Many people like to take vitamin supplements without knowing whether they actually have a vitamin deficiency. In certain cases, this can have a negative impact on health. For example, according to researchers, an excess of nicotinamide riboside, a form of vitamin B3, can increase the risk of developing serious illness.
Especially in the cold season, you want to do something good for your own health, to avoid infections like a a cold to prevent But instead of eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, people prefer to take multivitamin supplements. After all, these often promise to contain all the important vitamins and minerals. Apart from the fact that the positive effect of such dietary supplements is controversial, there are apparently also negative side effects in certain cases. American researchers from the “University of Missouri” found out that artificially added vitamin B3 in the form of nicotinamide riboside can increase the risk of cancer and promote metastases in the brain.1
Vitamin B3 is important for the body’s metabolic processes
Vitamin B3 is actually said to have many good and important properties in the body. It is involved in almost all metabolic processes and helps, for example, in the regeneration of muscles, skin tissue and the nervous system. It also supports protein metabolism and digestion. It also helps in the “disposal” of toxins and pollutants from the body. For this reason, taking vitamin B3 supplements has so far been seen as positive for heart health, metabolism and the nervous system.
But now a recent study is causing a stir. Because researchers were able to prove that a high concentration of nicotinamide riboside (NAD), a precursor of vitamin B3, leads to an increased risk of breast cancer leads. It also promotes the spread of metastases in the brain. This can be fatal as there are currently no treatments for brain metastases.
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“Some people take them because they automatically assume that vitamins and supplements only have positive health properties. But very little is known regarding how they actually work,” study leader Elena Goun said in a statement on the study.2 This knowledge gap inspired her and her research team to investigate the basic mechanisms of how added vitamins and supplements work in the body in the first place.
Vitamin B3 or nicotinamide riboside (NAD) increases cell metabolism and cell energy production. And because cancer cells feed on this energy, Goun wanted to know what role NAD plays in the development and spread of cancer.
Examination with new bioluminescence method
“While nicotinamide riboside is a widely used dietary supplement whose effect has been investigated in many studies, the mechanism of action is still poorly understood,” explains researcher Elena Goun. But to find out, her research team first had to find a way to measure the vitamin content in cells in real time. And so they developed something called bioluminescence imaging technology. The amount of nicotinamide riboside in the cells is determined using light. The more light appears, the higher the concentration of the offshoot of vitamin B3.
In animal experiments with mice, the researchers were able to demonstrate that artificial intake of nicotinamide riboside can lead to a significant increase in the risk of cancer and of metastases in the brain. Despite this finding, two questions arise: Can these research results be directly transferred to humans? And at what dose of vitamin B3 does the risk of cancer increase? Further research is therefore required to understand the exact connection between vitamin B3 or nicotinamide riboside and the influence on cancer in humans.
