Considering the increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes over the past few years,researchers have suggested that there might be possible trigger for it from the environment or our diet.Diet is known to play a critical role in the development of type 2 diabetes.An article published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology suggests that an overload of nicotinamide might be strongly associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes. The study revealed that diabetic patients display slow nicotinamide metabolism and thus take a longer time to clear up these metabolites from their system. High nicotinamide intake may promote production of reactive oxygen species, and subsequent oxidative stress and insulin resistance, both being the major features associated with type 2 diabetes. The liver carries out the function of nicotinamide detoxification. This study found that liver-injury-inducing drugs may reduce nicotinamide detoxification and thus affect glucose tolerance.Another interesting finding of this study is that sweating is an effective way for expelling excess nicotinamide from the body.The high prevalence of type 2 diabetes therefore might be due to too much niacin in our foods and too little excretion through our sweat glands and also relatively low detoxification and excretion from the body, says lead author Dr. Shi-Sheng Zhou, Professor of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of Dalian University. The outcomes of this study thus helps in a better understanding of diabetes related phenomenon, such as lifestyle-triggered diabetes, liver-disease-related abnormal glucose metabolism, post-burn insulin resistance, and seasonal diabetes.
The authors found that reducing nicotinamide intake and facilitating the excretion of nicotinamide metabolites may be a useful preventive and therapeutic intervention in type 2 diabetes which raises an important question about whether foods need to fortified with niacin anymore when most people of developed countries are living in an age of overnutrition.
