Researchers have developed a blood test that can help detect Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias early.
- Researchers suggest it may be possible to detect Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias early by taking blood samples after age 40.
- Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of neurodegenerative disease. In France, more than 900,000 people are affected by Alzheimer’s disease, the majority of them women.
- Currently, only 1 in 2 dementia is diagnosed, all stages combined.
Predicting a risk of cognitive decline well before the first signs? This could soon become a reality with a simple blood sample, according to a new study published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
Researchers from the University of Michigan, in the United States, have indeed identified blood biomarkers (i.e. measurable biological characteristics making it possible to identify a process, linked for example to a disease) associated to changes in neurological function around midlife.
Two biomarkers linked to changes in cognitive function
As part of its work, the scientific team followed a cohort of 192 middle-aged women over a period of 14 years. She chose midlife as a “pivotal period” to measure cognitive decline due to two major changes in women: menopause or premenopause (which is characterized by a drop in estrogen levels and leads to alterations in function). cognitive) and the prevalence of risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes (associated with an increased risk of dementia at older ages).
The researchers then compared the levels of two biomarkers – beta-amyloid protein or “Aβ 42/40” and phosphorylated tau protein or “p-tau 181” – of the participants with their results on a series of cognitive tests.
A serological test to detect dementia early
The study found that “higher levels of p-tau 181 and lower levels of Aβ 42/40 were associated with accelerated cognitive decline”can we read in a communicated. “The presence of these biomarkers does not mean that there is Alzheimer’s disease, but we know that they are a central element of neuropathological changes, which are therefore best detected as early as possible.”
According to the researchers, measurements of these biomarkers at midlife could “serve as predictors of cognitive decline, and thus enable early detection and prevention of dementia before it is irreversible.”
“We need, of course, a larger and more diverse sample, but the results are promising and a cornerstone for future research”concludes Professor Xin Wang, who led the research.