Niacin aids metabolism, and the digestive process helps your body rid itself of toxins. But no clinical evidence suggests that taking niacin in large quantities to remove environmental toxins or illegal drugs from your system will prove helpful. Niacin itself turns toxic when you take too much of it.
Liver
Your liver provides a natural way to remove toxins from your body. Niacin in your diet helps improve liver function. If your diet includes niacin-rich foods such as beef, chicken, eggs, milk, peanuts, turkey, beets and fortified breakfast cereals, you will assist your liver in removing harmful toxins from your body. But if you take more than 100 mg of niacin a day, you might damage your liver. If you maintain a healthy diet, don't overtax your liver with alcohol and drugs, and don't suffer from liver disease, you don't need to take niacin or other supplements to cleanse your blood.
Niacin Toxicity
If you take niacin to remove toxins from your body, you may make yourself ill. In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted a high number of calls to poison control centers around the country from people who'd taken niacin for nonmedical reasons. Some 3,100 people reported side effects such as rapid heartbeat, nausea, vomiting and rashes. The users reported taking up to 8,000 mg of niacin -- 500 times the recommended daily allowance -- in an attempt to pass urine drug tests or purify, cleanse or remove toxins from their system. No one died, but some required emergency treatment.
Risks
If you take niacin for a long period, you might incur serious side effects. In addition to causing liver damage, niacin may trigger gout and worsen symptoms of kidney disease. Other side effects include vision loss, irregular heartbeat, stomach ulcers and ulcers of the digestive tract. Although it can lower cholesterol and prevent hardening of the arteries -- two risk factors for heart disease -- niacin also increases your levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that may increase your risk of heart disease. The National Institutes of Health ended a niacin study 18 months sooner than planned in May 2011, after participants who took 2,000 mg of niacin daily suffered more than twice as many strokes -- and just as many heart attacks -- as those who did not take niacin.
Considerations
If you believe your body contains too many toxins, talk to a doctor or other health care professional about ways to safely remove them. You can also find information on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine website that can help you determine the benefits of therapies aimed at reducing toxins. You can purchase niacin without a prescription, but for safety's sake, talk to your doctor first about the benefits and risks of niacin.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
- MedlinePlus: Niacin and Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Use of Niacin in Attempts to Defeat Urine Drug Testing -- Five States, January to September 2006; C Mendoza, M.D.; April 2007
- National Institutes of Health; NIH Halts Clinical Trial on Combination Cholesterol Treatment; May 2011
- National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Ayurvedic Medicine: An Introduction; October 2005
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