Re: Niacin


"Marshall Price" <d021317c@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:7t-dndc5DNJ0LafUnZ2dnUVZ_o_inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MikeV wrote:
"Marshall Price" <d021317c@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:-oednTQN6OmzDoHUnZ2dnUVZ_o_inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Would somebody please report on last Friday's "Science Friday" story about the use of vitamin B-3 in preventing and treating Alzheimer's Disease? I'm having newsreader trouble.

--
Marshall Price of Miami
Known to Yahoo as d021317c

*************************************************************************************

Hope this will suffice.
MikeV

http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1849


Vitamin B3 reduces Alzheimer's symptoms, lesions

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

Irvine, Calif., November 4, 2008
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."

LaFerla and Green are affiliated with the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia, which is conducting the clinical trial with funding from the Alzheimer's Association.

The institute seeks volunteers who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, are 50 or older, and have a friend or relative who can accompany them to clinic visits and answer questions. Study participants will take the vitamin supplement or a placebo twice daily for 24 weeks, with seven visits to the UCI clinic.

For more information on the clinical trial, contact Beatriz Yanez at 949-824-5733.

UCI scientists Joan Steffan, Hilda Martinez-Coria, Xuemin Sun, Steven Schreiber and Leslie Thompson also worked on the study, which was supported in part by the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.


About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 27,000 undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 2,000 faculty members. The third-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.6 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.

News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. The use of this line is available free-of-charge to radio news programs/stations who wish to interview UCI faculty and experts. Use of the ISDN line is subject to availability and approval by the university.

Oh, no. This isn't it. The radio story was about a completed study, not an announcement of one to come. The work was a collaboration between labs in Australia and at Stanford, IIRC. They interviewed an Australian, one of the lead researchers.


--
Marshall Price of Miami
d021317c@xxxxxxxxxxx



Quick! get the B3. Your memory may not be serving you. :-)
Nov 7 show appears to be about Irvine studies. Mice study completed . People study recruiting.


Vitamin B3 and Alzheimers (broadcast Friday, November 7th, 2008)
In this segment, we'll hear about new research looking at ways to slow the effects of Alzheimer's. In work reported this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers reported that large doses of the commonly available vitamin B3 (also known as nicotinamide) were able to reverse the effects of Alzheimer's in mice. But how well does that work apply to people, if at all? In this segment, we'll talk with one of the authors of the new report about the work and about what's currently known about Alzheimer's disease. So far, the work has only been done in mice. If you're interested in participating in a human clinical trial of the research, please call Beatriz Yanez at 949 824 5733.

Guests
Kim Green
Research Scientist
Department of Neurobiology and Behavior
Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California

Related Links
a.. BBC: Vitamin 'may be Alzheimer's aid'
b.. Vitamin Holds Promise for Alzheimer's Disease
c.. Alzheimer's Association: What Is Alzheimer's
d.. The Journal of Neuroscience, November 5, 2008, 28(45):11500-11510; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3203-08.2008
Segment produced by:Annette Heist

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200811071

.

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