SOME NOTES ON NIACINAMIDE THERAPY FOR ARTHRITIS
by William Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D.
(Reprinted with the kind permission of Charlotte Kaufman)
The (more frequent) 250 mg dose of niacinamide is 40 to 50 % more effective in the treatment of arthritis than the (less frequent) 500 mg. dose. As an illustration, see the reprint of my Tom Spies Memorial Lecture: Niacinamide, a Most Neglected Vitamin. This illustrative case history begins on page 17 column 2 and continues on page 18 column 2.
Do not use hard gelatin capsules containing 250 mg niacinamide because they do not deliver niacinamide as efficiently as 250mg niacinamide in thin gelatin capsules in the treatment of joint dysfunction (arthritis).
In my paper in J. Amer Geriat. Society, 1955 3:927-936 I noted that niacinamide (alone or combined with other vitamins) in a thousand patient-years of use has caused no adverse side effects.
Some brands of niacinamide on the market today contains excipients that act as preservatives, probably meant to prolong shelf life. Some patients have severe adverse reactions to these preparations while most do not experience any ill effects.
Niacinamide has un-gated entrance to the central nervous system. It has a strong affinity for the central nervous system's benzodiazepine receptors and causes a pleasant calmative effect. In addition, it improves central nervous system function in the kinds of central nervous symptom impairments noted in my 1943 book, starting on page 3.
Please keep in mind niacinamide is a systemic therapeutic agent. It measurably improves joint mobility, muscle strength, decreases fatigability. It increases maximal muscle working capacity, reduces or completely eliminates arthritic joint pain. Niacinamide heals broken strands of DNA and improves many kinds of CNS functioning.
Some joints are so injured by the arthritic process that no amount of niacinamide therapy will cause improvement in joint mobility, but it takes three months of niacinamide therapy before you can conclude this, since some joints are slow to heal.
WILLIAM KAUFMAN, PhD, MD
January 13,1998
Reprinted with permission from Saul AW. William Kaufman, B-3, and arthritis. J Orthomolecular Med, 2001. Vol. 16, No. 3, Third Quarter, 2001, p 189.
The world was still deep in the Great Depression when William Kaufman, MD, PhD, had already begun treating osteoarthritis with two to four grams of niacinamide daily. Now, over 60 years later, his pioneering work in orthomolecular medicine is receiving the recognition it so well deserves.
In a 1978 radio interview with Carlton Fredericks, Dr Kaufman told of how "I had one patient who was so severely arthritic that I could not bend his elbows enough to measure his blood pressure. He was one of my first patients. I gave him niacinamide for a week in divided doses, and then he could bend his arm. I took him off it and gave him a look-alike medicine (placebo). In a week he was back where he was before: his joints were stiff again.
"I arrived at my (megavitamin B-3 dosage) schedule by actually seeing the response of patients with varying degrees of arthritis. One cannot give a single large dose and get any really favorable results in arthritis... It is necessary to divide the doses so that the blood levels of niacinamide would be fairly uniform throughout the waking day."
Kaufman's findings were both plain and elegant. The greater the stiffness, the more frequent the doses. Severely crippled arthritic patients needed up to a total of 4,000 mg/day. Divided into 10 doses per day, in one to three months, patients could now get out of their chair, or bed. "If continued, they would be able comb their hair and be able to walk upstairs, so they would no longer be prisoners of the house. By the end of about three years’ treatment, they would be fully ambulatory, and this was even in the older age groups."