Lyle Hurd: It’s a pleasure to welcome Robert Kowalski back author of “The New 8-Week Cholesterol Cure” Tell us about niacin, I am a big fan of niacin and tell us the kind of niacin we should be looking for. Robert Kowalski: Alright, I will tell you the truth, if there is one thing that I can point to that saved my life it’s the vitamin niacin more than anything else that I have done in terms of trying to improve my own heart health and bring my cholesterol level down. I have a genetic tendency as does, according to the statistics, 47 percent of the U.S. population Lyle Hurd: 47 percent? Robert Kowalski: 47 percent of men and women have the genetic predisposition to have a liver that simply makes too much of the bad LDL cholesterol and not enough of the good HDL cholesterol. So we want to change that and we can do that with niacin. Lyle Hurd: Niacin is a B vitamin? Robert Kowalski: Vitamin B-3. Lyle Hurd: When you take niacin, is there a particular type of niacin that you should take? Robert Kowalski: There sustained-released niacin’s that are available, sustained released meaning that there is just a little niacin trickle into the blood stream at a time. This does two things, number one we can get away with less niacin than we would need with the immediate release because it is working in the blood stream on a regular basis and working in the liver on a regular basis. Rather than the immediate release that goes up and down and that’s what causes that flush where you get what they call cutaneous reaction, the flushing in the face and the shoulders and across the back. The sustained release that is available, actually there is one formulation that is available as prescription only. So it shows that it has definitely worked its way into the medical community, prescriptions are being written for it today. But, there is a product that is available over-the-counter, by mail order, in some pharmacies; many, many companies have it available under the name Niamax. Lyle Hurd: Niamax? Robert Kowalski: Niamax, began oh gosh about 20 years ago, I learned about it about 18 years ago and asked my publisher at that point, “please allow me to make a revision in the next printing” so I could bring people up to speed on that because it’s been tested at the University of Minnesota to show safety and efficacy. One 500 miligram tablet, three times a day has been shown to have dramatic reduction in LDL, nice rise in HDL also lowers triglycerides, also lowers the level of the little thing it’s a variant of LDL it’s the baddest of all the bad cholesterol it’s called LPa for lipoprotein-a. Some people can control their cholesterol levels just with dietary measures alone. They can bring the levels down sufficiently. I couldn’t, I tried when this whole thing began for me many, many years ago. I tried dietary measures. They didn’t have a dent in my cholesterol and so at that point I sided with those saying oh, cholesterol has nothing to do with it, their diet has nothing to do with it because the cholesterol wasn’t changed. For those, however, with that genetic predisposition niacin is a great way to do it. But, bear in mind we are talking about large doses here. Nutritionally, all we need is 20-26 milligrams of niacin for lowering cholesterol we are looking at 1500 milligrams as a result it’s working in the liver, it is doing all those good things. But, the liver is metabolizing it just as it would a martini or a glass of wine. So work with your doctor on this, inform the doctor that you are going to take it and every six months or so it’s good to have what’s called liver enzyme test to make sure that the liver is handling it properly. You know, niacin is available in a wide variety of foods. Way before we have vitamin pills on the market there were foods and actually today if you were to pick up a loaf of bread you’d see on the nutrition label that it has niacin that is added to the bread, it is a part of the whole process. Fruits and vegetables, t