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Niacin (B-3) to treat depression

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piku_playground

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Aug 29, 2009
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I watched a random video on youtube yesterday talking about how Niacin has been used for depression/anxiety for various people successfully. I went out and bought a bottle of 100mg tablets. I've been suffering from minor to major depression for about seven years now. I'm twenty now. I deal with a lot of anxiety, fatigue, memory loss, apathy, pessimism, etc. Depression runs in my family.

So I took 100mg tablet after going for an hour long bike ride. I also drank some Yerba Mate which I've never drunken before. I did not flush at that dosage which most medical experts seem to say that you should flush to get the effect you desire. But after 1-2 hours I started to feel a strange feeling of contentment. The yerba mate had definitely given me an energy boost, especially after going out riding. Caffeine usually makes me more anxious, which I was not feeling at all. After 2-3 hours I was able to lay in my bed listening to music feeling perfectly happy. And it wasn't a manic, over enthusiastic type of ecstasy. Instead, I felt very relaxed and contemplative. I was very zen like in that I could watch my own thoughts instead of being attached to them. I had little trouble falling asleep.

So today I took 100mg tablets again (4 times, every three hours or so). Same type of effect happened again. I was walking to class with a big smile on my face, which I can't even remember the last time I felt any sense of contentment or serenity. I was able to talk to people in class more easily, I had this really enormous sense of carefree where nothing seemed too stressful. Today I felt like I could observe my own negative thought patterns that have plagued me the past several months. Usually I'm so attached to negativity that any form of positive thought is immediately rejected by my own behavior. Today that was not the case.

Is it really possible that much of my depression could have been caused by lack of B-3? I respect natural medicine, but I was very skeptical that one vitamin could have a big effect. It is way too early to judge whether or not this is the solution I need, but it definitely excites me.

Most articles I read talk about people taking around 3g of niacin a day. That seems like a massive quantity to me, considering I only took 400mg today and felt great. How much should I be taking? I'm 120 pounds. Taking 100mg tablets caused little to no flushing, so maybe I should take 200mg at a time?

Thanks for any help. <3
 
Niacin to the best of my knowledge isn't usually used to treat depression. However I am interested into looking into this so when I get some time I'll be doing some research. I have never had depression but I have had people close to me that have so this might be a great opportunity for you engage in your own cognitive behavioural therapy since you seem to be getting some good perspective on life while taking the niacin. Try not to take set backs as seriously and look for the silver lining in things.

The doses you mention of 1-3grams per day are typically used by people that want to improve their lipid profile. Specifically HDL cholesterol. Anecdotally I have heard that it is possible to raise HDL by 25% taking that type of dose which can only be good for you. The side effects are the flushing you talk about but in the USA you can buy slow release Niacin which is supposed to help but maybe not completely prevent the flushing. The other more serious potential side effect is liver damage.

As I said I have only just this week begun looking into this so the information above is not very specific.
 
Hey, I'm in a similar situation to you but I'm 26 years old. I googled niacin for depression because I've recently seen a documentary called "Food Matters" which is a documentary discussing western diet and medicine and had a segment which discusses large doses of niacin as a treatment for depression, alcoholism and schizophrenia.

Anyway, I've been struggling with depression probably since middle school (6th or 7th grade). I was diagnosed in 11th grade. It also runs in the family and I'm not sure if it's genetic or if it's the type of stuff that we've been through.

I've been on a few different pharmaceutical drugs, and through therapy as well, but I always resisted taking pharmaceutical drugs for a long time. I've never been on them for more than 3 months because I've never really felt "well" at least mentally. All I really got out of it was appetite suppression from welbutrin and decreased sexual stimulation from zoloft. Prozac did nothing. I took adderral to study a few times and it made me high in the short term like a drug, but that's too druggy for me long term.

Meds didn't fix anything, they weren't making me feel truly content with life. I guess I am stubborn in that sense because I feel that most people come to this planet the same, and depression and a few other "mental disorders" are not really mental disorders but just problems that anyone can deal with in the right environment and with the right mindset. (At least that's been my theory for MOST people.) In a way the whole psychiatry western medicine thing instills a victim mentality and makes you weak.

Again, I'm going on a tangent because I've never written this down before but I immediately ordered 1000mg tablets from amazon after doing a little bit of research. It looks like there isn't much out there on niacin for depression, but I figured since niacin is a water soluble vitamin I can just drink a lot of water with it and piss out what I don't need.

I started Friday, with 3 1000mg doses after meals. I flush red about 50% of the time and it really isn't that bad. Just a little warm and itchy and then I feel perfectly fine. The WEIRD thing is that I'll be going about my day and things seem pretty normal, and then out of nowhere I'll think of a funny incident or something funny that happened in the past and smile to myself about it. I guess this is a pretty normal occurrence, but it has happened 3-4 times in the last couple of days. I plan on sticking to this for the long term and seeing what happens. With me, my depression comes in cycles. I'll be okay and functioning and active for a few weeks, and then outta nowhere I'll just start getting lazy and barely do the minimum to get through life. Just going to work and going home and laying around letting my house get messy.

Also, I've read that the non-flushing niacin does not have the same effect on your body, because the physical flush is the physical mechanism that is spreading the niacin into the body through the cell walls and opening the capillaries. I guess that would matter more for cholesterol though. Shrug.

Anyway, here's that guy's vid. If it doesn't link just search Andrew Saul on Youtube. You probably already seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K2tqxKf2EE
If you search some more there's longer clips.
 
Also, that documentary is all about healthy eating as cures, not just superdoses of vitamins. It's about eating fresh, raw food.
 
my doctor prescribed me niacin for anxiety.

also helps a lot with detoxification. Its more effective than phenibut at stopping unwanted thoughts.
 
dcraver877 said:
my doctor prescribed me niacin for anxiety.

also helps a lot with detoxification. Its more effective than phenibut at stopping unwanted thoughts.
Click to expand...
This I find fascinating--Do you happen to have a source for the info. or was it through your own experience? I've never heard that a B vitamin could help stop unwanted thoughts!
 
no, that is just my personal experience. But it is also used as a tranquilizer so it makes sense that it works at what it does.
 
about 30-35 years ago my mother was told by a co-worker to try niacin for depression as the person who told her claimed it helped her depression a lot.

my mother tried it, got flushed and freaked out and never took it again.

interesting this idea has been around for at least 3-4 decades (niacin helping mood disorders)

i've heard of inositol helping social anxiety...there is one article/study about it online pubmed or somewhere... read this whole page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inositol

it's also a b-vitamin (kinda)... it might help you as well!
 
enoughorangejuice? said:
about 30-35 years ago my mother was told by a co-worker to try niacin for depression as the person who told her claimed it helped her depression a lot.

my mother tried it, got flushed and freaked out and never took it again.

interesting this idea has been around for at least 3-4 decades (niacin helping mood disorders)

i've heard of inositol helping social anxiety...there is one article/study about it online pubmed or somewhere... read this whole page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inositol

it's also a b-vitamin (kinda)... it might help you as well!
Click to expand...

hmm i took 800mg of that + choline for like a week and it just made my mood swings worse (i have manic depression and social anxiety)
 
niacin can also be used to help alcoholics! one of the founders of AA did the first human test on it for that purpose, he gave it to 30 alcoholics and after 2 months 20 were recovered.
http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2008/10/niacin-despite-aa-there-is-easier.html
^ this contains a video that talks a bit about it

i know that's not really what you were interested in using it for but i was amazed when i found this out and wanted to share!
 
^ if niacin helps 66.67% of alcoholics quit using alcohol permanently there would be very few alcoholics on earth... i'd wager it helps 0.00000067% quit permanently and that's a liberal estimate.

and besides how many other variables are involved? age/sex/frequency of use/length of addiction/severity of addiction/problems caused by addiction in life/desire to quit using...etc

you get 30 guys who have one drink a year and give them niacin and it's probably not going to be difficult to get them to "quit". this "test" seems quite unscientific, just like AA.
 
Orthomolecular psychiatrists, scientologists, and Bill W are big niacin as mental health panacea folks. It is a panacea for people with pellagra and maybe for some people with metabolic quirks but for most people it really doesn't make a huge difference.

There are mentions of high doses of nicotinic acid over a long period having caused liver problems. It is suggested that people megadosing on niacin should get an occasional liver function test. Studies go back and forth on the efficacy of using niacin for treating high cholesterol problems but I suppose that is a different issue.
 
I feel my situation might be similar to yours. I'm 24, and was diagnosed in the 9th grade, but have had depression since around 6th grade I believe as well.

I also watched that documentary and also resist drugs. I try them for 6-9 months typically and give up, usually because I feel no change. The only changes I have felt are from therapy, and I am currently searching for therapy because my psychiatrist would NOT refer me to any therapy. He would only work with the medications. When I told him I wanted to go off my last prescription for a bit (sertraline), he essentially told me to go back to my family doctor (who sent me to him in the first place), and said she would help me in the future. Anyhow, that's my tangent about why my psychiatrist was a tool. I can't believe my own psychiatrist would just throw me back into the system like that.

My point is I'm trying the niacin thing too, I only started today actually. Well, I tried a few months ago, but the flush was too much for me, it was a bright red, complete itchy sensation, so now I've bought the non-flush kind. I hope the non-flush kind works just as well. I've given up on drugs for now and would love to be off them forever, I really hope the Niacin works. I'm going to start with 1000 mg a day and see how that goes.

I still have the flush kind, which I will only take before bed, just because I turn such a shade of red that it's extremely noticeable, not to mention uncomfortable, because as I get more and more itchy I also get really warm.

I'd appreciate hearing more about your experiences with niacin, so please message me down the road if you'd like.
 
I think taking a Vitamin B complex would be healthier as then you're getting all of the B vitamins. Alot of them hwlp with anxiety and depression. I find they help abit. Also Omega 3 fats help alot too!
 
I can't say it's produced any long-term mood changes as I've only been taking it before bed (to deal with the flush) but it seems to have cleared my skin up significantly and improved my sleep quality in some way (less nocturnal awakenings). I usually dose a full gram of instant release right before I fall asleep.
 
I've taken niacinamide and it's just Niacin but you won't flush. If you're depressed or anxious Niacin or B3 is not going to help. I've read that Niacinamide can supposedly bring someone down from an LSD experience like a benzo but it never did that to me when I tried taking it once or twice while on acid.
 
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im depressed most of the time, i presume you can get niacin otc or in chemists? or do i have to get it online?
once ive trialed ill report back aswell
 
I'm coming off Zoloft soon, my decision. Heard that high strength Omega3 helps with withdrawals (dizziness etc), I'm not tapering, can't trip anymore , want it out of me, hope this isn't permanent.

So, getting back to depression, high-strength, molecularaly <sp?> distilled Omega3 caps in order. Im taking 3 a day which gives nearly 1gm of EPA/DHA try and get some that have more EPA than DHA, don't know the ratio, but that is the way to go.

Peace.
 
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Training a body to produce endorphins in response to niacin consumption?

piku_playground said:
I watched a random video on youtube yesterday talking about how Niacin has been used for depression/anxiety for various people successfully. I went out and bought a bottle of 100mg tablets. I've been suffering from minor to major depression for about seven years now. I'm twenty now. I deal with a lot of anxiety, fatigue, memory loss, apathy, pessimism, etc. Depression runs in my family.

So I took 100mg tablet after going for an hour long bike ride. I also drank some Yerba Mate which I've never drunken before. I did not flush at that dosage which most medical experts seem to say that you should flush to get the effect you desire. But after 1-2 hours I started to feel a strange feeling of contentment. The yerba mate had definitely given me an energy boost, especially after going out riding. Caffeine usually makes me more anxious, which I was not feeling at all. After 2-3 hours I was able to lay in my bed listening to music feeling perfectly happy. And it wasn't a manic, over enthusiastic type of ecstasy. Instead, I felt very relaxed and contemplative. I was very zen like in that I could watch my own thoughts instead of being attached to them. I had little trouble falling asleep.

So today I took 100mg tablets again (4 times, every three hours or so). Same type of effect happened again. I was walking to class with a big smile on my face, which I can't even remember the last time I felt any sense of contentment or serenity. I was able to talk to people in class more easily, I had this really enormous sense of carefree where nothing seemed too stressful. Today I felt like I could observe my own negative thought patterns that have plagued me the past several months. Usually I'm so attached to negativity that any form of positive thought is immediately rejected by my own behavior. Today that was not the case.

Is it really possible that much of my depression could have been caused by lack of B-3? I respect natural medicine, but I was very skeptical that one vitamin could have a big effect. It is way too early to judge whether or not this is the solution I need, but it definitely excites me.

Most articles I read talk about people taking around 3g of niacin a day. That seems like a massive quantity to me, considering I only took 400mg today and felt great. How much should I be taking? I'm 120 pounds. Taking 100mg tablets caused little to no flushing, so maybe I should take 200mg at a time?

Thanks for any help. <3
Click to expand...

It sounds to me like it was either the bike ride that made you happy or the combination of the bike ride and the niacin together. Perhaps the endorphins in your brain produced from the bike ride made your brain fall in love with niacin, and now every time you take it endorphins are released. Training your body.

Here is some relevant literature: <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/17/vitamins-cost-health-benefits-harmful_n_4457785.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008>, <http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20050906/megadoses-of-vitamin-b-may-be-bad-for-heart>.
 
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