Niacin: The Real Story

Learn about the Wonderful Healing Properties of Niacin

De: Abram Hoffer MD PhD, Andrew W. Saul PhD, Harold D. Foster PhD

Narrado por: Paul Brion

Niacin (vitamin B3) is a small molecule made of only 14 atoms, smaller even than the simplest sugar. But this one molecule has profound effects on health: It plays a role in more than 500 reactions in the body.

Many illnesses are caused by too little niacin, and many illnesses can be cured with high doses of niacin. The authors of Niacin: The Real Story are advocates of orthomolecular (nutrition-based) medicine, supporting an approach to wellness that involves substances that naturally occur in the human body. This book makes the case for the widespread use of niacin for the prevention and treatment of health problems.

In Niacin: The Real Story, listeners will discover how to take niacin, with detailed recommendations on forms and therapeutic doses. There is plentiful, accurate information on niacin side effects and safety. Niacin can be used for arthritis, children's learning and behavioral disorders, mental illness, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions. Niacin: The Real Story is for people who want to learn more about niacin and its wonderful healing properties.

©2012 Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD, Harold D. Foster, PhD, and Andrew W. Saul, PhD (P)2018 Tantor

Loaded with information

Loved it. Information backed by actual cases. A must read. Excellent narrator. Gives reference to more books and website for more information.

Stunning information!

I adore natural medicine. I am actually stunned that this information about Niacin is not known by the general public. Niacin is a natural and cheap cure for so many things that befall us. Thank you Dr. Hofer.

My High Cholesterol Lead Me Here; My Kid’s FASD & ADHD Kept Me Here

I bought the book because I had a credit to blow and my doctor put me on niacin for my cholesterol. I’m a nerd and like knowing health benefits and the whys of vitamins. I would say I got about 10% of what I was looking for there but what I learned about niacin for mental health has and will continue to pay off for decades. After starting niacinamide on my kiddo, he quickly became calmer with 80% less dysregulation. This lead to a host of natural approaches, including having our doctor wean off ADHD drugs, and we added a natural vitamin regimen along with niacinamide. We now have a much happier, regulated child without added side effects. Why don’t mental health professionals know about this? This book set us on a whole new course. We’ve had the best 6 months in 7 years all because of the information in this book. I’m so grateful.

Excellent & useful info

Excellent & useful info, relating to various health issues. Medical Doctor should know more about!

perfect

very well read and conveyed. If you are interested in help, you will be glad you listened.

I started Niacin!

I am telling everyone of my friends who are open about this amazing book! This book is very informative.

Great reader

Never knew how useful Niacin is the human body and cholesterol reduction. Very good listen for anyone health minded.

So Many Uses

The number of uses for niacin outlined in this book really impressed me. I look forward to adding niacin and vitamin C to my supplement collection to help my brain health.

I loved it!!!

Excellent book, I've been through it several times. Niacin: The Real Story sheds light on one of the best-kept secrets in medicine. I highly recommend.

Some good points, but you should know...

There are several great points here, but I personally think they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Some good points:
The author offers a series of ailments which may benefit from niacin. He also challenges the view that an RDA is an optimal amount, rather than, as he views it, a minimum and at times arbitrary amount which often does little more than prevent deficiency.

Some limitations:
1. The author speaks in too much of an authoritative tone. He speaks that his opinions, literally all of them, are fact, and the only reason someone would disagree with him is because they have financial conflicts of interest. More objective researchers will typically describe all opposing viewpoints and describe why he views them as right or wrong, rather than writing off all opposition as simply foolish.
2. The studies here are plentiful but also limiting. You should know that the majority of the work Dr. Hoffer cites is between 50-70 years old. This is important, in a world where scientific information is heavily scrutinized for modern relevance when it becomes 5+ years old. The book mentions that some of the studies are old, but also states that the work was bulletproof so there's no reason to question its age. The science community disagrees. For one, he often cites case studies. Although case studies have merits, they are the lowest form of research, and the conclusions you can draw from them go little beyond inspiration for more gold standard scientific research. Secondly, no matter how confident you are in the findings in a study, even if it is high quality, there are always limitations. A lot of times these limitations only begin to present themselves decades later or several randomized control trials and systematic reviews later. There is a reason why an intervention takes 2 decades to go from discovery to education in med school as a treatment option to medical students, and there is also a reason why medications, which have been studied for decades, get pulled from the market from side effects that are only discovered far later. As for a specific limitation of the research he does cite, I would say the most blatant is his idea that niacin supplementation equals better heart health. This is not quite true. We used to think a long time ago that heart health was simply a matter of high HDL equals good, and low LDL equals bad. However, we now see it's a lot more convoluted than that. Artificially raising good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol via niacin, does *not* actually improve outcomes (amount of heart attacks, strokes, etc). It would be akin to prescribing a beta blocker for someone in the ER because they have a fast heart rate. Masking the symptom doesn't fix anything.
3. The author also cites that his work is completely disregarded in medicine and that he had no impact on medical intervention. I'm not sure where this came from, because from my findings this is simply not true. Dr. Hoffer had a great impact on the prescription of niacin on a broad scale. A lot of physicians began prescribing niacin due to Dr. Hoffer's research. Some still do today, but on a much more limited scale, as we are finding that it's not the Holy Grail that Dr. Hoffer once thought it was. His studies are also discussed in medical school, however, more from a historical perspective, to show how our understanding of niacin evolved over time. His work was very influential, to say the least, and I think it's inaccurate to say that no one has any idea about niacin, as he implies.
4. The book, at times, reads like a special interest group promoting all things niacin. He describes niacin as some sort of panacea. He even cites patients who he crossed paths with for a mere few moments and cites that because he never heard from them again, clearly niacin must have cured all of their problems. It's a bizarre assumption, at best. He feels niacin is the one and only cure all for all people.

I do rate this book as 4.5/5, despite my long list of flaws. The content is good, and interesting. The long list has primarily to do with the fact that I think a layperson reading this will come away with an understanding that niacin is some kind of widely undiscovered panacea, due to the tone of the book. This is not true, as noted above. It's worth a discussion with your doctor, either way.