How a vitamin in beer and vegemite could prevent skin cancer

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Diarrhoea, dermatitis, dementia, and death. These are the “four Ds” of pellagra, a condition caused by a deficiency in vitamin B3.

Happily, the vitamin is readily available from a range of delicious sources including chicken, tuna, eggs, milk, peanuts, cereals and yeast. You can also get it from the distinctly Aussie sources of Vegemite and beer.

A simple form of vitamin B3 may help prevent skin cancers, a growing body of evidence suggests. Credit: Aresna Villanueva

But aside from avoiding the dreaded four Ds, increasingly convincing research shows that a simple form of vitamin B, nico