Role of Vitamin B3 in neurogenerative disease

Background

Neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s (PD) and Alzheimer’s (AD) disease and Traumatic brain injury (TBI) are difficult to treat and often the drug treatments induce debilitating side effects.

There has been a growing body of evidence showing that Vitamin B3 may be of benefit to patients with these conditions. 

Project Summary

In our previous work we have published on the effects of NAD intake in the diet and correlated these with disease, and in this study we aim to look at Vitamin B3 levels within blood from these patient cohorts and correlate the levels of Vitamin B3 with the level of disease or injury, with a view to conducting further intervention studies.

This project will advance our knowledge of the role of NAD(H) and vitamin B3 in neurodegeneration and illuminate the metabolic changes which occur in patients with AD, PD and TBI.

The results are expected to provide the preliminary data for a larger study in which we can further define pathological biomarkers of disease progression and severity, infer biology and design novel strategies to reduce and delay disease burden using inexpensive nutrient based therapies.