Vitamin may help with multiple sclerosis

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Experiments in mice reveal that nicotinamide can protect from multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurologic disorder in which nerve fibers are damaged by the loss of their myelin sheath. Symptoms include walking difficulty, pain and spasticity. There is no cure for MS, although various treatments can slow the progression of the disease. Now researchers at the Children's Hospital, Boston, reveal that nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, may be a new approach to the treatment of MS.

They looked at mice with an MS-like disease, treating them with daily nicotinamide injections. The nicotinamide is converted to another substance called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) which is used by cells to break down carbohydrate. The nicotinamide treatment delayed the onset of the disease and also made it less severe. The mice with the most severe neurologic deficits had the lowest levels of NAD in their spinal cords. Those with the mildest deficits had the highest NAD levels. The nicotinamide also worked with animals which had already developed the disease - which suggests it may also work with people who have had MS for a while, as well as those newly diagnosed. The team hopes to proceed to a trial in humans soon. Nicotinamide is cheap and available in health food stores. But people shouldn't dose themselves; the human equivalent to the amounts of nicotinamide used in this study is high - and the safety implications of these doses are unknown.

Source
Journal of Neuroscience 20th September 2006

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