Niacin Deficiency and Excess

DEFINITIONS

Niacin (nicotinic acid) can be found in many foods. Niacin is important for the metabolism of various substances in the body.

Pellagra is a nutritional disorder due to deficiency of niacin.
Amino acid tryptophan deficiency also plays a role in the occurrence of pellagra because tryptophan can be converted to niacin.

The people who live areas where Indian corn (maize) is the major grain, has a risk for suffering from pellagra because maize contains a bit of niacin and tryptophan.
Besides niacin in maize can not be absorbed in the intestine unless it is served with a base, such as the presentation of tortillas.

Pellagra is a seasonal disease, which appears in spring and summer lasts.
This disease occurs in people who eat badly, which contain processed corn products.

Deficiency of niacin

Chronic alcoholics have a high risk of suffering from pellagra because of bad food.

Pellagra also occurs in Hartnup disease, a rare disease and is derived, where the absorption of tryptophan in the intestine and kidney impaired.
To prevent the emergence of symptoms, these patients require high doses of niacin.

Pellagra marked abnormalities in the skin, gastrointestinal tract and brain.

The first symptoms of redness in the skin area that is symmetrical, similar to burns from the sun and will get worse if exposed to sunlight (photosensitive).
Skin changes are not lost and will brown and scaly.

Skin symptoms are usually accompanied by digestive disorders, such as nausea, loss of appetite and foul-smelling diarrhea and sometimes bloody.
The entire digestive tract may be affected:
- Stomach can not produce enough acid (aklorhidria)
- Tongue and mouth become inflamed, which then it turned into an old red light.
The vagina can also be affected.

In the end the mental change, the form of fatigue, insomnia (difficulty sleeping), and apathy.
Symptoms are usually preceded by brain dysfunction (encephalopathy, in the form of confusion, disorientation, hallucinations, amnesia and even manic-depressive psychosis.

Diagnosis is established based on the food history, symptoms and low levels of niacin in the urine.

Blood tests also can help the diagnosis.

Niacin-amide was given high doses (approximately 25 times the recommended daily dose) plus other B vitamins in high doses (10 times the recommended daily dose).

Vitamin B1, B2, B6 and pantothenic acid should be given due to lack of vitamins can cause symptoms similar to pellagra.

STRENGTHS niacin

Niacin (not niacin-amide) in a dose of more than 200 times the recommended daily dose, given to control high fat levels in the blood.

Niacin as much as 200 times the recommended daily dose can cause:
- The great red
- Itching
- Liver damage
- Skin disorders
- Gout
- Ulcer and
- Disorders of glucose tolerance.