Alzheimer's disease can be reversed in animal models to achieve full neurological recovery (NAD+ precursor)

Medical Xpress / University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center / Cell Reports Medicine ^ | Dec. 24, 2025 | Ansley Kelm / Kalyani Chaubey et al

[ConservativeMind]

For over a century, Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been considered irreversible.

Now, research has challenged this long-held dogma in the field.

Through studying diverse preclinical mouse models and human AD brains, the team showed that the brain's failure to maintain normal levels of a central cellular energy molecule, NAD+, is a major driver of AD, and that maintaining proper NAD+ balance can prevent and even reverse the disease.

NAD+ levels decline naturally across the body, including the brain, as people age. Without proper NAD+ balance, cells eventually become unable to execute critical processes required for proper functioning and survival.

The team showed that the decline in NAD+ is even more severe in the brains of people with AD, and in mouse models.

The research team tested whether preventing the loss of brain NAD+ balance before disease onset, or restoring brain NAD+ balance after significant disease progression, could prevent or reverse AD, respectively.

The study was based on their previous work, showing that restoring the brain's NAD+ balance achieved pathological and functional recovery after severe, long-lasting traumatic brain injury. They restored NAD+ balance by administering a pharmacological agent (P7C3-A20).

Remarkably, not only did preserving NAD+ balance protect mice from developing AD, but delayed treatment in mice with advanced disease also enabled the brain to fix the major pathological events caused by the genetic mutations. Moreover, both lines of mice fully recovered cognitive function.

"Restoring the brain's energy balance achieved pathological and functional recovery in both lines of mice with advanced Alzheimer's. Seeing this effect in two very different animal models, strengthens the idea that restoring the brain's NAD+ balance might help patients recover from Alzheimer's."

Dr. Pieper emphasized that currently available over-the-counter NAD+ precursors have been shown in animal models to raise cellular NAD+ to dangerously high levels that promote cancer.

[muggs]

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