The HPS2-THRIVE trial, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the combination of niacin and laropiprant (Tedaptive) didn't reduce major cardiovascular events but carried a greater risk of serious adverse events.
Could it be that the side effects (increase in diabetes rate, stroke, etc) were due to the COMBINATION of niacin with a statin and not to niacin alone?
Thank you all for feed backs.
attached the paper and comment from NEJM for your attention. Thanks
I think that there was also a higher trend of strokes in the niacin group in AIM-HIGH, but I am not too sure.
Niacin alone I feel in moderate doses still a good drug we shouild not dump it Im trial of tadeptive the goal set were very high
dear Narsingh, thank you for your feed back. WR, Michaela
From a nutrition standpoint, excess of any micronutrient may be harmful due to toxicity. The liver and kidneys work to remove the material seen as a poison. Drug-drug interactions are strong possibilities as well as nutrient-drug interactions. When niacin is administered in high amounts it is considered a drug. It is very plausible that it can react with several of the drugs given to patients with these serious conditions.
Thanks Ali
I assume everything taken /prescribed in moderation could help. may be we should be more catious when interpreting results. BR
The consistent findings of a lack of benefit of raising the HDL cholesterol level with the use of niacin when added to effective LDL cholesterol–lowering therapy with statins seriously undermine the hypothesis that HDL cholesterol is a causal risk factor. The failure (to date) of cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitors, such as torcetrapib and dalcetrapib, to show any reduction in cardiovascular risk despite the marked increases in the HDL cholesterol level associated with these drugs7,8 lends further credence to the notion that HDL cholesterol is unlikely to be causal. Finally, compelling data from a large mendelian randomization study9 also argue that the HDL cholesterol level has a role solely as a risk marker and not a risk factor that merits intervention to reduce cardiovascular events. Although higher HDL cholesterol levels are associated with better outcomes, it is time to face the fact that increasing the HDL cholesterol level in isolation seems unlikely to offer the same benefit