Gobbling huge amounts of niacin can do many things: cause nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, flushing and rashes.
One thing it can’t do: cleanse marijuana or cocaine from urine samples.
Nevertheless, a growing number of teens and young adults – relying on rumor and the Internet – are getting sick after gulping extreme doses of niacin in hopes of beating a drug test, doctors say.
“This seems to be a manifestation of how the Internet is really powerful, even if it’s not correct,” said Dr. Carrie Mendoza of Denver Health’s Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center.
Between January and September 2006, 92 people – representing all five states the center serves – called Denver’s poison center after taking more than 1,000 milligrams of niacin and getting sick.
The center reviewed the calls and found 58 percent were unintended overdoses. Twenty-eight calls resulted from intentional nonmedical use or were from people who refused to say how they got the niacin.
The median age of those callers was 18.
Eight of the callers said they took niacin to fool a drug test; eight more said they were trying to “purify, cleanse or flush” their bodies.
Thirteen needed medical treatment, Mendoza said.
Mendoza and her colleagues documented the phenomenon in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s April 20 public health bulletin.
“We looked into it because we’d gotten a cluster of calls,” Mendoza said.
It would be rare for excessive niacin to be deadly or cause long- term problems, Mendoza said.
Still, her report advises anyone who treats teens and young adults to be on the lookout for niacin overdoses.
Earlier this month, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia described a niacin overdose case in a report in The Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The study detailed the case of a 14-year-old boy who suffered vomiting, dizziness and stomach pain.
The boy told doctors he had taken 11 500-milligram niacin tablets over three days after smoking marijuana, according to the report.
Niacin, which is also known as vitamin B3, is often used to treat high cholesterol.
Doctors don’t know how the vitamin got a reputation as a magic drug-diluting pill.
“The theory behind it, we’re not sure exactly where it came from, but probably deals with metabolizing fatty acids,” Mendoza said.
One source could be a website called totse.com, which offers the following anonymous advice:
“Since I work in an environment where I am subject to random drug testing, I have spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to pass the test.
“I stated earlier that I take a multiple pronged approach to testing. One of the recommended ‘prongs’ is niacin – 1500 milligrams a day” – although he or she suggests niacimide “if you want to avoid the side effects of niacin.”
There are no jars of niacin or niacimide stacked alongside such “detoxifying” products as “Ready Clean” at Freaky’s smoke shop on Broadway.
But Daniel Esworthy, a clerk at Freaky’s, said he knows plenty of people who swear by it for passing a drug test.
“I always advise against it,” Esworthy said. “I know the bad effects it can have. People are stupid; they just take way too much of it.”
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at (303) 954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
