Liver trouble? Niacin the culprit?

[gorgeousfrankenstein]

To try and improve my lipids I've recently been taking:

2 grams niacin (extended release) daily
3000 iu's Vitamin D3 daily
4 grams fish oil daily

Aside from my cholesterol, my bloodwork has always come back normal but in just four weeks of starting this regimen my bloodwork showed:

AST 52
ALT 76

Anyone experience this? Should I drop the Niacin cold turkey? BTW I'm not on any oral AAS, and I don't drink.

 

[Superior1]

That's a hefty dose of Niacin. It could be the culprit and I only say that since you state you've had blood work done before. Anything else you could have changed? You should add some , Phosphotidyl Choline or at least , N.A.C. and TrimethylGlycine. And double check the source of Fish Oils you have. While heavy metals isn't as rampant in Fish Oils as some articles state, a bad source for the F.O. could possibly be something to look into.

 

[gorgeousfrankenstein]

Niacin

Agreed, it's a good deal of niacin and yes it only took 4 weeks for those values to come out of range. The fish oil I have is Nordic N's and supposed to be ultra filtered.

I'm surprised cause I've never even had orals raise values like that.

Any one else?

 

[Mr.Bill]

I would definately look at lowering the Niacin, My cardiologist has me on 500mg a day.

That seems to have been effective on assisting my HDL level raising.

 

[thebrick]

A friend of mine was told by a doctor that large doses of niacin will adversely affect liver values. I would say that is your culprit.

 

[wrought]

Its the niacin. 2g/day is a lot, I was taking 1g/day two years ago, got my blood checked and liver values were severely elevated, I stopped taking the niacin then got my levels checked again and they were back to normal.

http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec01/ch004/ch004d.html

 

[Quad-smack]

I train a MD that just came back from a conference & one of the topics was nutritional interventions in hypercholestremia. He said that the current reccomendations are:
1.) 2000iu Cholecalciferol/day & decreasing to 1000iu for maintenance.
2.) 250mg to 500mg/day Standard Niacin - 1/2'ing the dose if liver enzymes become elevated.
3.) 10-15g/day molecularly distilled or purified fish oil.
Hope this helps...

 

[gorgeousfrankenstein]

Thanks

Thanks my Friends.
Dropping the Niacin today. Will blood test again in 4 weeks and go from there.