Phase II Clinical Trial of Nicotinamide for the Treatment of Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease

Disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) are currently unavailable and are the focus of an intensive research effort. We found vitamin B3, nicotinamide (NA), to significantly reduce pathology and improve behavior in AD transgenic mice. These results led us to conduct a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of NA in mild to moderate AD.Following randomization, subjects received either NA (n = 15, 1500 mg twice daily) or placebo (n = 16) for 24 weeks. A battery of outcome measures were obtained at baseline and 6- week intervals and included the AD Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale, Clinician's Interview-Based Impression of Change Plus Caregiver Input, AD Cooperative Study-Activities of Daily Living Scale, and Clinical Dementia Rating Scale.