It is fall and the season for American football. For this football fan, watching the game is a bit less enjoyable than it used to be, as more and more information is available about the serious and permanent brain injuries suffered by football players.

In the introduction to a recent paper in the journal Cell, “P7C3 Neuroprotective Chemicals Function by Activating the Rate-Limiting Enzyme in NAD Salvage”, not a word about American football is mentioned.

However, the paper begins, “No substantive therapeutics are available for the treatment of almost any form of disease entailing nerve death” (1). The authors list a range of neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington’s, Alzheimers and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as ALS  or Lou Gherig’s disease. They also note that there are currently no effective treatments for trauma to the brain or peripheral nervous system.

The authors note that a chemical treatment that could interfere with nerve cell death would have a “transformative impact in modern medicine”. Continue reading “Insights into the Function of P7C3 Compounds in Neuroprotection”