Tag: niacin

Why Niacin?

It is not that nutritional supplements cure anything; it is that specific nutritional deficiencies result in all manner of diseases that can be reversed if sufficient nutrition is achieved through required nutrient assimilation. Our body has needs that don’t always align with our desires. Desires that should always take the back seat in light of our body’s requirements.

My research leads me to believe that supplementary Niacin(nicotinic acid) may promote growth and tissue repair by depressing the growth of microbes or parasites that are toxic or steal nutrients from the host, leading to increased nutrient utilization and reduced energy investment in maintaining immune responses within the GI tract.

Pellagra: Interesting Alert-NIH

WHY SHOULD AN EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN BE AWARE OF THIS?: Despite the treatable dementia and psychosis, pellagra is often under-diagnosed, especially in developed countries and alcoholic patients. Pellagra should be routinely suspected in alcoholic patients because the response to appropriate treatment is typically dramatic.

Alcoholic Pellagra as a Cause of Altered Mental Status in the Emergency Department ~ Source-NIH

BACKGROUND:

Pellagra, which is caused by a deficiency of niacin and tryptophan, the precursor of niacin, is a rare disease in developed countries where alcoholism is a major risk factor due to malnutrition and lack of B vitamins. Although pellagra involves treatable dementia and psychosis, it is often underdiagnosed, especially in developed countries.

CASE REPORT:

In Japan, a 37-year-old man presented to the emergency department with altered mental status and seizures. Wernicke encephalopathy and alcohol withdrawal were suspected. The patient was treated with multivitamins, which did not include nicotinic acid amide, and oral diazepam. Despite medical treatment, his cognitive impairment progressively worsened, and eventually, pellagra was suspected. His response to treatment with nicotinic acid amide was substantial, and he was discharged without any long-term sequelae. WHY SHOULD AN EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN BE AWARE OF THIS?: Despite the treatable dementia and psychosis, pellagra is often underdiagnosed, especially in developed countries and alcoholic patients. Pellagra should be routinely suspected in alcoholic patients because the response to appropriate treatment is typically dramatic.

Schizophrenia, Cancer and the Hoff

Schizophrenia and cancer: the adrenochrome balanced morphism.

Abstract

Cancer might be expected to be more common amongst schizophrenics than the general population. They frequently live in selenium deficient regions, have seriously compromised antioxidant defense systems and chain-smoke. The available literature on the cancer-schizoprenia relationship in patients from England, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, USA and Japan, however, strongly suggests that the reverse is true. One of the authors (Hoffer) has treated 4000 schizophrenics since 1952. Only four of these patients has developed cancer.

Since low cancer incidence has been recorded amongst patients treated by both conventional physicians using pharmaceuticals and by orthomolecular doctors who emphasize vitamins and minerals, it follows that this depressed cancer incidence must be related to the biochemistry of the disorder itself. Taken as a whole, therefore, the evidence seems to suggest that schizophrenics, their siblings and parents are less susceptible to cancer than the general population.

These relationships seem compatible with one or more genetic risk factors for schizophrenia that offer(s) a selective advantage against cancer. There is experimental evidence that appears to support this possibility. Matrix Pharmaceuticals Inc. has received a US patent covering the composition of IntraDose Injectable Gel. This gel contains cisplatin and epinephrine (adrenaline) and is designed to be injected directly into tumor masses. Cisplatin is a very powerful oxidant which will almost certainly rapidly convert the adrenaline to adrenochrome. While the manufacturers of IntraDose consider cisplatin to be the active cytotoxic agent in IntraDose, it seems more likely that adrenochrome and its derivatives may, in fact, be more effective.

IntraDose gel has undergone or is undergoing a series of Phase III open-label clinical studies, being injected into patients’ tumors that have been identified as the most troublesome by their physicians. The results have been impressive for breast cancer, malignant melanoma, esophageal cancer and cancer of the head, neck and liver. The evidence suggests that there are balanced morphisms in schizophrenia that result in above normal exposure to catecholamine derivatives. Since such catecholamines are both hallucinogenic and anti-carcinogenic abnormally high exposure to them simultaneously increases susceptibility to schizophrenia and reduces the probability of developing cancer.

These observations have significant implications for the treatment of both illnesses.