NCT00605930

A Pilot Clinical Trial of Pyruvate, Creatine, and Niacinamide in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Energy Metabolism in Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Randomized, Double Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Pilot Trial of Pyruvate, Creatine, and Niacinamide in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 20 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Louisville · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study intends to study the safety and tolerance of the combination of pyruvate, creatine, and niacinamide over 6 months in patients with PSP.

Detailed description

There are no effective symptomatic or biologic treatments for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a relatively rare neurodegenerative disease that presents late in life with relentless progressive postural balance disturbances, non-levodopa responsive parkinsonism, supranuclear vertical gaze palsy, pseudobulbar palsy, and frontal behavioral and dysexecutive symptoms. In light of currently proposed etiopathogenic mechanisms in PSP and based on successful experiments inhibiting cellular neurotoxicity, it is hypothesized that preservation of brain energy homeostasis may allow endogenous neuroprotective mechanisms to reverse or impede free radical injury or other neurotoxic events leading to neurodegeneration in this disease. An emerging literature has described the neuroprotective effects of pyruvate, (as a neuronal energy fuel and free radical scavenger); niacinamide, (which boosts cofactor NAD), and creatine, (which buffers and selectively parcels cellular energy utilization) in various animal models of brain injury or degeneration. Ajay Verma et al. have further demonstrated a synergistic neuroprotective effect of these three nutrients in various neural injury models. We thus propose using these nutrients as a novel and safe neuroprotective approach for treating PSP patients. This randomized, double-blind, placebo, control pilot study will test the safety and tolerance of this nutrient combination over 6 months in patients with PSP, and will measure their transport across the blood brain barrier. In addition to clinical and neuropsychological outcome measures, brain creatine will also be evaluated using magnetic resonance spectroscopy before and after therapy

Conditions

• Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT	Pyruvate, creatine, niacinamide	A bar of 2 gm of pyruvate and 1 gm of creatine, and a pill of 1 gm of niacinamide once a day for 24 weeks.
DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT	Placebo	25% of subjects will receive a placebo bar and a placebo pill once a day for 24 weeks.

Timeline

• Start date: 2004-04-01
• Primary completion: 2009-12-01
• Completion: 2009-12-01
• First posted: 2008-01-31
• Last updated: 2017-04-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States