Can high levels of Niacin cause mania?

Last night I tried 500 mg of niacin at 6 pm (out of curiosity about what my daughter was taking).  I went to an exercise class and had a remarkable "flush". My daughter who is a very clever bipolar Engineering student had started using the niacin 2 weeks prior as an aid to help her sleep.  At the time she had been off pharmaceutical meds for a year and a half.  She had been having a lot of anxiety about this term in University (3rd /4th year) and had heard this might help.  
When I tried to sleep last night I found that my mind was racing (I am not bipolar) and that I was sleeping very lightly if at all until 3 am.  Normally, I fall asleep within a minute and I sleep very soundly.  I wondered if my unusual reaction to the niacin had been experienced by anyone else.  I could not find anyone else who had had a mania symptoms with niacin.  However, it was clearly what I was having.  My daughter was hospitalized with mania on Wed. (2 days ago) and I am starting to wonder if her situation was aggravated by the 500 mg of niacin she has been taking over the last 2 weeks or helped.  She is now on Olanzapine (50 mg) at bedtime until she gets a consult with an outpatient urgent care.
DOES NIACIN CAUSE MANIA?

[ILADVOCATE]

That is within clinical potential. No vitamin should be taken at above an FDA approved dose. I am authorized by my neurologist to take manganese for tardive dyskinesia and I take the W.H.O. approved dose as he had stated. But once I accidentally took twice as much and it caused a variety of symptoms including psychosis which were all a sign of manganese toxicity. Its the same with any vitamin or mineral. Remember although B vitamins are of course needed by the body and a healthy supplement there has been no clinical proof that they treat schizophrenia or depression or any other mental illness. I know because I take a vitamin b/c supplement daily (with the normal amounts) and it never provide any symptom mitigation. I do know that after I started the vitamin c I got less colds but that's about it. There can be many symptoms of taking a dose above that reccomended by the FDA of any vitamin or mineral and that can be dangerous especially if they are not fat soluble which of course Vitamin B (of which niacin is one type) is not.

[Alex_X_18]

I am bipolar and have taken niacin for years....I took 500mg of niacin the reagular kind not the no flush kind It did cause me to have a niacin flush (which is typical)...it has never caused me trouble with mainia only made me flush wich eased anxiety and caused me to be tired afterwards...It might affect others diffently though. Nician is a B vitamin and B vitmins can cause you to more energetic you shouldn't take them in excess esp if you have bipolar....I have taken other B vitamins in the past that have made me feel slightly manic or hypomanic so I would only take them on days when I felt increibly tired and needed to be alert for school in the mornings.

[angelinamarina]

i think this could be a real possibility.  I get this sort of reaction to vitamins.  i am not bipolar either.

[kathy434]

Let me only advise you that taking anything internally could have the potential of hurting you.  If you have a question about it, rather than taking it to "see if it might affect...." you would be more wise to call a pharmacist with your question.
I also recommend that you tell your daughter's health care providers about her taking the Niacin.  They definitely need to know this!

[donnavg]

My son has been "addicted" to high doses of niacin for years. Dependent on the dose, he gets
Irritable, angry, aggressive , manic and finally psychotic if taking enough of it.

B6 makes him relaxed then manic in a eery relaxed way.

B vitamins affect me by making me very irritable.

Dnavg1

[sebjoe]

I have been very concerned with this exact same question, and have been doing some online research into this:  sorry that I found this so late.
I have been on 750 mg of valproate since 2009, nothing else, and have been focussing on alternative/nutriceutical means of dealing with continued depression.
I always thought that the 'standard' 500 mg niacinamide tab was a high dose, wondered why a smaller tab wasn't available.
I can say without question now that everything else remaining the same, taking this dose seemed to always precipitate ~ 12-24 hrs of hypomania.
For bipolar people who are always sensitive to anything that seems like mania, this is can be very worrisome.
Yes, I feel very energized, hyper-aware, cognition seems (to me) to be sharp:  it is not an unpleasant state to be in.
But it almost always seems to be accompanied by the 'racing' of thoughts, almost as if they cannot be controlled, that tells me that there is a real danger here.
After this happened ~ 1/2 dozen times, I decided to stop taking such a large dose:  I split the tab in half, and don't take more than 250 mg every 2-3 days.
I believe that niacinamide works in alleviating depression, but also that this can lead to hypomania and maybe worse if your mood-stabilizer is not working well.
I would not advise any diagnosed bipolar person to take 500 mg of niacinamide as any single does.