Glaucoma - Optic nerve with glaucoma (Source: Flickr , Credit: Heiko Philippin / Community Eye Health)
Glaucoma - Optic nerve with glaucoma (Source: Flickr , Credit: Heiko Philippin / Community Eye Health) - A major four-year clinical trial to test the effectiveness of nicotinamide (NAM), a form of vitamin B3, as a treatment for glaucoma is to be led by UCL and Moorfields Eye Hospital researchers. The team, based at the NIHR Moorfields BRC at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital, has been awarded a £1.9m grant from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The trial will eventually recruit 496 glaucoma patients across seven UK sites, with a pilot study starting at Moorfields and Kings College Hospital in London along with a third site yet to be confirmed. It will evaluate whether nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3 which replenishes molecules important for the functioning of mitochondria (the powerhouses of cells), protects glaucoma patients from progressive vision loss. The trial builds on collaborative research at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and Moorfields, showing that patients with both highand low-tension glaucoma have lower mitochondrial function than healthy patients; and also that patients with ocular hypertension (higher than normal pressure inside the eye), but no signs of progression to glaucoma, have higher mitochondrial function. The study will measure the impact of nicotinamide on the capacity of mitochondria in peripheral blood lymphocytes (freely circulating white blood cells) to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which provides energy to help cells function.
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