Researchers have made significant progress toward developing a blood test that can predict dementia risk up to 15 years before clinical diagnosis. The Guardian reports: Hopes for the test rose after scientists discovered biological markers for the condition in blood samples taken from more than 50,000 healthy volunteers enrolled in the UK Biobank project. Analysis of blood has identified patterns in four proteins that predict the development of dementia in general, especially Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia in older people. When combined with more traditional risk factors such as age, gender, education, and genetic susceptibility, researchers say this protein profile can detect dementia almost 15 years before it becomes clinically confirmed, with an estimated 90% accuracy. Dementia can now be predicted.
In the latest study, blood samples from 52,645 UK adults without dementia were collected between 2006 and 2010, frozen and analyzed 10 to 15 years later. More than 1,400 participants developed dementia. Researchers used artificial intelligence to examine the association between about 1,500 blood proteins and the onset of dementia years later. Writing in Nature Aging, they explain how four proteins, Gfap, Nefl, Gdf15, and Ltbp2, are present at abnormal levels among people who develop all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, or vascular dementia. It explains what was done. Elevated protein levels were a warning sign of disease. Inflammation in the brain can cause cells called astrocytes to overproduce Gfap, a known biomarker for Alzheimer's disease. People with elevated Gfap were more than twice as likely to develop dementia than those with lower levels.
Another blood protein, Nefl, is associated with nerve fiber damage, while Gdf15 may be higher than normal after cerebrovascular damage. Scientists found that elevated levels of Gfap and Ltbp2 are more specific to dementia than other brain diseases, and changes occur at least 10 years before a dementia diagnosis. Researchers are in talks with companies to develop the test, but said costs would need to come down to make it possible to achieve the test, which currently costs several hundred pounds.
