Scientists in Sweden and the United Kingdom have developed a way to predict Alzheimer’s with blood tests, which are critical to fighting this incurable and deadly disease. Scientists call the presence of specific markers in the blood of patients with mild cognitive impairments a sign of the imminent development of dementia. This is reported in an article published in the journal Nature Aging.
The method is based on the fact that the progression of the disease is associated with the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain, consisting of beta-amyloid proteins. Biomarkers of the pathological process can be detected in the blood of patients several years before the first symptoms of dementia appear. It is believed that it makes sense to fight the disease before the diagnosis of Aligheimer’s disease itself, when it is still possible to slow down or stop the progressive death of neurons. Until now, no effective method is known that would significantly alleviate the condition of patients with obvious symptoms of the disease.
The study identified two key proteins (amyloid beta and tau protein) in blood samples taken from 550 patients with mild cognitive impairment. Testing of the method has shown it to be 88 percent effective in predicting the onset of Alzheimer’s within four years. According to experts, the gained time will allow to intervene in the disease in the early stages with the help of experimental methods of treatment.