Alzheimer’s risks can be detected 15 years in advance with breakthrough blood test: study

Medicine

By Alex Mitchell

Breakthrough research shows that a simple blood test can flag symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) up to 15 years in advance, according to a Times of London report.

Neurological scientists from Sweden’s University of Gothenburg have found ways to simply test for the residue of a protein known as phosphorylated Tau 217 (pTau 217), which is commonly associated with the disease known as phosphorylated Tau 217 (pTau 217) — with “impressive” results.

The testing procedure — called an assay — was created by the company ALZpath and offers a comparatively painless, less costly alternative to spinal taps for insight into a person’s risk of the disease, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“ALZpath’s pTau217 test can help healthcare providers determine the presence of amyloid plaques in the brain — a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Andreas Jeromin, the chief scientific officer of ALZpath.

Three independent clinical studies of 786 patients showed that ALZpath delivers “high diagnostic accuracy” in the identification of AD-inducing proteins within the brain such as amyloid plaques.

The company announced that its latest breakthrough will be available for clinical use by the end of January and will also become commercially available — CNN reported a price between $200 and $500 — at some point as well.

“This is an instrumental finding in blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s, paving the way for the clinical use of the ALZpath pTau 217 assay,” researchers Kaj Blennow and Henrik Zetterberg stated in a release, adding that the “robust” assay is already in use in various labs around the world.

“What was impressive with these results is that the blood test was just as accurate as advanced testing like cerebrospinal fluid tests and brain scans at showing Alzheimer’s disease pathology in the brain,” lead author Nicholas Ashton told CNN.

“Now we are close to these tests being prime-time and this study shows that.”

Last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed a peptide — an amino acid chain — to interact with and mend the brain’s tau protein as well.

Separate research also found that taking multivitamins could stave off dementia, too.