New Research Suggests Alzheimer's May Be Detected by Blood Test

Alzheimer's disease causes memory loss, mental confusion and behavior change. Unfortunately, there is still no cure for the condition, and symptoms usually develop over the years. What improves the treatment of symptoms is usually the early diagnosis of the disease before the patient becomes very debilitated.

European research to find out more early signs of the disease has revealed that it can already be identified by a blood test.

The research worked on the structural changes that Alzheimer's causes in the brain, even years before the first symptoms. In this sense, what is seen is the formation of plaques made of beta amyloid that lodge in the brain - the problem is that the only way to identify these formations is through too expensive or too invasive tests.

New method

Klaus Gerwert of the research team was able to distinguish, along with his team, the difference between normal and plaque-type beta amyloids in the brain through blood tests.

Gerwert reported that the tests were also done on blood tests of 65 patients who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in recent years and also on 809 healthy adults to draw comparisons. The results revealed that blood tests identified the disease 70% of the time, and this test allows a diagnosis up to eight years earlier than the others available.

The discovery is more than encouraging, but before being used by doctors around the world, the method must undergo a series of tests and new research. Anyway, we certainly have great news related to the disease.

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