As many of you may know, I enjoy flipping thru my dictionary, finding random words here and there. And not too long ago, I came across something interesting. It seems the B-vitamin Niacin is actually short for “NI(COTINIC) AC(ID) + IN”. Nicotinic acid in other words. I could be wrong, but to me that sounds like Nicotine!
Is that true? Is the bane of the tobacco companies, that allegedly most addictive substance, related to a necessary nutrient? Frankly I wouldn’t be too surprised if it is. You see I am a consummate skeptic. I don’t take anyone’s word for anything. So it wouldn’t surprise be it is actually related to something good for you.
Nope. They are two different substances. Take a look at the pictures if you don’t believe me: Nicotine Niacin which then is used in the production of NADH and quite essential to mammals and other living creatures.
Also other fun stuff for you to look at:Nicotinic Acetylcholine receptors found in your body. They bind to muscarine, and acetylcholine… but also were first discovered by the fact that Nicotine (the first substance) binds to them and stimulates them. So there’s another thing in the body that’s got a Nicotine name.
The thing giving these substances a similar sounding name? The fact that they are compounds containing Nitrogen. But they are most def. two different structures!
As the quoted Wikipedia pages indicate, niacin was first created by chemically treating nicotine, whcih is why it was first called nicotinic acid. But when it was later discovered to be an important nutrient, whereas nicotine is a poison, it was decided to make the names more distinguishable.
Incidentally, I first learned this by reading Isaac Asimov’s *The World of Nitrogen *back in 6th grade.
Well, nicotine is a psychoactive drug, with effects that people apparently find pleasant. It is not impossible that it might have some palliative effect on the symptoms of schizophrenia. But even if that is so, it does not follow that it would be a useful medical treatment, and it is not at all likely that its effects would have anything to do with its chemical relationship to niacin.
Nicotine is psychoactive because of the way it reacts with receptor molecules on the outer surface of certain nerve cells in the brain, and schizophrenia probably has something to do with something being messed up with brain receptor molecules too, or with the neurotransmitter chemicals that are supposed to interact with them. Niacin, on the other hand, has no special role in the brain, but is involved in the basic internal metabolism of every cell in the body.
You seem to be suggesting some sort of conspiracy! In fact, it’s there to see in any dictionary, as you yourself discovered. Nothing sinister about it at all.
Nicotinic acid was first synthesised by oxidation of nicotine, hence the name. And yes, tobacco does contain small amounts of niacin. I wouldn’t recommend relying on it for your B vitamin needs, however
Just because nicotine is chemically “related to something good for you” doesn’t make nicotine good for you as well. Chloride ions are essential in your body but that doesn’t make chlorine gas good for you - and they’re much more similar (just one electron away!) than nicotine and niacin (which differ by about half the molecule).
Haha. You guys stumbled onto something important and didn’t even realize it.
Kudos to the guy who noticed that schizophrenics have very high incidences of being heavy smokers.
When nicotine is oxidized, it becomes nicotinic acid, aka NIACIN.
About 90% of schizophrenics who take high doses of niacin and ascorbic acid recover, if they haven’t been ill for over two years.
The schizo’s are attempting to self treat by chain smoking…
I was starting to become psychotic a few years back and started taking 3 grams of inositol hexanicotinate and ascorbic acid with flavinoids and got well…
…oh yeah, and benzo’s were first synthesized from studying the nicotinic acid molecule. They all hit the same receptor in the brain…
Looks like other parts of the question have been well answered, but I wanted to comment on this.
Just because two chemicals are “related” or similar in some way doesn’t say anything about their effect. Wood, lobster shells and potato starch are all glucose chains, identical except for the position of the bond between glucose molecules. Graphite and diamonds are chemically identical (again, just the position of the bonds are different). Cholesterol, testosterone and estrogen are all closely related.
I’m pretty sure that the chemistry of a substance depends on the configuration of its bonds. It’s more accurate to say that the configuration of protons into nuclei are the same, but the pattern of how the electrons are shared between nuclei is different.
