niacin

What it means

1. uncountablebiochemistryA water-soluble vitamin, a component of vitamin B complex, found in meat, yeast, and dairy products; it is essential to metabolism.

   Mixing the alkali into the recipe in the right way chemically releases the otherwise unavailable niacin in the corn, which stops pellagra in its tracks, and allowed corn-based agricultural populations to grow and spread.

   2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 7, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN

   Synonyms: E375 when used as a colour retention agent, nicotinic acid, vitamin B3, vitamin P-P, PP-factor, pellagra-preventive factor, vitamin PP

In a sentence

Mixing the alkali into the recipe in the right way chemically releases the otherwise unavailable niacin in the corn, which stops pellagra in its tracks, and allowed corn-based agricultural populations to grow and spread.

2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 7, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN

Where it comes from

in 1942 derived from nicotinic + acid + vitamin, chosen to dissociate it from nicotine, to avoid the perception that vitamins or niacin-rich food contains nicotine, or that cigarettes contain vitamins.