Cool. I'd want to know as soon as possible so I could kick in my prevention tactics into high gear. Or go on an immediate bucket list trip.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=167452&CultureCode=en
A research team, led by Cardiff University, has made a significant
step towards the development of a simple blood test to predict the onset
of Alzheimer’s disease.
Funded by the Alzheimer’s Society, the group of researchers from
Cardiff University, King’s College London and the University of Oxford
studied blood from 292 individuals with the earliest signs of memory
impairment and found a set of biomarkers (indicators of disease) that
predicted whether or not a given individual would develop Alzheimer’s
disease.
Professor Paul Morgan, Director of Cardiff University’s Systems
Immunity Research Institute, said: “Our research proves that it is
possible to predict whether or not an individual with mild memory
problems is likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease over the next few
years. We hope to build on this in order to develop a simple blood test
that can predict the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease in
older people with mild, and possibly innocent, memory impairment.”
The study took blood samples from individuals presenting with very
common symptoms of memory impairment and measured a large number of
proteins belonging to a part of the immune system which is known to
drive inflammation and has previously been implicated in brain diseases.
When the individuals were re-assessed a year later, about a quarter had
progressed to Alzheimer’s disease and three of the proteins measured in
their blood showed significant differences from the blood of
participants that did not go on to develop the disease.
Professor Morgan added: “Alzheimer’s disease affects around 520,000
people in the UK and this number is continually growing as the
population ages. As such it is important that we find new ways to
diagnose the disease early, giving us a chance to investigate and
instigate new treatments before irreversible damage is done.”
These new findings laid the groundwork for a much larger, ongoing
study funded by the Wellcome Trust and involving several UK Universities
and Pharmaceutical companies that will seek to replicate the findings
and refine the test.
The paper ‘Complement Biomarkers as predictors of disease progression
in Alzheimer’s disease’ is published in Journal of Alzheimer's Disease:
http://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad160420
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/458509-major-step-towards-alzheimers-blood-test
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