Figure 3

Trends in U.S. per capita niacin consumption and the prevalence of obesity and diabetes. The prevalence of obesity (A) and diabetes (B) increased in parallel with the increase in U.S. per capita niacin consumption with a lag of 10 years and 26 years, respectively (see Ref. [9, 35] for detail). The sharp increase in niacin consumption in 1940s and 1974 is due to the implementation of mandatory grain fortification and the update of fortification standards, respectively. The data on the prevalence of obesity and diabetes are from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_07_08/obesity_child_07_08.htm; and http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/slides/long_term_trends.pdf. Accessed March 24, 2012). The data on U.S. per capita consumption of niacin is from Economic Research Service: Nutrient Availability Spreadsheets, (http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/foodconsumption/NutrientAvailIndex.htm. Accessed March 24, 2012).