diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index cce23177..df2754d6 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2015-08-06  Benno Schulenberg  <bensberg@justemail.net>
+	* src/nano.c (main): For --enable-debug builds, let malloc() help
+	to find initialization failures and uses-after-free.  Suggested by
+	Mike Frysinger.
+
 2015-08-04  Benno Schulenberg  <bensberg@justemail.net>
 	* src/nano.c (main), src/files.c (read_file), src/rcfile.c,
 	doc/man/nano.1, doc/man/nanorc.5, doc/texinfo/nano.texi: Add
diff --git a/src/nano.c b/src/nano.c
index e95b9a98..69c1d225 100644
--- a/src/nano.c
+++ b/src/nano.c
@@ -2196,6 +2196,12 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
     };
 #endif
 
+#ifdef DEBUG
+    /* Help to find failed-to-initialize and use-after-free problems. */
+    mallopt(M_CHECK_ACTION, 3);
+    mallopt(M_PERTURB, 0x4c);
+#endif
+
 #ifdef ENABLE_UTF8
     {
 	/* If the locale set exists and uses UTF-8, we should use
diff --git a/src/nano.h b/src/nano.h
index 2fb93990..4346eff5 100644
--- a/src/nano.h
+++ b/src/nano.h
@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@
 #include <stdarg.h>
 #endif
 
+#ifdef DEBUG
+#include <malloc.h>
+#endif
+
 /* Suppress warnings for __attribute__((warn_unused_result)). */
 #define IGNORE_CALL_RESULT(call) do { if (call) {} } while(0)