Can vitamin B3 reduce your risk of skin cancer?

Wearing sunscreen and avoiding excessive exposure to UVs are well known to reduce the risk of skin cancer. A new study suggests that some people can add another approach to the list: take nicotinamide supplements.

The use of these supplements has reduced the risk of developing non -melanoma skin cancers by 54% in people who had the disease once before, according to the study.

This is a “very important” observation to which all dermatologists should pay attention, said Kelly Nelson, MD, professor of dermatology and internal medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which was not involved in research.

“I hope this manuscript will really change” for doctors across the country, said Nelson Health.

Nicotinamide is a form of niacin, or vitamin B3, which is naturally found in foods such as poultry, fish and certain grains and seeds. Once absorbed by the body, it is converted into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), which plays a role in energy production, cellular communication, DNA repair, etc.

The new study, which was published in Jama Dermatology, This is not the first to suggest that nicotinamide helps prevent skin cancer. In 2015, a group of Australian researchers published a small study with the same discovery.

A follow -up study in 2023 conducted among organ transplant recipients, however, did not duplicate this result. And a 2024 study also raised concerns that excess niacin could increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Lee Wheless, MD, PHD, Deputy Professor of Dermatology and Epidemiology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and principal author of the new Jama dermatology study, I wanted to cross the back and forth to find the truth about nicotinamide.

“My group has entered all of this and said:” We have access to very large data sets. Let’s take a look “,” he said.

Using health records of health health health patients, Wheless and his team compared more than 12,000 people who had taken nicotinamide supplements from 500 milligrams twice a day for at least a month against around 21,000 people who had not done so.

Everyone in the study previously had at least non -melanoma skin cancer. The researchers were interested in knowing whether nicotinamide users were less likely to have additional diagnoses in the future. They specifically followed the cases of basal carcinoma in cells and skin epidermoid carcinoma, the two most common forms of skin cancer.

Throughout the study group, nicotinamide supplementation was linked to a 22% reduction in the rate of new skinny skin carcinomas, but no reduction in baso-cell carcinomas. That worked for a 14% lower risk of new skin cancers overall.

However, the image changed when the researchers watched people who started taking nicotinamide after their first skin cancer. Among these first adopters, the nicotinamide supplementation was linked to a “enormous advantage”, said Wheless: “More than one 50% reduction in the risk of cancer of subsequent skin”, ” Whatever the type.

The potential of the supplement to prevent cancer seems Find Nad’s ability to help with DNA repair.

“As we are exposed to the sun, we are developing DNA damage,” said Wheless. “Everything that is not repaired fairly quickly will finally continue and will become a mutation”, potentially causing skin cancer. Improving repair processes can therefore prevent cancers from training.

That said, the advantages seemed to shrink with each additional diagnosis before starting nicotinamide, disappearing entirely after about seven previous cancers.

Many dermatologists, including Nelson, have already recommended nicotinamide supplements to skin cancer patients at risk of having additional cases, but “we have often had to train this discussion in the basis of fairly small studies,” she said. The new study, which was great and well designed, makes it more confident by offering this recommendation, she said.

Rajani Katta, MD, a Dermatologist based in Texas who studies the role of food in skin diseases, agreed. “I am very, very cautious about the use of supplements,” she said. “But this one, so far, I find very promising.”

The two doctors, however, said There is not yet enough data to say if nicotinamide supplementation is beneficial for people who have never had skin cancer, Or who have had melanoma – which is less common but more deadly than basal and scaly diseases.

Although the new study suggests that nicotinamide is sure, Katta said it would like to see more in the long term security data, as well as additional studies in more diverse populations. (The study group was extremely white and male.)

If you are considering an additional nicotinamide, speak to your doctor first, advised Katta. And with regard to the prevention of skin cancer, “by far, sun protection behaviors are the most important,” she said. “Your food choices will not be able to counter a lot of UV radiation.”