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| | Can a vitamin alleviate chronic, progressive multiple sclerosis? |
 | | Intriguingly, mice with EAE who received daily nicotinamide injections under their skin had a delayed onset of neurologic disability, and the severity of their deficits was reduced for at least eight weeks after treatment. |
 | | Its chemical precursor, nicotinamide, has several characteristics that make it a promising therapeutic agent: it readily crosses the blood-brain barrier, is inexpensive and available in any drugstore, and its close relative, vitamin B3, is already used clinically to treat pellagra (vitamin B3 deficiency), high cholesterol, and other disorders. |
 | | Although nicotinamide is thought to have few side effects, the doses used in mice would translate to much higher human doses than are normally used clinically, so would need to be tested for safety. |
| www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2006-09/chb-cav091406.php (849 words) |
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