Safety of Nicotinamide Riboside(NR)
The two major forms of vitamin B3, nicotinic acid and nicotinamide, are together commonly known as niacin, and constitute the best well-known NAD+ precursors. Nicotinamide riboside (NR) is a single chemical moiety containing nicotinamide and ribose and, because it is a precursor of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+ ), is considered to be a form of vitamin B3 (reviewed in Chi and Sauve 2013; Penberthy and Kirkland, 2012; Bogan and Brenner, 2008).
Intake of nicotinic acid at doses of 50 mg/day and higher consistently results in undesirable side effects, including vasodilation effects (flushing) and pruritus (itching), which can occur within 30 minutes following oral administration (Guyton and Bays, 2007), whereas NR and nicotinamide are not associated with these adverse effects. NR may not cause flushing because just like nicotinamide, it does not bind GPR 109a, the high-affinity G-protein coupled receptor that is believed to play an important role in mediating the vasodilatory effects of nicotinic acid (Canto et al. 2012).
--GRAS-NR-ChromaDex
