New Research Indicates Vitamin B3 Helps Prevent Glaucoma
This post pertains to work published February 17, 2017 in the journal Science titled "Vitamin B3 modulates mitochondrial vulnerability and prevents glaucoma in aged mice." This article is behind a paywall (and is not open access so I can not reproduce figures) so I will do my best to describe the articles findings, and the authors conclusions.
Glaucoma
Glaucoma is not a singular disease, but rather a class of diseases which all follow a similar path. These diseases result in the slow death of ganglion cells (these cells are located in the nerve cluster of the eye called the optic nerve) in the retina of our eyes.
The retina is the portion of the eye which creates the electrical impulses in response to the focus light coming through the eye lense, after creating these impulses the retina sends them onward to the brain through the optic nerve.
The eye is filled with a fluid, that normally drains through a specialized network of cells called the drainage angle.
In glaucoma sufferers, the drainage angle becomes blocked resulting in increased pressure in the eye. This increased pressure puts a strain on the ganglion cells of the optic nerve and eventually results in their death.
What Were The Authors Looking At?
Mitochondrial proteins. Interestingly the authors observed that (at least in a mouse model) proteins in the cellular organelle called the mitochondria (it's where cellular metabolism happens) change drastically at early stages of glaucoma development.
They found that the protein changes in the mitochondria were among the very first detectable changes in the retinal ganglial cells (the ones that die from glaucoma), and that these changes resulted in decreasing amounts of several compounds responsible for protecting the cells against oxidative damage, including one called "nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide" or NAD.
The Researchers Used VitaminB3
VitaminB3 or Niacin, is a pre cursor to the formation of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and the authors hypothesized that supplementing the drinking water of mice during the beginning stages of glaucoma development could help raise their NAD levels and protect them against the neural degeneration (and subsequent loss of eye sight).
This Is EXACTLY What They Saw
Including the vitamin in the drinking water maintained the mitochondrial NAD levels for up to 12 months (the duration of the study) but did not effect the intracellular pressure in the eyes ( the root cause of glaucoma ). This result is confirmation that the nerve cell death is due to a lack of NAD, which results from the increased intracellular pressure (and perhaps a lack of effective nutrient supply). Supplementing with Vitamin B3 restored the levels of NAD and prevented the loss of vision.
TL;DR?
The authors supplemented mice who were in the early stages of glaucoma development with Vitamin B3 (by just adding it to their drinking water). This supplementation restored an imbalance of NAD in the mitochondrion of the nerve cells in the mice's eyes and protected them against vision loss.
This is a very exciting result and is indicative that Vitamin B3 supplementation should be considered for those suffering with glaucoma.
Of course perhaps in addition to your more standard choice of glaucoma medication:
Very interesting and exciting result for glaucoma sufferers. Any simple treatment that could prevent vision loss is a wonderful thing!
Sources
- http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6326/756
- https://nei.nih.gov/health/glaucoma/glaucoma_facts
- http://www.healthline.com/human-body-maps/retina
- http://www.biology4kids.com/files/cell_mito.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_stress
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niacin
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I will be interesting to see if it works as well in human studies.
Indeed, I have more hope here since this is an effect on mitochondrial function and the conservation between the mitochondria is pretty good (especially when compared with other cellular aspects).
I wonder if these mitochondrial effects could extend to other tissues as well.
I do not know, there are a variety of diseases which are mitochondrial in origin, but I don't know much about research that has been done looking at whether or not they play a role in other cases. This potential role was found due to big data genome sequencing in glaucoma cells, perhaps we will find mitochondrial abnormalities in other tissues pertaining to other disease states if/when we look. Its a good question.
Not just specific diseases but ageing too could be impacted. Will be interesting to see if something so simple could have benefits in that respect too.
Interesting information because I just recently was told to take B3. I forgot why. My eyes are getting so bad. All makes sense now reading your article.
FYI, I swear on B12 shots I take since many years.
Sorry to hear about your worsening eyes. :(
Thanks for sharing. I just wish it can work on me the way I don't like the spectacles I am wearing right now
The research doesn't indicate it can correct damage that has already occurred. So if you have glaucoma it doesn't look like it will fix, but protect against further damage.
Ok, anyway that is wonderful
Very interesting article. It would be fantastic if such a comparable simple treatment had such a great effect also on humans!?
(By the way I personally prefer it to be more accurate to write NAD+ for the oxidized state of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide as it is a cation and NADH/H+ for the reduced state.)
That is great anyway. Prevention is better than cure! Thanks
:) Well thank you for reading and commenting! I very much appreciate it.
I think both would be very helpful. :)
This vitamin B3 supplementation gives hope not "only" to prevent damages but also to stop the progress of the disease if it already started, which sounds very promising.
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for reading @thefinanceguy! I am glad you enjoyed it, tried to keep it brief but cover the gist of the article. :)
If I may make a request, anything about mitochondria is extremely interesting to me. Those little powerhouses are the most fascinating aspect of human biology IMO. Cheers!
I will keep that in mind as I am reading through articles in the figure. I will try to remember to write up the next interesting mitochondrially related thing I come across :)
Interesting. Thanks for the post! I generally try to tone down my expectations for studies in mice that haven't been done in humans yet, but this does seem exciting. I hope someone follows up in humans quickly. In the mean time, at my age, I think I'll be keeping this in mind.
Indeed, the biochemistry is different between species. So it is good to temper expectations, however at the mitochondrial level there may be more similarities then elsewhere, which makes me a bit more excited about this result!
Niacin is a water soluble compound which makes supplementation a bit easier. Yeah, hopefully human studies will be quickly followed up on, since this was published in science, that may speed things up.