30 Oct 2023
A clinical study led by NO-Age co-founding member Prof. Hilde Nilsen entitled ‘Long-Term Nicotinamide Riboside Use Improves Coordination and Eye Movements in Ataxia Telangiectasia’ is published today in the leading journal Movement disorders.

Ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) is a DNA repair deficient disease with premature ageing features and there is no cure. In 2016, a pre-clinical study from Prof. Vilhelm Bohr, Prof. Hilde Nilsen, and Dr. Evandro F. Fang showed that supplementation with a NAD+ precursor nicotinamide riboside (NR) reduced A-T pathologies and extended lifespan in animal models (Fang EF et al., Cell Metabolism, 2016. Download). To check whether this ‘bench-top’ discovery could be applicable in ‘bedside’, Nilsen led a 2-year NR clinical trial to treat A-T kids in Norway.

The data show that NAD⁺ concentrations increased rapidly in peripheral blood and stabilized at a higher level than baseline. NR supplementation was well tolerated for most participants. The total scores in the neuromotor test panels, as evaluated at the 18-month time point, improved for all but one participant, primarily driven by improvements in coordination subscores and eye movements. A comparison with historical data revealed that the progression of certain neuromotor symptoms was slower than anticipated.

The study concludes that Long-term use of NR appears to be safe and well tolerated, and it improves motor coordination and eye movements in patients with A-T of all ages.

For news release and further information, please contact Prof. Hilde Nilsen at h.l.nilsen@medisin.uio.no.


Reference: Long-Term Nicotinamide Riboside Use Improves Coordination and Eye Movements in Ataxia Telangiectasia – PubMed (nih.gov)
Download