Many people take vitamin B3 as a way to boost their energy, including patients diagnosed with cancer who are undergoing the difficult chemotherapy process.
Vitamin B3, however, might have a surprising side effect: According to researchers at Case Western Reserve School, the popular supplement could also help cancer survive.
‘A call to action’
Vitamin B3 helps facilitate the production of NAD+, a molecule crucial for the metabolism and the repair of cells.
However, cancer cells can also exploit NAD+. The researchers found that pancreatic cancer cells can use derivatives of vitamin B3 to survive treatment that might have otherwise killed them.
That study is especially concerning given pancreatic cancer’s deadly prognosis—the condition is often diagnosed late and the five-year survival rate is just 13 percent.
“If the vitamin is protective against normal tissues, we reasoned that it should also be protective against cancer cells and wondered if that was indeed the case, especially in the context of our treatments which are designed to destroy tumors through the induction of severe stress,” study lead author Jordan Winter of Case Western told Newsweek in an email.
How it Works
The researchers noted that there were three primary ways the vitamins interfered with cancer treatment.
The first was the natural juxtaposition between vitamin B3 in healthy individuals vs. people diagnosed with cancer: The vitamin doesn’t discriminate between cells when it heals them, meaning that tumors that might have otherwise been destroyed by chemotherapy are given the strength to survive it.
The vitamins also lowered the oxidative stress in tumors.
Normally, reducing oxidative stress is a good thing: Oxidative stress is an imbalance in a person’s body caused when it produces too many free radicals and not enough antioxidants. Toxins (such as cigarette smoke) often raise oxidative stress.
Chemotherapy generally raises oxidative stress as a way to kill cancer cells. By lowering oxidative stress, vitamin B3 can help cancer survive.
Finally, vitamin B3 helps prevent DNA damage, another essential step in making sure that chemotherapy actually kills the cancer cells it targets.
Winter said the researchers weren’t surprised by the results, “but the reproducibility and magnitude of the signal was surprising. It makes us think this is probably a real phenomenon for us to consider.”
He added that his team has plans to look at other vitamins that have similar effects.
“We are interested in all of the products that are purported to be pro-longevity through these mechanism and expect to see a common theme,” Winter said.
‘Overall Very Helpful’
The researchers recommended that health care providers be sure to check in with cancer patients about the supplements they are taking.
Additionally, they noted that the study said nothing about the use of vitamin B3 in healthy people.
“Based on our research, if these findings translate to the real world scenario, then these supplements may still be overall very helpful to people,” Winter said.
“If cancer occurs in four patients out of every 1,000 per year, then I would be concerned about the detrimental effects they would have on the four people.
“But the 996 that don’t have cancer may receive benefit. In other words, it’s important to realize that the impact of these supplements is context dependent.”
