Niacin used to help me with my bum shoulder quite a bit. Haven't needed it for the last few years. I think the niacin flush might partly work in the same way that heat and cold work. It's an interesting vitamin. The flush type has largely disappeared from stores around here, I don't get any obvious therapeutic benefit from the other types.

Very interesting on the cravings. The flush type causes a temporary decrease in lipolysis, followed later by a compensatory increase in growth hormone, and higher free fatty acids than you started with, to me this seems like a possible way to sort of hack the circadian rhythm.

Your schedule is very different from what mine was, I took it once per day, generally on an empty stomach.

I had trouble IFing before, I was too sick to get the ketosis going; I would eat what would normally be a fine low carb meal, and wind up starving. Skipping a meal, which used to be easy, became very difficult.

Then, as the effects of my cortisol resistance worsened, I had no appetite. I lived on cold cuts and ice cream because they were the few things I could eat.

I was taking anti-inflammatory herbs, Devils Claw and White Willow, to improve my sleep. Switching to niacin got me the same benefits without worrying about losing their effectiveness or possible NSAID-like side effects.

The book points out that with today's science, it would actually be classed as an amino acid. But, as the author says, "Too late now."

Which sheds light on its ability to help our brains. Perhaps, under stress, this particular amino acid is hard hit on the production lines; much as stress creates "progesterone steal" and we are low on that hormone. Adding progesterone to my regimen after menopause did wonders for me.

So adding this amino acid back in makes our brains work properly. And as I have discovered, when our brains are stressed and not working properly, it becomes a physical disease also; all those signals are not being sent right to the various glands and organs. Then those organs don't work right, either.