Niacin may slow aging, lower inflammation, & help prevent type 2 diabetes too!....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-15-2009

To prevent or reverse heart disease, in addition to lowering inflammation if it’s chronically high and doing some other things, it’s most effective if you lower the amount of the small particle LDL that sticks into the molecular chinks in the walls of your blood vessels.

That process is about like pouring glue-treated sand into an engine. Yecch!

Lowering total LDL likely helps; but it’s indirect since the larger particles of LDL seem to be harmless & tend to roll along the surface of your blood vessels like tumble weeds without harming the surface.

However, the research scientists and doctors found out that you can get an accurate idea of whether the amount of small particle LDL by measuring your HDL and triglycerides.

This was in last Friday’s post:

“If your HDL reading is greater than your triglyceride reading, that’s excellent and safest. Conversely, if your triglyceride reading is more than 6 times your HDL, you are at very high risk. (Exercise AND never ingesting trans fats or hydrogenated oils lower small particle LDL directly. And you can do other things that increase HDL & others that lower triglycerides.)”

So, imagine if you had a substance or action that lowers total LDL, increases HDL, & lowers triglycerides too.

There are 3 first rate things that do this.

1. Get abundant regular exercise with some of it vigorous almost every day.

2. NEVER knowingly ingest trans fats or the hydrogenated oils that contain them; & make an effort not to ingest things that might contain them very often; & read labels at the store

(Exercise lowers small particle LDL directly; & trans fats or the hydrogenated oils that contain them directly INCREASE them.)

3. There IS a third way. Taking real niacin every day from 300 mg a day and up lowers total LDL, increases HDL, & lowers triglycerides too.

It prevents heart attacks better than statins; and decreases all cause mortality rates more, particularly if you also lower any high and chronic inflammation with the means listed in last Friday’s post.

(You do have to get your liver function checked if you take 1,000 mg a day or more of niacin just as you do in taking statin drugs. But taking 300 mg after a meal once to three times a day is likely safe. I do that after breakfast and lunch but not dinner myself.

Also, if you take 300 mg a day or more of niacin or take any statin drug, you should also take the supplement Milk Thistle.

It’s so effective in protecting your liver it even does so when you get chemo a recent study found! That study looked at the same indicators, AST and ALT, that the doctors use to test your liver function if you take 1,000 mg or more a day of niacin or take statin drugs.)

Last Friday, in the email I get from Dr Dharma Singh Khalsa, I found that he had gone to an “Anti-Aging conference” in Las Vegas recently & heard or read a study that found that:

Niacin also produces “a research proven life-extending protein—called silent information regulator 2 protein, or Sir2p—which is able to "silence" genes related to cellular aging.”

That's what the more expensive supplement Resveratrol does.

Dr Dharma also wrote that research also has found that niacin reduces the inflammation and joint destruction that many forms of arthritis cause. Niacin apparently does this by decreasing the inflammatory molecules, called cytokines, that cause degenerative osteoarthritis!

Niacin may reduce the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in your pancreas. That may help you prevent type 2 diabetes and even keep type 1 diabetes from getting even worse.

Dr Dharma also said that: “decreased pancreatic function is a strong risk factor for mid-life obesity & heart disease”!

In addition, Dr Dharma closed by saying that taking niacin helps lower perceived stress and anxiety and the harm they do your body enough, taking niacin when stressed has outperformed “prescription sedatives in some cases.”!


Are you taking niacin yet?

If not, you might want to add it!

Don’t take 1,000 mg or more without getting the regular liver checks with your doctor.

Do take milk thistle too.

And, ONLY take niacin in addition to taking a statin after consulting with your doctor AND taking CoQ10 or ubiquinol.

Taking both niacin and a statin works extremely well for some people; & causes others serious harm. So your doctor needs to know and disclose the risks and work with you if you do that.

Taking sterol supplements and niacin and eating right work as well or better than statins or taking statins and niacin from what I’ve observed.

But if your HDL is quite low and your triglycerides are quite high, you’d best do something!