Individuals who experience a stroke may want to begin taking the nutritional supplement, vitamin B3, as a new study suggests that it could be an effective treatment to improve neurological function.
According to researchers from the Henry Ford Hospital, when rats that experienced an ischemic stroke were given vitamin B3, their brains began to grow new blood vessels and sprouted nerve cells, which greatly improved their neurological performance.
An ischemic stroke is when there is an obstruction in the vessels that supply blood to the brain. It currently accounts for 87 percent of all stroke cases.
The scientists believed that these findings were conclusive enough to begin testing on human patients, in hopes of developing an effective alternative treatment that could potentially improve the quality of life for stroke victims.
“If we are able to prove that treating patients with niacin helps to restore neurological function after stroke, were opening a whole new avenue of treatment for the leading cause of serious long-term disability in adults,” said lead investigator Andrew Russman, D.O.