B vitamin may help stroke patients

If the findings in rats can be repeated in humans, it will open a whole new chapter in stroke treatment, say scientists.

Vitamin B3, or niacin, is widely used to fortify breakfast cereal and is abundant in Marmite yeast extract. Researchers in the United States have discovered that the brains of stroke-stricken rats given niacin start to sprout new nerve cells and blood vessels.

They have now started an early trial to see if a slow-release form of niacin benefits stroke patients.

"If this proves to also work well in our human trials, we'll then have the benefit of a low cost, easily tolerable treatment for one of the most neurologically devastating conditions," said Dr Michael Chopp, from the Henry Ford Neuroscience Institute in Detroit.

Niacin helps to keep arteries clear by raising levels of high-density lipoprotein, the "good" form of cholesterol.