Niacin / niacinamide ratio may be a very good test for bacterial infection

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
A very interesting study, which may provide a cheap, fast and easy method for testing whether a person has a bacterial or not. This is very useful in cases of respiratory diseases where a clinician has to determine if the respiratory infection is of bacterial or viral origin, in order to decide if prescribing antibiotics is warranted or not. Believe it or not, up to this day, it is not an easy to task to distinguish between the two infection types in a patient. One recent study proposed blood procalcitonin levels as a biomarker of bacterial infection, but it turns out that it is not a very specific test so it cannot be reliably (or cheaply) used clinically. The study below discovered that the simple ratio of niacin to niacinamide may provide both a cheap/easy and highly specific test for bacterial infection. This is due to the simple fact that mammalian organisms contain mostly niacinamide (unless there is exogenous supplementation with niacin) and since mammals do not express the enzyme nicotinamidase (which converts niacinamide into niacin), but bacteria do, a measurement of niacin/niacinamide ratio above 0.1 may be a reliable indicator for the presence of pathogenic bacteria. Another interesting potential corollary of the study is that bacterial infections may be able to wreak their havoc on the host at least in part due to them lowering the NAD/NADH ratio. Namely, since niacinamide is an obligate precursor on the path to NAD, a reduction of niacinamide (by conversion into niacin by bacteria) results in reduced ability to synthesize NAD. This suggests that one may be able to ameliorate bacterial infections by supplementing niacinamide (or NAD directly, by infusion) in order to raise the NAD/NADH ratio, which would improve the energetic state of the cell and allow it to better resist the bacterial infection. Interestingly enough, doctors noticed decades ago that niacinamide may be able to treat tuberculosis (a severe bacterial infection) when used in high doses, and recent studies have again corroborated the anti-tuberculosis effects of niacinamide. In fact, the first tuberculosis drug (isoniazid) was a niacinamide derivative.

Nicotinamide Limits Replication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Bacille Calmette-Guérin Within Macrophages - PubMed
In addition, accumulation of niacin in tissues/blood of patients is still used as a diagnostic test for tuberculosis, which corroborates the usefulness of niacin as bacterial infection biomarker. Now, since in a severe bacterial infection a good portion of the administered niacinamide may end up getting converted back to niacin by the bacteria, it may help if the niacinamide is administered with a nicotinamidase inhibitor. While most commercially available such inhibitors have toxic side effects, an older study found that NAD itself can inhibit the nicotinamidase enzymes.

Inhibition of nicotinamidase by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide - PubMed
Thus, administering niacinamide with a substance capable of raising NAD levels independently may be able to enhance the anti-bacterial effects of niacinamide while also further improving the redox state of the cell. Among such substances are methylene blue and various other quinones such as vitamin K, emodin, CoQ10, the tetracycline antibiotics, and even the flavones/flavanones such as apigenin, naringenin, chrysin, etc.

DEFINE_ME
"...The researchers identified secreted metabolites that were uniquely found in microbe-contaminated human cell cultures but not in uncontaminated ones, based on the analysis. Among these metabolites found in human cell culture media, nicotinic acid was found to be widely conserved in cell cultures contaminated with multiple types of microorganisms. Upon further analysis, CAMP’s studies revealed that nicotinic acid production was associated with nicotinamidase, an enzyme that converted the nicotinamide in the culture medium into nicotinic acid. The research findings showed that nicotinamidase was not found in mammals, including humans, and the majority was found in bacteria species. Therefore, the ratio of nicotinic acid to nicotinamide indicated the presence of microbial contaminations in human CTPs. This method surpasses existing and conventional techniques in terms of both sensitivity and speed. It can detect microbial contaminations in half a day, depending on the type of microorganism tested. In contrast, conventional methods require up to 14 days for detection. Alternative microbiological methods also face several limitations, such as the invasive process of cell extraction from and during the manufacturing process, requiring an incubation period for microbial enrichment that lengthens detection time to multiple days, or detecting only a limited range of bacterial species. Overcoming existing limitations, the method developed by CAMP is able to detect cell therapy contamination rapidly, using a small volume of spent cell culture medium in a non-cell destructive manner while maintaining the human CTP. Furthermore, this approach can differentiate between live and dead bacteria. Dead bacteria are non-infectious, and the ability to identify and measure only live bacteria, which pose a health threat, could lead to lower false-positive rates."
 
Joined
Sep 28, 2020
Messages
555
Would histamine reaction (flushing) when taking niacinamide also be an indicator of higher bacterial load since the organisms will convert it back to niacin?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 28, 2020
Messages
555
Would histamine reaction (flushing) when taking niacinamide also be an indicator of higher bacterial load since the organisms will convert it back to niacin?

EDIT: Just understood the part "Now, since in a severe bacterial infection a good portion of the administered niacinamide may end up getting converted back to niacin by the bacteria, it may help if the niacinamide is administered with a nicotinamidase inhibitor."

What is the best nicotinamidase inhibitor?
"While most commercially available such inhibitors have toxic side effects, an older study found that NAD itself can inhibit the nicotinamidase enzymes"

So just take niacinamide, go trough flushing symptoms (if having bacterial overload), until you improve NAD ratio and then NAD will inhibit the conversion, reducing histamine/flushing symptoms?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 28, 2020
Messages
555
EDIT: Just understood the part "Now, since in a severe bacterial infection a good portion of the administered niacinamide may end up getting converted back to niacin by the bacteria, it may help if the niacinamide is administered with a nicotinamidase inhibitor."

What is the best nicotinamidase inhibitor?
"While most commercially available such inhibitors have toxic side effects, an older study found that NAD itself can inhibit the nicotinamidase enzymes"

So just take niacinamide, go trough flushing symptoms (if having bacterial overload), until you improve NAD ratio and then NAD will inhibit the conversion, reducing histamine/flushing symptoms?
"Thus, administering niacinamide with a substance capable of raising NAD levels independently may be able to enhance the anti-bacterial effects of niacinamide while also further improving the redox state of the cell. Among such substances are methylene blue and various other quinones such as vitamin K, emodin, CoQ10, the tetracycline antibiotics, and even the flavones/flavanones such as apigenin, naringenin, chrysin, etc."

I'm so reta*ded forgive me...
 

J.R.K

Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2020
Messages
1,836
"Thus, administering niacinamide with a substance capable of raising NAD levels independently may be able to enhance the anti-bacterial effects of niacinamide while also further improving the redox state of the cell. Among such substances are methylene blue and various other quinones such as vitamin K, emodin, CoQ10, the tetracycline antibiotics, and even the flavones/flavanones such as apigenin, naringenin, chrysin, etc."

I'm so reta*ded forgive me...
Actually @UG Krishnamurti your questions were quite helpful for me, thank you for showing your thought process through the fog.
 

GTW

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
756
It's nicotinic acid aka niacin that causes flushing, not niacinamide. Correct?
 
OP
haidut

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
Would histamine reaction (flushing) when taking niacinamide also be an indicator of higher bacterial load since the organisms will convert it back to niacin?

Possibly. Though I have never heard of a report of niacinamide causing a flush reaction. If it does, a more likely culprit is a mislabelled product or contaminated product (i.e. a mix of niacin and niacinamide, which is common due to lower cost of niacin). If it is confirmed the niacinamide is pure and it still causes a flush then I'd investigate further and maybe do the procalcitonin test mentioned in the post.
 
OP
haidut

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
Joined
Sep 28, 2020
Messages
555
Possibly. Though I have never heard of a report of niacinamide causing a flush reaction. If it does, a more likely culprit is a mislabelled product or contaminated product (i.e. a mix of niacin and niacinamide, which is common due to lower cost of niacin). If it is confirmed the niacinamide is pure and it still causes a flush then I'd investigate further and maybe do the procalcitonin test mentioned in the post.
Thanks @haidut. My niacinamide is from Health Natura - as far as I know it's pure and it comes with the certificate of analysis. After 3-4 days of taking it it gives me some histamine reaction.
Do you think that's because the bacteria is converting it back to niacin or because niacinamide can directly increase histamine?

Excess nicotinamide increases plasma serotonin and histamine levels
"Compared with those before nicotinamide load, five-hour postload plasma serotonin and histamine levels significantly increased. These results suggest that excess nicotinamide can disturb monoamine-neurotransmitter metabolism. "

NIACINAMIDE
"Allergies: Niacinamide can make allergies more severe because they cause histamine, the chemical responsible for allergic symptoms, to be released."

Also, there are some claims the B vitamins are made from fungus - So can this be a cause?

"Many vitamins, such as niacin (B3), riboflavin (B2), pyridoxine (B6), pantothenic acid and thiamine, can be produced by the tempeh fungus R. oligosporus (Nout & Rombouts, 1990; Mugula, 1992; Shurtleff & Aoyagi, 2001; Nout & Kiers, 2005)."
 

Vinny

Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
1,438
Age
51
Location
Sofia, Bulgaria
.
 

Dr. B

Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2021
Messages
4,319
Thanks @haidut. My niacinamide is from Health Natura - as far as I know it's pure and it comes with the certificate of analysis. After 3-4 days of taking it it gives me some histamine reaction.
Do you think that's because the bacteria is converting it back to niacin or because niacinamide can directly increase histamine?

Excess nicotinamide increases plasma serotonin and histamine levels
"Compared with those before nicotinamide load, five-hour postload plasma serotonin and histamine levels significantly increased. These results suggest that excess nicotinamide can disturb monoamine-neurotransmitter metabolism. "

NIACINAMIDE
"Allergies: Niacinamide can make allergies more severe because they cause histamine, the chemical responsible for allergic symptoms, to be released."

Also, there are some claims the B vitamins are made from fungus - So can this be a cause?

"Many vitamins, such as niacin (B3), riboflavin (B2), pyridoxine (B6), pantothenic acid and thiamine, can be produced by the tempeh fungus R. oligosporus (Nout & Rombouts, 1990; Mugula, 1992; Shurtleff & Aoyagi, 2001; Nout & Kiers, 2005)."

That’s unfortunate because i had seen several quotes from Ray posted around the forum where he said it was specifically B2, vitamin C, and folate that were the most allergenic supplements. I believe he didnt advise supplementing folate regardless due to the pro methylation effects, and dont think he advised b5 either? I thought b3 and b6 were among the safest bs to supplement

The other stuff you posted is also concerning. I dont seem to get the flushing from 500mg niacinamide though. I have the nutrabio brand but they actually stopped making niacinamide. And my product passed the best by or sell by date a year ago so maybe it doesnt have 500mg per capsule anymore? I have to find a new brand on it. But niacinamide seems to be the most useful and potentially life changing supplement available right now as far as over the counter vitamin/herbal supplements are concerned? There’s all kinds of posts here on niacinamide benefits and importance.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom