Pellagra: 4 D’s and 8 Points

Pellagra has largely been forgotten. This is unfortunate as important lessons are to be learnt for the diseases and social consequences of poverty (and of affluence) that often involve dietary nicotinamide and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) homeostasis. NAD disruption can occur not only from poor diet but from increased consumption of NAD from genotoxic and other stresses. High doses of nicotinamide lead to inhibition of NAD-consuming enzymes and excessive induction of nicotinamide-n-methyl transferase (NNMT) with consequent effects on the methylome giving a mechanism for a new hypervitaminosis-B3.