Tag: Alzheimer’s Disease

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Researchers Develop Blood Test That Can Detect Early Alzheimers With 100% Accuracy

A team of researchers at Rowan University in New Jersey believe they have developed a blood test that can detect early-stage Alzheimer’s in patients.

The study included 236 subjects.

From CBS News:

In terms of identifying early Alzheimer’s in patients with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, the overall accuracy rate was 100 percent, according to the researchers.

Cassandra DeMarshall, the lead author of the study, said that 60 percent of patients with MCI, have it due to an early stage of Alzheimer’s. “Our results show that it is possible to use a small number of blood-borne autoantibodies to accurately diagnose early-stage Alzheimer’s. These findings could eventually lead to the development of a simple, inexpensive and relatively noninvasive way to diagnose this devastating disease in its earliest stages,” DeMarshall said in a statement.

Nagele added that it is believed that “Alzheimer’s related changes,” occur in the brain at least ten years before common symptoms begin to show.

The researchers say that a larger study will be needed to verify whether or not their method will be a viable one for detecting Alzheimer’s, but they do believe that their test could lead to earlier treatments that could offset the impact that the disease has on those who are suffering from it and for families with loved ones who develop it.

I know several people who say they wouldn’t want to know if Alzheimers was in their future.

I’ve grown so forgetful over the past couple of years that, in all seriousness, I believe it’s possible I may have some mild cognitive impairment. So, I’m fascinated to see how the next stages of the researcher’s work progresses.

(h/t JMG)

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Australian Researchers Find New Treatment For Alzheimers

If this ends up working, this would be fantastic.

Researchers at the University at Queensland in Australia have found a treatment that appears to help remove one of the kinds of plaque in the brain that lead to Alzheimers:

Publishing in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes the technique as using a particular type of ultrasound called a focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue. By oscillating super-fast, these sound waves are able to gently open up the blood-brain barrier, which is a layer that protects the brain against bacteria, and stimulate the brain’s microglial cells to move in. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so once they get past the blood-brain barrier, they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps before the blood-brain barrier is restored within a few hours.

The team reports fully restoring the memories of 75 percent of the mice they tested it on, with zero damage to the surrounding brain tissue. They found that the treated mice displayed improved performance in three memory tasks – a maze, a test to get them to recognise new objects, and one to get them to remember the places they should avoid.

If all goes well, human trials could begin as early as 2017.

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New blood test may predict Alzheimer’s disease with 90% accuracy

Big news in the medical world as CNN is reporting that researchers have developed a blood test that can predict if a healthy person may develop Alzheimer’s disease later in life with an accuracy of 90%.

They (researchers) decided to start with fats, since it was the easiest and least expensive. They drew blood from hundreds of healthy people over age 70 living near Rochester, New York, and Irvine, California. Five years later, 28 of the seniors had developed Alzheimer’s disease or the mild cognitive problems that usually precede it.

Scouring more than 100 fats, or lipids, for what might set this group apart, they found that these 28 seniors had low levels of 10 particular lipids, compared with healthy seniors.

To confirm their findings, the researchers then looked at the blood of 54 other patients who had Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment. This group also had low levels of the lipids.

Overall, the blood test predicted who would get Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment with over 90% accuracy.

A study released by peer group Neurology last week estimated that nearly 500,000 lives are lost each year to Alzheimer’s disease.