An association between niacin skin flush response and plasma triglyceride levels in patients with schizophrenia

The available data suggest that abnormalities of arachidonic acid-related signaling may be of relevance in attenuated niacin-induced flush responses and lipid and glucose metabolism disturbances, which are all common among individuals with schizophrenia. We previously demonstrated attenuated skin flush responses to niacin in patients with schizophrenia. Here we investigated whether these niacin responses might be associated with elevated plasma lipid and glucose concentrations in this patient group. We found that higher plasma triglyceride levels were associated with higher total volumetric niacin response (VNR) values and that the VNR accounted for similar to 14.2% of the variability in triglyceride levels. Triglyceride levels were significantly higher in patients with a positive niacin skin flush response compared to those with absent niacin skin flushing at the 5-minute interval with niacin concentrations of 0.1 and 0.01 M, and at the 10- and 15-minute intervals with a niacin concentration of 0.001 M.