A simple blood test could help detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease years before clear symptoms appear, according to a new study in the Experimental Medicine Journal.
Alzheimer disease is caused by the abnormal accumulation of protein – β-amyloid and tau – in the brain. Eventually, this can lead to a form of dementia characterized by progressive loss of cognition that involves memory, difficulty solving problems, confusion, and disorientation. However, it is known that changes in the brain involving these proteins can begin to occur decades before clear symptoms emerge.
Diagnosing Alzheimer’s based on these proteins has been problematic since scientists were unsure if they could be found in the blood. Now, it is clear that tiny traces of these proteins can be found in the blood and this can be used to diagnose people at an early stage.
The new blood test can detect small concentrations of p-tau-217, a modified fragment of the tau protein, with a high degree of precision. The test was able to measure the amount of p-tau-217 and other tau fragments within just 4 millimeters of blood. Surprisingly, the test was able to detect levels of p-tau-217 that were less than one billionth of a gram.
“As far as we know, this is the lowest concentration ever measured by mass spectrometry for a protein marker in human blood plasma,” said lead author Nicolas Barthélemy, of the Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine . statement.
Scientists have long searched the highly publicized Alzheimer blood test. This is because neurodegenerative disease is difficult to identify in the early stages and appears to appear rapidly in patients with a variety of debilitating symptoms. While this new blood test is certainly good news, other experts have warned that it will still be some time before hospitals have Alzheimer’s blood tests available. For now, testing is only possible in a laboratory. As always, more research is also needed to affirm the study findings.
“Although this research seems extremely promising, further validation is still needed in people from more routine clinical settings, and much work will be needed to achieve standardization of the test in all laboratories, so it could still be at least five years before that we see an accurate blood biomarker test to detect dementia in the clinic ” commented Professor Clive Ballard, professor of age-related diseases at the University of Exeter School of Medicine in the UK, who was not involved in the study.
“While this test will help find people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease to participate in research studies, there are currently no effective treatments to give people to stop the progression of the disease, so there is a need More fundamental research to develop life-changing treatments, “added Professor Tara Spiers-Jones, from the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh.
