RCT

ONTRAC: oral nicotinamide for skin-cancer prevention (RCT, 2015)

Oral nicotinamide 500 mg twice daily cut new non-melanoma skin cancers by 23% over 12 months.

386 people who had already had at least two non-melanoma skin cancers took either nicotinamide 500 mg twice daily or an identical placebo for a year, with neither they nor their doctors knowing which. New skin cancers were 23% less common in the nicotinamide group. Two details matter for using this: the benefit disappeared once people stopped taking it, and everyone in the trial was already high-risk, so it does not tell you what nicotinamide does for average skin.

Chen AC, Martin AJ, Choy B, et al. A phase 3 randomized trial of nicotinamide for skin-cancer chemoprevention. N Engl J Med. 2015;373(17):1618-1626.

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