Does Niacin Speed Up Your Metabolism?

Niacin, one of the compounds in the B-complex vitamins, is an essential nutrient. Also known as vitamin B3, you can find niacin in foods such as dairy products, poultry, fish, eggs, lean meats, nuts and legumes. Understanding whether niacin speeds up your metabolism requires greater knowledge about niacin's function in the body as well as its benefits.

Function

• Like all the B vitamins, niacin plays a role in the body's metabolism, essentially converting food--especially carbohydrates--into energy. Niacin breaks down into compounds that eventually become critical players in cell metabolism and DNA repair.

  Because of the way niacin works in the body, larger or smaller amounts of the vitamin will have an effect on overall health--deficiencies can cause pellagra, and overdoses can cause liver damage--but varying amounts of niacin will not affect the speed with which the body transforms food into energy.

Considerations

• In addition to its role in transforming food into energy, niacin keeps the skin and digestive system healthy. Researchers also have discovered that niacin increases HDL (good) cholesterol and reduces LDL (bad) cholesterol. For this reason, many doctors prescribe a niacin supplement to patients with high cholesterol levels and recommend dietary adjustments to reduce fat intake and increase intake of natural sources of niacin.

  Recent studies, including one published in the "Journal of Neuroscience," also have found that niacin might have a restorative effect on the cognitive abilities of Alzheimer's patients.