Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Niacin |
NiacinNoun1. A B vitamin essential for the normal function of the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definitions |
Health | Water-soluble vitamin of the B complex occurring in various animal and plant tissues. Required by the body for the formation of coenzymes NAD and NADP. Has pellagra-curative, vasodilating, and antilipemic properties. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Niacin, also known as nicotinic acid or vitamin B3, is a water-soluble vitamin whose derivatives such as NADH play essential roles in energy metabolism in the living cell. Severe lack of niacin causes the deficiency disease pellagra, whereas a mild deficiency slows down the metabolism, which in turn decreases cold tolerance and is a potential contributing factor towards obesity. The designation vitamin B3 also includes the amide form, nicotinamide or niacinamide.
The name niacin derives from nicotinic acid + in. When the properties of niacin were discovered, it was thought prudent to choose a common name other than nicotinic acid, for fear that it might be confused with nicotine, leading to the ideas that either smoking provided vitamins or that wholesome food contained a poison.
Nicotinic acid reacts with hemoglobin and myoglobin in meat to form a brightly coloured complex, and thus has been used as a food additive, typically to improve the colour of minced (ground) meat. However, sometimes excess niacin is added to the meat during processing. Though still licensed as a food colouring agent in some countries, it is not licensed as such in Europe.
The body can synthesize niacin from the essential amino acid tryptophan, but the synthesis is extremely slow; 60 mg of tryptophan are required to make one milligram of niacin. For this reason, eating lots of tryptophan is not an adequate substitute for consuming niacin.
Because niacin in large quantities is a vasodilator, large doses of niacin (either from vitamin B3 tablets or from treated meats) may cause harmless and short-lived but unpleasant symptoms such as extreme skin flushing resembling a sunburn, itching, gastric disturbances, and lowering of blood pressure. The amide form (strictly speaking a provitamin) does not cause these side effects, but is also not as easily assimilated by the body.
Large doses of niacin are sometimes prescribed to combat high blood pressure, and also to lower blood cholesterol levels.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Niacin."
Synonym: NiacinSynonym: nicotinic acid (n). (additional references) |
| Synonym by domain: nicotinamide (medicine). |
Crosswords: Niacin |
| English words defined with "niacin": Alpine scurvy ♦ maidism, mal de la rosa, mal rosso, mayidism ♦ pellagra ♦ Saint Ignatius' itch ♦ tryptophan, tryptophane. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "niacin": Nicotinic Acids. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Niacin" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. German (niacin). |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Niacin is a first choice when drugs are required because of its low cost and its efficacy in altering multiple lipid fractions. (references) | |
The combination of diet, bile acid sequestrants, and niacin reduced progression of atherosclerosis and appearance of new lesions in patients with and without coronary bypass grafts. (references) | ||
For those with elevated blood cholesterol that is unresponsive to dietary and weight loss measures, cholesterol-lowering drugs may be prescribed, such as lovastatin, colestipol, cholestyramine, gemfibrozil, and niacin. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Niacin" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Niacin" is used about 4 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 4 | 175,879 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
niacin | 1,134 |
niacin cholesterol | 48 |
niacin side effects | 45 |
niacin flush | 29 |
slo niacin | 20 |
niacin benefit | 18 |
niacin vitamin | 18 |
niacin bound chromium | 12 |
effects niacin | 12 |
flush free niacin | 11 |
niacin overdose | 10 |
no flush niacin | 10 |
niacin flushing | 9 |
niacin therapy | 9 |
pass drug test niacin | 9 |
niacin deficiency | 9 |
information on niacin | 9 |
niacin reaction | 8 |
niacin triglyceride | 7 |
food niacin | 7 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "niacin"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 烟酸. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Danish | nicotinamid (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.), vitamin B3), niacin (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Dutch | nicotinamide (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)), niacine (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
French | nicotinamide (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid), niacine (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid), niacinamide (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid), vitamine PP (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid), acide nicotinique (nicotinamide, nicotinic acid, nicotinique acid). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
German | niacin (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Greek | νικοτινικό οξύ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Italian | nicotinammide (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)), nicotinamide (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)), niacina (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | iacinnay nicotinamida (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)), niacina (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)). (various references) nicotinamida (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.)), niacina (nicotinamide, nicotinique acid, pellagra preventive factor(P.P.F.), vitamin B3). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "niacin": niacinamide, niacinamides, niacins. (additional references) | |
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"Niacin" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: antiactin, enoxacin, Giacinto, inain, naci, nacion, Nahason, Najafi, najafian, Najin, nakin, nakinn, navarin, Neacail, neebin, Ngakane, Niace, niacun, niacyn, niaicin, Nibari, nicein, nicen, nician, nicin, Niorin, nuancing, nutacon, Nyakana. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "niacin" (pronounced nī"usi'n) |
| 4 | -u s i' n | moccasin. |
| 3 | -s i' n | vixen. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-i-i-n-n" | |
-1 letter: acini. | |
-2 letters: cain, inia. | |
-3 letters: ain, ani, can, inn, nan. | |
-4 letters: ai, an, in, na. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-i-i-n-n" | |
+1 letter: anionic, canikin, indican, niacins. | |
+2 letters: actinian, amnionic, cabining, canikins, caninity, cannikin, chaining, cinnamic, cinquain, conidian, inaction, incaging, incasing, incitant, indicans, indicant, inlacing, mannitic, nirvanic. | |
+3 letters: actinians, anticking, anticline, anticling, antigenic, antimycin, antinomic, calcining, cannikins, carnitine, chicaning, chinkapin, cinquains, clinician, clintonia, cnidarian, cyaniding, financial, financier, financing, inactions, inarching, incanting, incaution, incitants, incognita, indicants, infancies, inorganic, insomniac, machining, nicotiana, nictating, nonacidic, onanistic, panicking, picaninny, poinciana, vicennial. | |
+4 letters: affiancing, angiogenic, anilinctus, annalistic, anticaking, anticipant, anticlinal, anticlines, antimycins, auctioning, calamining, calcitonin, canalising, canalizing, caninities, canonicity, canonising, canonizing, caponizing, captaining, captioning, carnifying, carnitines, cautioning, chagrining, chinkapins, chinquapin, clarioning, clinicians, clintonias, cnidarians, containing, creatinine, culinarian, curtaining, discanting, distancing, enchaining, fancifying, fantoccini, financiers, financings, ganglionic, gentamicin, incautions, incendiary, incidental, incinerate, incitation, inclasping, inclinable, incogitant, incognitas, increasing, incubating, incubation, indicating, indication, infarction, infracting, infraction, infrasonic, inharmonic, insomniacs, insouciant, instancies, instancing, interchain, intoxicant, intragenic, invariance, invocating, invocation, itinerancy, jaundicing, mandarinic, manicuring, nicknaming, nicotianas, pickaninny, pinnacling, poincianas, quinacrine, sonicating, sonication, technician, unchaining. | |
+5 letters: acquainting, actinomycin, ancientries, anglicising, anglicizing, aniseikonic, anticipants, antiscience, calcimining, calcination, calcitonins, campaigning, cannabinoid, cannibalise, cannibalism, cannibalize, cantharidin, carbonizing, chagrinning, chainsawing, chairmaning, championing, chinquapins, cinnabarine, cocainizing, cofinancing, cognitional, combination, commination, complaining, conditional, coxswaining, creatinines, criminating, crimination, culinarians, culminating, culmination, declination, enunciating, enunciation, fascinating, fascination, financially, finicalness, fornicating, fornication, fractioning, franchising, geanticline, gentamicins, handpicking, hyacinthine, illuminance, immanencies, inauthentic, incantation, incarnadine, incarnating, incarnation, incidentals, incinerated, incinerates, incinerator, incitations, inclination, incognizant, incompliant, incriminate, incubations, inculcating, inculcation, inculpating, inculpation, incurvating, incurvation, indications, inerrancies, infanticide, infarctions, infractions, inhabitancy, inheritance, inoculating, inoculation, insouciance, instinctual, interacting, interaction, interchains, interfacing, interlacing, intoxicants, intrinsical, invariances, invocations, jackknifing, laciniation, lancinating, linebacking, linecasting, machinating, machination, magnificent, manneristic, mechanician, mechanizing, narcotizing, niacinamide, nictitating, nonartistic, nonclinical, noncriminal, noncritical, nondiabetic, nondidactic, nonjudicial, nonmusician, nonofficial, occasioning, pectination, phonetician, picaninnies, picarooning, poignancies, quinacrines, quincuncial, quincunxial, refinancing, sanctifying, sanctioning, sandwiching, scintillant, significant, sonications, syndicating, syndication, technicians, tyrannicide, unchristian, uncinematic, unification, vacationing, vaccinating, vaccination, vindicating, vindication, vulcanising, vulcanizing, wainscoting. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4E 69 61 63 69 6E |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-. .. .- -.-. .. -. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001110 01101001 01100001 01100011 01101001 01101110 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)N i a c i n |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004E 0069 0061 0063 0069 006E |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)487567697580 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Orthography | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
