Think Twice Before Taking Niacin to Pass Your Next Drug Test

Drug-users have long advocated the use of the B vitamin Niacin to help "flush" out drugs in order to pass a drug test. As it turns out, this is not only useless, but it may put you in the hospital.

Niacin is also known as vitamin B3. This vitamin aids in digestion, hormone production, skin health, and nervous system maintenance (www.sciencenews.org). Niacin has a role in fat metabolism and doctors often prescribe niacin in large doses to patients with high cholesterol and triglycerides. Using this same idea, many drug users believe that niacin can also cleanse or "flush" the body of illicit drugs, especially marijuana.

However, this wide held belief in this "Niacin regimen" are not only incorrect, but can be very dangerous. Niacin has not been found to remove drugs from the body. Even so, many people use this niacin regimen, and it lands some in the emergency room.

Dr. Manoj K. Mittal, of a Philadelphia hospital reports that four patients presented to the E.R. due to adverse Niacin reactions. Two of the four Philadelphia patients exhibited nausea, rapid heartbeat and heart palpitations, dizziness, dehydration, low blood sugar, blood-clotting abnormalities, liver toxicity, and a dangerous drop in blood pH (www.sciencenews.org). One seventeen-year-old girl was brought to the E.R. in a coma as a result of too much niacin.

These patients tested positive for marijuana in a urine test conducted at the hospital. So obviously, the niacin did not "flush" the drug away.

The negative effects of too much niacin usually are reversed with time. In severe cases, though, the overdose of niacin can lead to acute liver failure (www.cnn.com).

The recommended daily intake of niacin is 15milligrams for adults. People on the so-called "Niacin regimen" sometimes take more than 2500mg. a day. Niacin is available in grocery and health food stores everywhere.

Sources:

www.cnn.com

www.sciencenews.org