New Blood Biomarker Can Predict if Cognitively Healthy Elderly Will Develop Alzheimer’s Disease

With your risk of dementia post stroke it is imperative your doctor performs this test on you and have protocols in place to prevent your likely chances of dementia.

 

Your risk of dementia, has your doctor told you of this?  Your doctor is responsible for preventing this! Which means your doctor has to get you 100% recovered to be able to do these aerobic exercises.

1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study?   May 2012.

2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.`    

3. A 20% chance in this research.   July 2013.

4. Dementia Risk Doubled in Patients Following Stroke September 2018 

The latest here:

 

New Blood Biomarker Can Predict if Cognitively Healthy Elderly Will Develop Alzheimer’s Disease

Astrocyte reactivity as an important upstream event linking amyloid-β (Aβ) with initial tau pathology, which may have implications for the biological definition of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and for selecting cognitively unimpaired individuals for clinical trials, according to a study

By testing the blood of more than 1,000 cognitively unimpaired elderly people with and without amyloid pathology, Tharick Pascoal, MD, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues found that only those who had a combination of Aβ and blood markers of abnormal astrocyte activation, or reactivity, would progress to symptomatic Alzheimer’s in the future.

“Our study argues that testing for the presence of brain amyloid along with blood biomarkers of astrocyte reactivity is the optimal screening to identify patients who are most at risk for progressing to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Pascoal. “This puts astrocytes at the centre as key regulators of disease progression, challenging the notion that amyloid is enough to trigger Alzheimer’s disease.”

Astrocytes are specialised cells abundant in the brain tissue. Just as other members of the glia, astrocytes support neuronal cells by supplying them with nutrients and oxygen and protecting them from pathogens. But because glial cells don’t conduct electricity and, at first, didn’t seem to play a direct role in how neurons communicate with one another, their role in health and disease had been overlooked. The current research changes that.

“Astrocytes coordinate the brain amyloid and tau relationship like a conductor directing the orchestra,” said Bruna Bellaver, PhD, University of Pittsburgh. “This can be a game-changer to the field, since glial biomarkers in general are not considered in any main disease model.”

The researchers tested blood samples from participants in 3 independent studies of cognitively unimpaired elderly people for biomarkers of astrocyte reactivity -- glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) -- along with the presence of pathological tau. The study showed that only those who were positive for both amyloid and astrocyte reactivity showed evidence of progressively developing tau pathology, indicating predisposition to clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

The findings have direct implications for future clinical trials for Alzheimer’s drug candidates. In aiming to halt disease progression sooner, trials are moving to earlier and earlier stages of pre-symptomatic disease, making correct early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s risk critical for success. Because a significant percentage of amyloid-positive individuals will not progress to clinical forms of Alzheimer’s, amyloid positivity alone is not enough to determine an individual’s eligibility for a therapy.

Inclusion of astrocyte reactivity markers, such as GFAP, in the panel of diagnostic tests will allow for improved selection of patients who are likely to progress to later stages of Alzheimer’s and, therefore, help fine-tune selection of candidates for therapeutic interventions who are more likely to benefit.

Reference: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02380-x

SOURCE: University of Pittsburgh