In 1937 he identified two vitamins, nicotinic acid, also known as niacin, and nicotinamide,[1] which were deficient directly in human pellagra, once a major health problem in the United States.

He progressed through the secondary schools and the University of Wisconsin, where he received his PhD in 1927[3] with mentor E. B. Hart for his studies of the importance of copper in iron-deficiency anemia.

[4] Picking up on the work of Joseph Goldberger, he found that nicotinic acid cured black tongue in dogs, an analogous disease to pellagra.

In the previous year, Elvehjem and his colleague Carl J. Koehn had found that a filtrate factor from a liver extract could cure diet-induced pellagra in chicks.

[5] Elvehjem's first graduate student (in 1931) was noted nutritionist Fredrick John Stare (1910–2002) who later founded and chaired the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he served until 1976.