and. Dice's kind of method of using supplements, generally speaking is start at a low dose and then titrate up and just see what happens and keep going until you feel something. So I started with a normal amount, like five milliliters, like a teaspoon or something of nitric balance.

I. Didn't feel anything, tried going up, didn't feel anything, and they talk about this like, oh, the lights will be brighter, right? And like, your brain will come alive, it'll be grand. So I'm waiting for that. So I played with it for a few days and I got, I, you know, I went from like a teaspoon up and I continually increasing the dose and I'm like, all right.

He said to keep going. So no joke. I chugged. I don't even like six ounces of the stuff or something. Like a lot. I mean, I was gulping it down, Amy. Yeah, it was, it was deranged. But this was at the height of, by the way, all of my like, gut health problems too. I thought, ooh, if I get blood flow to the gut, this will heal my leaky gut.

Yeah. So it was part of it, but I chugged the stuff and uh, then I went about the rest of my evening and my roommates and I were all puttering around the apartment making dinner and I. As I kind of went into the kitchen, all of a sudden I could feel my face was red hot and I was like, whoa, what's going on?

And I ran to the bathroom and my face was like, fire engine red. And I freaked out and I told my roommates, I was like, oh my God, I think I'm having an allergic reaction to some of the food. 'cause we were all kind of like. Sampling and tasting each other's, yeah. Food that we were making. And I was like, oh my God, I'm having an allergic reaction.

I'm gonna sit right here on the couch, keep an eye on me guys, and if, if my throat closes up, take me to the hospital. Right. And I was genuinely convinced that I was, I was gonna keel over and eventually it maybe like 20 minutes later something. It went away, and it was a little while later that I figured out, ah, that was baby's first niacin flush.

Hmm. But it was alarming. Yeah. And, and ironically, I was using my cold ass hands to try to cool down my boiling hot lava face, so it did nothing for my full hands. Nothing. So all of the blood blood flow just went only to my face. So anyway, um, that is my personal experience with high dose niacin.

Supposedly the niacin they use in that particular product is the non flushing kind. Mm-hmm. But I'm here to tell you that you can flush if you chug it hard enough. So you just gotta be aware. 

You gotta really, uh, give it your all 

to get the flush. Yeah. You gotta be dedicated. You know, you gotta chug six ounces of nitric valves, which is the nastiest tasting thing you'll ever taste in your life, by the way.

Just so that you know, well, maybe colonoscopy prep would win. Yeah. Marginally. But, um, oh 

boy. Yeah. 

So what were you gonna say? 

Yeah, I was gonna say, um, you know, mostly like if you're taking niacin in like a B complex or a multi or something like that, I. I don't think you're usually gonna run into like, problems with it.

Um, you'll just kinda, if you take enough, you will. Right, right. But usually again, like if you're taking a reasonable dose, that's not like niacin specific supplement, um, but niacin can be toxic and really high amounts. Um, it can be sort of more toxic to the liver. Uh, so, you know, people that are experimenting with it for, uh, cholesterol related issues or anti-aging might wanna be a little careful with it.

Um, just because, you know, it can. Be a little bit more toxic and high amounts if you are, if you don't know what you're doing with it. Um, some supplements, again, can be pretty benign if you're experimenting with it. Um, I don't know. I, I don't think I would take mega doses of niacin, uh, because you don't wanna age, uh, you know.

Without 

support. I think that it's kind of a recurring theme that I've seen is that if you take something, whether it be a nutrient or an herb, and you take it in a dose that is in the realm of reason. For like most people or in the realm of what you could maybe, possibly theoretically get from food, then you're probably gonna be totally fine with it.

But if you pump these like quasi pharmaceutical doses of niacin mm-hmm. Shit's gonna get weird. Right? And, and I think that that would go for a lot of nutrients. Um, I know like some nutrients don't really have an upper limit to them. You could theoretically keep pumping 'em up, but you know, if you. Pump yourself full of vitamin A at some point you're gonna run into trouble with that niacin, you know, similarly could be hepatotoxic at really high doses.

Mm-hmm. Um, there's probably other, other issues with it that I forgot now, but yeah, when you're using it kind of quasi pharmaceutically, you do have to be a little bit careful. 

Yeah. Yep. 

And then you see people, especially in like the biohacking community where I, I'm sure you've seen people like this in your practice too, but like we had somebody in FODMAP Freedom, I think in the fall, and she was one of those, she spent her life biohacking and researching all of her snips at M-T-H-F-R and all of the things, and she was on.

Individual pills for basically every single vitamin and mineral and a fiber and a, and she had like 900 supplements, I swear to God. Um, and so that was part of the recommendation for her was to chill out and just drop out a lot of those damn supplements. Right? So I think there are probably people in this community who could be taking too much niacin at supplemental doses because, you know, they.

Bred something about methylation and they thought that they needed it, but um, yeah, if you're taking like a B complex or a multi, or if you're getting it from food or if you're taking a normal human dose of something like nitric balance, then you probably won't run into too many issues with that. 

Right.

It's usually done pretty intentionally when you take those mega doses. 

Yeah. I also think, um. With niacin. A couple other things to mention. Um, there isn't like as much as other nutrients in terms of like really specific like gut lining, microbiome type research. Um, but there is some, like on animals, um, I know they have, they had some on fish, they've had some on pigs.

When I was, when, when I've been doing research on my book, like generally what they found, um. Which again, shouldn't be a shock, is that, um, niacin sufficient diet basically helps to regulate, uh, the immune system in the gut in particular. So it seems to help create a much better, um, like immune reaction gut wise.

So like, um. The cytokine shifting is much more beneficial, so you have a lot more anti-inflammatory response versus an inflammatory response gut wise. Um. The like, and there isn't tons of research. I think there's only like one or two studies on the microbiome effects, but, uh, lactobacillus does seem to increase, um, with niacin.

Um, and then there was one bug that sort of decreased, I think it was called occus. I don't know tons about that, but that bug decreased. They found that, um, and then that there was more butyrate production in niacin, uh, adequate. Gut. Um, so just something to think about, like pretty much every nutrient, if you look into it and there is a gut lining or like gut centric study, usually it's like, oh, it helps with the gut function better.

Just, you know, I think most nutrients that I've researched show that, um, niacin is no different. There, there seems to be positive benefits, uh, gut wise. Yeah. 

Well, and, and. Whether it's directly affecting the gut or indirectly. Right. Two, it's, it's pretty clear that niacin is tremendous for the gut. Mm-hmm.

So, you know, as you mentioned, and it's funny 'cause I had just pulled up this research article to say the same thing is that niacin seems to inhibit inflammatory cytokines and help the immune function. Immune system function better, which you get like the immune system, like every other cell of your body needs a TP.

It needs energy, right? So with niacin being so important for energy regulation and production, like it makes total sense. Um, niacin is also involved in the recycling of glutathione, which we mentioned in a previous episode, I think with riboflavin. So that's another consideration is that. Glutathione is a big detoxifier.

It also is really important for the immune system, and it's one of those things that tells the immune system, Hey man, calm down. You don't have to have a million food sensitivities, a million allergies, a million histamine reactions, a million weirdo reactions to everything. Like you could just sh. Right, like that's kind of glutathione's role is increasing tolerance.

Um, and it also can help mount an appropriate th one, like kind of antiviral anti critter response, which is great. Um, so I think between the anti-inflammatory effect. The glutathione recycling. Um, again, the immune system, just needing a TP to function. Like there's a lot of reason why niacin is important for immune function, and I'll put this plug out.

I think everybody and their brother now understands that. The gut affects the immune system, right? Yeah. Like you hear people, especially in autoimmune and like allergenic kind of sectors of the wellness space, talk about, oh, if you just get your gut microbiome right, then your eczema will go away or your Hashimotos will go away, and that's, that's awesome.

Like, I'm glad that that is war of a thing now, however. The thing that basically nobody's talking about is that immune function can directly impact gut function. So it is a two-way street people. Yeah. So even if you don't give a rat's ass about your immune system and you don't have any autoimmunity or allergenic or histamine problems.

You should still care about immune function because your immune cells and what they're choosing to make, whether it's inflammatory cytokines or histamine, really is going to affect gut function and the microbiome. How effectively your immune system is managing critters in the gut. You know, are you in a state of healing or are you at a state of breaking tissues down it?

It's. A pretty big deal, let alone whatever direct effects it might have on the gut microbiome. And then as we mentioned before, energy production being very important for brain function and therefore gut brain axis. So really, I think that every function in the gut is probably touched by niacin in, in some way, shape or form.

Yeah, for sure. 

She's important. She's a big deal. 

She's beauty and she's Grace. She's Miss 

cin. Is this, is this intentionally a mis congeniality reference because I'm going to have to go back and watch that movie now. 

That's that's what it, it just came up natural. 

Wow. Just came up natural. That I appreciate that millennial reference, Sandra Bullock at Her Finest People.

Yes. Um, work of art, that movie. Mm-hmm. But, alright. Do you have any closing remarks about niacin? Other than I think that song was She's, 

boy, that, that song was my closing remark maybe. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. She's Beauty and She's Grace. I don't think we can out do 

that. I think my closing remark is, uh, don't be a silly goose and don't overdose yourself on.

Nitric ballads or other niacin containing supplements. That's, that's my friendly reminder. Also, don't drink the creek water people. Yes. If you don't know that reference, go back and watch episode one of this podcast and you will be enlightened why I say that. But, uh, all right, well I know we have some guests coming up and I don't remember where they're gonna fall into lineup here, but soon when it's just the two of us, we will be talking about pantothenic acid, AKA vitamin B five.

So stay tuned and we will catch out the flippity flip.