One skincare vitamin I always recommend for everyone to incorporate into their daily skincare routine is Vitamin B3 (niacinamide). It’s a great all-rounder. It’s good for moisturising and it hydrates well, it brightens the skin and it reduces inflammation. And it works well in the anti-ageing realm too by reducing pigmentation, decreasing the amount of fine wrinkles and increasing the skin’s elasticity. It is a powerful antioxidant. It replenishes cellular energy and it helps repair any DNA damage after sun exposure. And it props up the immune system to help heal cellular damage that has occurs.
But now I’m wondering if we should take our Vitamin B3 usage a stage further?
A study which looked at the effects of giving a group of people at high risk for skin cancer daily Vitamin B3 (nicotinamide) tablets. What they found was that this group developed less skin cancer and they developed less pre-cancers in sun damaged areas.
And the good news too is that Vitamin B3 supplements are cheap and readily available. And at a recommended dose of Nicotinamide 500mg twice daily there are no side effects.
Now the study only ran for 12 months, and it specifically looked to see whether or not it people developed skin cancer or pre-skin cancers. It didn’t look at whether it would prevent ageing or other problems. But running a little with this information I figure, it’s a powerful antioxidant, we know it props up the immune system and repairs DNA and skin damage that lead to age related changes, so perhaps it would do us all good to take this as a daily tablet?
You do get vitamin B3 from your diet, mainly from yeast, meat, fish, eggs, milk, nuts, legumes and cereals although the average daily amount required is only 15-20mg. This study found that to get the benefits you need 50 times the recommended daily allowance.
So I will leave this hear a little food for thought. It’s certainly something I’ll be buying and adding to my daily routine next time I head to the chemist.
** Just a note to add that Vitamin B3 is also available as Nicotinic acid, which gets converted into nicotinamide in the body. At high doses nicotinic acid can cause side effects and this study particularly found that it was niacinamide and not other forms of Vitamin B3 that gave the benefits.
