Niacinamide And Bilirubin - Gilbert's Syndrome

Kyle Bigman

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Jul 9, 2018
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Hi everyone,

I was diagnosed with Gilbert's syndrome a year or so ago. I have recently started taking niacinamide because of what Ray and others have said about its powerful health benefits. However, my bilirubin count has increased and I feel worse than usual.

It occurred to me that all of this began soon after supplementing with daily niacinamide, even in low doses (~ 20mg at a time). I have seen studies that claim niacin raises bilirubin, but what about niacinamide?

Thanks for the help.
 

Summer

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Sep 10, 2019
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I was diagnosed with this too and have yet to find any sort of relief from it. It would be great to know what my eyes look like without a pseudo-jaundiced look, so any tips would be appreciated.

One thing I do want to try is Andreas Moritz' liver and gallbladder cleanse.
 

gaze

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Jun 13, 2019
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gilbert's is just another symptom of hypothyroidism. supporting the liver with OJ, calcium, vitamin D, caffeine, protein can all help
 
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Kyle Bigman

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any proof for this?

@Kyle Bigman improvement meanwhile ?
Hard to say - it comes and goes. Have no idea how to improve it. I was experimenting with calcium gluconate, curcumin, and d-limonene for a while, seems to be less, but not sure what's doing it.
 

Summer

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I have yet to find a solution to this. Apart from the other symptoms that many people attribute to Gilbert’s, my eyes literally always have a slight yellow tint and I’m pretty sick of it. It’s the symptom I hate the most. It’s been too many years.

I’m going through with Andreas Moritz’ liver/gallbladder cleanse in 3 weeks. And I’ll be following his recommendations to a tee, even the non-Peaty steps like maintaining a vegetarian diet 6 days up to the actual cleanse. Got a colonics appointment made and everything. I’ll make sure to document the before and after, along with all
of the steps I’m taking (they’re literally right out of the book). I’m really hoping for drastic improvements. Not just to my eyes, but to my sleep, allergies and so much more. If it produces noticeable results, I’ll make a thread about it.
 

DrJ

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@Kyle Bigman @Motif @Summer Not sure if you figured it out yet (or if you're still around), but I think I've read up on some things that might help. I did a liver panel a few months ago and found my bilirubin high, but other enzymes normal, except ALP a little low. Talked to my parents in October and they told me my dad has Gilbert's. So it seems likely for me to have it given that and blood test.

Anyways, supposedly Gilbert's is harmless but I didn't really buy it. What it actually seems to indicate is that your Phase 2 liver detox is likely bad, or not as efficient as someone without Gilbert's and this is why you get high billirubin. This site has a good overview of Phase 1/2 liver detox stages:


Note there are many pathways in phase 2.

@Kyle Bigman niacinamide binds methyl donors and takes them out in the urine. The methylation pathway is part of phase 2 liver detox. By taking much niacinamide, you are subduing this pathway. So.. an explanation of why you might feel bad. If you are going to take niacinamide with Gilbert's I would take very small amounts (<10mg) and make sure you are getting lots of protein to have available methyl donors.

Also, other "Peat-y" substances might overburden the phase 2 pathways for someone with Gilbert's more than others:
- Aspirin (salicylic acid) has to go through the phase 2 glycination pathway (so you need to take plenty of glycine if you take aspirin).
- Caffeine goes through the phase 2 acetylation pathway.

But basically you have to focus on increasing things that improve your phase 2 liver detox pathway, and avoiding things that burden it. In particular the brassica vegetables (broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc) should increase glucoronidation by increasing sulforaphane. Glycine and taurine help through various pathways. You will want to be very careful with niacinamide, caffeine, aspirin, and alcohol.

Also notable that, if you have histamine problems, it could be due to an impaired phase 2 pathway.

If it would help to share my own personal experience on this... I tend to struggle with fatigue and the last few years have been noticing abdomen bloating. I'm pretty fit, still wearing a 30" waist in my late 30s, so the bloating wasn't huge, but super obvious to me and I also just felt off and bloated, had brain fog. Some days - seeming by random - I would wake up and my stomach would be totally flattened out and I'd have no bloating feeling, so I'd always note what I ate the evening before to try to figure it out and the common thing in all of them was ... a large serving of onions in raw form. It turns out onions are a good source of sulfur to support the sulfuration pathway. Presumably my phase 2 pathway wasn't working well and I was getting a bit of ascites as a result, and eating a bunch of onions helped that. Note I'm not necessarily recommending onions if they don't suit you. There are other options to support phase 2 detox.

Another time I had juiced a ton of oranges, kept the peels, and made probably about 2lbs of chocolate dipped orange peels which took me about 2 weeks to eat. During this entire time I was feeling absolutely great energy-wise. No idea why. I find out the peels provide a lot of d-limonene which supports glucuronidation.

So anyways I've largely concluded my phase 2 liver detox sucks and I've been taking steps to support it with good results. That site I linked above has lots of info, and you might also check out this one:

 
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Zsazsa

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Also, other "Peat-y" substances might overburden the phase 2 pathways for someone with Gilbert's more than others:
- Aspirin (salicylic acid) has to go through the phase 2 glycination pathway (so you need to take plenty of glycine if you take aspirin).
- Caffeine goes through the phase 2 acetylation pathway.
This is great info you are putting in your post. My husband has Gilbert's, it is genetic and NOT a symptom of hypothyroidism as someone else stated above. He needs cruciferous veggies and at least 1 egg every day for the choline, if he skipps the egg 2 days in a row he feels poorly and achey. Taurine is also helpful and he loves Red Bull.

So if someone with Gilbert's wants to supplement with vitamin B3, don't forget to add support for a healthy methylation.
 

Summer

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@DrJ thanks for following up! Great info. When it comes to eating onions, how often are you eating them?
 

DrJ

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@DrJ thanks for following up! Great info. When it comes to eating onions, how often are you eating them?
I don't eat them regularly because I think they can be a little harsh on the stomach. But it was like I got these insane cravings for raw onion with meat so I would just get a hamburger (no bread) or kebab with lots of onions and smash it. In place of onions I eat lots of brussels sprout or brocooli or dried orange peels. Sometimes I talk a spoonful of sulfur powder because I notice it having the same flattening effect.
 

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