Scientists have not yet found an effective treatment for the chronic progressive state of MS, when serious disability most commonly occurs.
In the Children's Hospital Boston study, researchers gave mice a form of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide. This treatment reduced the risk of nerve degeneration in mice with MS-like symptoms.
MS is a disease of the central nervous system that causes the myelin sheath, which coats nerve fibers, to break down. It interferes with the body's ability to conduct electrical impulses to and from the brain.
In the early phase of MS, anti-inflammatory drugs can help patients. However, when they are in the chronic progressive phase, doctors can offer no reliable treatment.
The Boston team gave daily nicotinamide shots to mice with experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE), a disease similar to MS.
The shots protected the animals' nerve cells from losing myelin, and stabilized cells that were already breaking down.
The more nicotinamide they administered to the mice, the more the cells were protected.
The study is published in the "Journal of Neuroscience."
