For the past eight years, I have focused primarily on raising copper, and improving the overall copper protocol, while minimizing what I perceived as interfering substances — including niacinamide. That decision was not made lightly. It emerged from careful reading, personal experimentation, distrust of mainstream nutritional dogma, and a growing awareness of how certain vitamins and advocates carry hidden baggage. As you can see in my prior essays, I’m less certain about niacinamide, and I’ve kept flipping back and forth on it:
Niacin: Vitamin or Pharmakia?
June 2022: https://revealingfraud.com/2022/09/health/niacin-vitamin-or-pharmakia/
The Problems with Niacin
June 2024: https://revealingfraud.com/2024/06/health/the-problems-with-niacin/
We are Taking Niacin Again
August 2024: https://revealingfraud.com/2024/08/health/we-are-taking-niacin-again/
Interestingly, none of these were popular essays, and none were ever quoted as authoritative by our followers. Because they are not.
I did not publish why I decided to stop niacinamide soon after that. I think I did not like the drug-like effects of niacinamide. It did aid sleep. It does stimulate the benzodiazepine system, like alcohol and other drugs. These are drug-like effects, and it’s not a good comparison. Rather, they reinforce my initial idea: vitamin or pharmakia? I want to avoid drugs!
Another “bad profile” fact is that niacin deficiency is rare among well fed populations. That fact indicates that maybe it’s not needed at all, or when it shows up as deficient, as in starving homeless people, there are so many other things also deficient, that can we really pinpoint them on lack of niacin?
And it’s also added to the food supply, specifically bread, and we eat bread. So the question of whether it’s actually a nutrient, and a nutrient that we need to supplement, are real questions to try to test.
Another big consideration is that niacin depletes copper. As we have learned, things that deplete copper can mobilize copper. And all of the so-called positive effects from niacin might be attributed to copper or its mobilization. Thus, if we are taking copper, we might not ever need niacin at all. It’s an idea worth testing, and so, we did.
We were watching out for our mental health, and for insomnia, and for that classic neck rash as among the top niacin deficiency symptoms. None of those ever seemed to show up.
Yet, after 1.5 years of near-total avoidance, I decided to test 100 mg of niacinamide.
The results were startling: within 45 minutes, both my wife and I felt much better — clearer-headed, more energetic, and with a general sense of well-being. This rapid response demanded honest reflection on where my reasoning had gone wrong and how a modest amount of niacinamide now fits into the broader Copper Revolution framework.
This essay explores that full arc: the reasons for avoiding niacin, the flaws in that avoidance, and the lessons learned through renewed low-dose experimentation.
I was considering looking into niacin again lately. The reason is that low niacin does not just show up a skin irritation around the neck, but irritation, through degeneration, of the digestive tract, that can lead to diarrhea. It can also cause gallstones. Niacin also thins the bile helping it flow.
The Decision to Avoid Niacin: Re-Evaluating my Thinking
My avoidance of supplemental niacin stretched back about 1.5 years, rooted in multiple converging concerns. Going back further, I’ve published my concerns about niacin going back 4 years. And the recent test was the second test of avoiding niacinamide completely.
First and foremost was the copper interaction. High niacinamide, particularly at pharmacologic doses of from 1000 mg to 3000 mg, appears to increase copper excretion or requirements. Since I was deliberately raising copper — a mineral I view as foundational for energy, detoxification, and reversing decades of potential deficiency — adding something that antagonized it seemed counterproductive. My earlier experiments with higher niacinamide doses had produced fatigue, mental fog, and reduced drive, which I attributed partly to this dynamic.
Second, the niacin advocates carried significant red flags. Abram Hoffer and Carl Pfeiffer viewed copper as toxic in psychiatric contexts and reportedly used high-dose niacin specifically to lower it. Hoffer’s history with LSD research and MK Ultra-era psychiatric experimentation raised deeper trust issues. The idea that these figures might have inadvertently induced copper deficiency in patients (and themselves) while promoting niacin as a solution struck me as tragic.
Bill Wilson of Alcoholics Anonymous later took high doses of niacin under Hoffer’s influence, because niacin is known to boost the pleasure center of the brain, the benzodiazepine system. But so does copper. Again, do we even need niacin on high copper?
The Scientology-linked Purification Rundown combined high-dose niacin with extended saunas — a protocol with clear cult origins that further repulsed me on niacin as a “detox” tool.
Even Linus Pauling’s support for niacin came through the orthomolecular lens I viewed warily. Weston A. Price, by contrast, emphasized whole foods over isolated vitamins, reinforcing my preference for dietary sources.
Philosophically, I had grown distrustful of many mainstream vitamins. My new book (in development) argues Vitamin A is not the essential nutrient it is claimed to be. B6 and B9 show toxicity at relatively low doses. Niacin, at high doses (1,000–3,000+ mg), carries liver risks, and causes many symptoms that look like copper deficiency. I believed fortified bread products and tryptophan conversion would provide sufficient niacin, especially since the body can synthesize it endogenously.
My own writings reflected this open skepticism. In “Niacin: Vitamin or Pharmakia?” I questioned its drug-like effects. In “The Problems with Niacin” I documented benefits from stopping excessive niacinamide. Only in “We are Taking Niacin Again” did I briefly restart at lower doses during copper loading, but I quickly scaled back. For 1.5 years, avoidance felt like the safer, more consistent path.
It’s all about weighing the risks and benefits. I also like to experiment. If not taking niacinamide did not work, I could always start it again, and I finally did.
I did not publicize this experiment, by not updating the page “what we are taking” for nearly 1.5 years, because I did not want to mislead others, in case it went wrong. I was not attempting to mislead, I was attempting to err on the side of being more responsible. I did disclose that we had stopped niacin in our last update, on 4-11-26, just over a month ago.
The Restart: Rapid, Reproducible Results
The response was nearly immediate from taking niacinamide. From thirty to forty-five minutes after the first 100 mg dose, both my wife and I felt better — a “great” feeling with mental clarity and energy boost. This has continued now on our second day of taking niacin this morning. The brain boost is evident in increased engagement and clearer thinking, and more writing.
I’m surprised by the brain boost, it’s not just mood improvement.
This low dose (100 mg niacinamide, non-flushing) feels fundamentally different from my high-dose experiments of the past. It supports NAD+ production for energy metabolism without strong antagonism or side effects. The parallel response in my wife strengthens the observation that our high-copper protocol increases functional niacin needs for ATP production.
Looking back, several mistakes in my prior reasoning stand out.
The copper-niacin interaction is bidirectional and dose-dependent. While high niacin can raise copper needs or induce copper deficiency, a modest amount can support the increased metabolic demands created by raising copper. My protocol likely elevated niacin requirements for proper mitochondrial function and energy handling — exactly the opposite of what Hoffer and Pfeiffer assumed with their copper-toxic framework.
The flawed advocates problem, while valid for caution, does not invalidate the underlying biochemical need for niacinamide.
I’ll say that again, another way. It’s important. All people are flawed. While all people make mistakes, even me, even people who make mistakes do get some things right.
Another way, yet again. Even an ax murderer, if he says 2+2=4, is right about the math! I forgot that basic principle.
NAD+ is essential for hundreds of reactions regardless of who promotes it.
Bread provided limited bioavailable niacin, and tryptophan conversion may not suffice under metabolic stress.
And our high copper protocol, that increases ATP, may have created additional demand for niacin to keep ATP running. But, again, I could not quite trust whether niacin actually increases ATP, because what if it’s doing that as a result of mobilizing copper? The only way to differentiate is to test.
The liver concern was reasonable but overstated for low doses. Toxicity links primarily to sustained high-dose nicotinic acid at 1000 to 3000 mg, not 100 mg niacinamide.
Most importantly, I underestimated how long-term avoidance plus layered stressors could create a relative niacin shortfall. But I did think I would catch and notice niacin deficiency earlier than I did.
The body adapted remarkably for 1.5 years, but symptoms eventually signaled the gap. The rapid relief confirms this was not imagination.
That insomnia did not show up as a symptom is likely a good indication that the rest of our protocol really fixes insomnia, especially the added potassium.
Lessons for the Copper Revolution
This experience reinforces core principles of the Copper Revolution: individual experimentation, careful tracking, and willingness to revise.
I like to say… “The fastest way to be right is to admit when you are wrong.”
Nutrients exist in networks. There is a synergy. Copper does not operate in isolation; it creates new demands on supporting factors like niacin for energy production.
Low-dose niacinamide now appears compatible and helpful for managing the increased metabolic load.
For others on similar paths: Start low, track meticulously, and prioritize taking enough copper to fix copper deficiency symptoms. My wife’s parallel response suggests this may apply to couples or families on the protocol.
My “do the right thing experiments” mantra has proven valuable once again. This niacinamide restart revealed a relative shortfall I had overlooked.
Fixing problems should lead to yet another upward spiral of health.
Conclusion: A More Complete Protocol
After 1.5 years of avoidance, I have restarted 100 mg niacinamide daily, with plans to test scaling back once stable, maybe to 100 mg niacinamide every other day. This does not represent a full reversal of my cautions about high-dose niacin or flawed advocates. It represents refinement — recognizing that context, dose, and personal metabolic load matter more than blanket avoidance.
While normal people not on a copper protocol may get away with not taking niacinamide, and they may get enough niacin through food fortification, it appears that on our high copper protocol, we cannot. We think our copper protocol gives us increased need for niacinamide.
The Copper Revolution continues as a living, evolving framework grounded in personal data and feedback from real people. Copper remains foundational. Supporting NAD+ at modest levels now appears to be a sensible addition for energy, gut repair, and overall resilience amid the stresses of modern life and targeted repletion.
A small amount of niacinamide (100 mg, rather than 1000 mg) should not deplete copper, especially not if we are taking high copper (30 mg rather than nothing). The journey of honest self-audit — listing mistakes, re examining things, always learning, and testing rigorously — strengthens rather than undermines the work.
We experiment because we have to. In that spirit, this latest chapter adds nuance and continued humility for the Copper Revolution.
Warning. If you take the niacin form, it can lead to a flushing of the skin, which can feel like an allergic reaction. It can also be itchy and/or slightly painful, and feel like the skin is burning. When that ends after about an hour, people feel cold. Some people panic and rush to the hospital, but this is harmless. Nevertheless, we take the niacinamide form which does not lead to the skin flushing.
The skin flushing form of pure niacin can be useful in some health contexts. If you are trying to heal a skin condition, then extra blood flow to the skin might be what you want. Over time, people often adapt to the skin flushing, and they no longer flush. Stopping taking niacin for a while can lead to increased flushing again.