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vitamin deficiency

File:J._C._Drummond,_The_Nomenclature_of_the_So-called_Accessory_Food_Factors_(Vitamins),_1920.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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vitamin deficiency

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Also known as Avitaminosis, NOS, Avitaminoses, Deficiencies, Vitamin, Avitaminosis, Vitamin Deficiencies, Vitamin Deficiency Disorder, Deficiency, Vitamin

condition due to a deficiency of one or more essential vitamins

Key facts

Other names
Avitaminosis, hypovitaminosis
Specialty
Endocrinology

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

111,368 papers

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Image
B vitamin supplement tablets.jpg
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topic's main category
Category:Vitamin deficiencies
health specialty
endocrinology
Commons category
Diseases and disorders due to vitamin deficiencies
NCI Thesaurus ID
C35772
ICD-9-CM
269.2
on focus list of Wikimedia project
WikiProject Medicine
Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Vitamin deficiency is the condition of a long-term lack of a vitamin. When caused by not enough vitamin intake it is classified as a primary deficiency, whereas when due to an underlying disorder such as malabsorption it is called a secondary deficiency. An underlying disorder can have 2 main causes:

Metabolic causes: Genetic defects in enzymes (e.g. kynureninase) involved in the kynurenine pathway of synthesis of niacin from tryptophan can lead to pellagra (niacin deficiency).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “vitamin deficiency” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.