Vitamin B3 reduces Alzheimer's symptoms, lesions

November 05, 2008

UC Irvine starts clinical trial on nicotinamide effect in Alzheimer's patients

Irvine, Calif. - An over-the-counter vitamin in high doses prevented memory loss in mice with Alzheimer's disease, and UC Irvine scientists now are conducting a clinical trial to determine its effect in humans.

Nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, lowered levels of a protein called phosphorylated tau that leads to the development of tangles, one of two brain lesions associated with Alzheimer's disease. The vitamin also strengthened scaffolding along which information travels in brain cells, helping to keep neurons alive and further preventing symptoms in mice genetically wired to develop Alzheimer's.

"Nicotinamide has a very robust effect on neurons," said Kim Green, UCI scientist and lead author of the study. "Nicotinamide prevents loss of cognition in mice with Alzheimer's disease, and the beauty of it is we already are moving forward with a clinical trial."

The study appears online Nov. 5 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Nicotinamide is a water-soluble vitamin sold in health food stores. It generally is safe but can be toxic in very high doses. Clinical trials have shown it benefits people with diabetes complications and has anti-inflammatory properties that may help people with skin conditions.

Nicotinamide belongs to a class of compounds called HDAC inhibitors, which have been shown to protect the central nervous system in rodent models of Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Clinical trials are underway to learn whether HDAC inhibitors help ALS and Huntington's patients.

In the nicotinamide study, Green and his colleague, Frank LaFerla, added the vitamin to drinking water fed to mice. They tested the rodents' short-term and long-term memory over time using water-maze and object-recognition tasks and found that treated Alzheimer's mice performed at the same level as normal mice, while untreated Alzheimer's mice experienced memory loss.

The nicotinamide, in fact, slightly enhanced cognitive abilities in normal mice. "This suggests that not only is it good for Alzheimer's disease, but if normal people take it, some aspects of their memory might improve," said LaFerla, UCI neurobiology and behavior professor.

Scientists also found that the nicotinamide-treated animals had dramatically lower levels of the tau protein that leads to the Alzheimer's tangle lesion. The vitamin did not affect levels of the protein beta amyloid, which clumps in the brain to form plaques, the second type of Alzheimer's lesion.

Nicotinamide, they found, led to an increase in proteins that strengthen microtubules, the scaffolding within brain cells along which information travels. When this scaffolding breaks down, the brain cells can die. Neuronal death leads to dementia experienced by Alzheimer's patients.

"Microtubules are like highways inside cells. What we're doing with nicotinamide is making a wider, more stable highway," Green said. "In Alzheimer's disease, this highway breaks down. We are preventing that from happening."

University of California - Irvine

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	Nicotinamide: Webster's Timeline History, 1940 - 2007 by Icon Group International (Author) Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Nicotinamide," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Nicotinamide in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Nicotinamide when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social...
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	Theoretical and experimental study of nicotinamide molecularly imprinted polymers with different porogens [An article from: Analytica Chimica Acta] by L. Wu (Author), K. Zhu (Author), M. Zhao (Author), Y. Li (Author) This digital document is a journal article from Analytica Chimica Acta, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. Description: Based on the computational model proposed in our previous work, a comparative study of the influence of porogens on the affinity and selectivity of MIP was carried out in this paper. Nicotinamide (NAM) was chosen as the template and methacrylic acid (MAA) was chosen as the functional monomer. The interaction energy values between NAM and MAA were calculated with methanol, acetonitrile, chloroform and toluene as the porogens, respectively. The subsequent chromatographic evaluation was carried out to give the...
	Fluorimetric study of the interaction between nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate and tetracycline-europium complex and its application [An article from: Analytica Chimica Acta] by Q. Peng (Author), F. Hou (Author), X. Ge (Author), C. Jiang (Author), S. Gong (Author) This digital document is a journal article from Analytica Chimica Acta, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. Description: A new spectrofluorimetric method was developed for the determination of trace amount of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP). Using europium (Eu^3^+)-tetracycline (TC) complex as a fluorescent probe, in the buffer solution of pH 7.60. NADP can remarkably enhance the fluorescence intensity of the Eu^3^+-TC complex at @l=612nm and the enhanced fluorescence intensity of Eu^3^+ ion is in proportion to the concentration of NADP. Optimum conditions for the determination of NADP were also investigated. The...
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