News / Health & Wellness
New test can help detect Alzheimer’s in early stages
New tests prove Alzheimer’s disease can be detected by running blood and brain scans. The disease is very hard to detect because it progresses quickly from moderate memory loss to complete loss of memory to the point the patient loses the ability to care for themselves.
No drugs have been found to completely prevent the disease, but four have been found that have a mild impact if given before the disease has progressed very far. Detecting the disease in the early stages helps researchers develop drugs that one day may be able to prevent the disease.
Experts say that these new tests will be critical in the future because 26 million people have the disease now and that number is expected to rise to nearly 106 million people by 2050.
"By 2050, 1 in 85 persons worldwide will have Alzheimer's disease," said Ron Brookmeyer, researcher from John Hopkins University who researched how many people the disease has affected.
A study showed a difference between the blood of healthy people and the blood of Alzheimer’s patients. A set of 96 genes from Alzheimer’s patients differed from that of healthy people’s genes. Anders Lonneborg and researchers from Diatech, a biotech company in Norway led the study and found that when they tested they accurately found Alzheimer’s 85 percent of the time.
The study "identified genes related to the immune system, to inflammation and to cell division. " Lonneborg said the company is trying to get the test approved in the United States and in Europe.
The University of Pennsylvania and Chris Davatzikos used brain scans to diagnose Alzheimer’s. MRI and PET scans the brain to measure amount of blood flowing to the brain and shows the physical structure of the brain which can help doctors diagnose "mild congestive impairment" which is a step towards Alzheimer’s.
This testing accurately found all 15 cases of "mild congestive impairment" and cleared the other 15 volunteers who were healthy.
"This abnormal pattern of brain structure and blood flow detected not only mild cognitive impairment but even earlier ... when they were clinically normal," Davatzikos said.
Other studies have been conducted and show other tests may also be effective. One study by the University of California San Francisco developed a simple test that would see which factors predicted a chance of developing Alzheimer’s. They used a cognitive exam, the time taken to button a shirt, time taken to walk 15 feet, weight and not drinking alcohol.
Another study used the sudden loss of weight in older people to predict Alzheimer’s. Dr. James Mortimer from the University of South Florida studied a group of nuns who donated their brains to research after death. The study showed that nuns who lost weight suddenly were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who did not lose weight.
Although Alzheimer’s was never found in some nuns, after their death Alzheimer’s was found in their brain.
"Unexplained weight loss in non-demented older people may be a very useful early symptom of disease," Mortimer said.
