Blood tests can predict Alzheimer's disease

now, a study published in the journal Nature Medicine suggests that a protein in the blood can be used to accurately monitor the progression of Alzheimer's disease before it first develops symptoms.
" clinically not yet has a very effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease, in part because patients start treatment too late. Dr. Mathias Jucker, a senior researcher at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and the Hert Institute for Clinical Brain Research, said.
and the study detected a protein called the nerve wire light chain protein (NfL), a structural protein that forms part of the inner nerve bone. When the nerves in the brain are damaged or dying, the protein leaks into the cerebrospinal fluid, into the brain and spinal cord, and then into the bloodstream.
researchers say finding someone with a high NfL protein index in their cerebrospinal fluid is strong evidence of partial damage to their brain cells, but getting cerebrospinal fluid requires spinal puncture, something many people are reluctant to accept. Meanwhile, Dr. Brian Gordon and Mathias Jucker of the Marincroft Institute of Radiology at the University of Washington studied whether levels of NfL protein in the blood reflect nerve damage.
Then, the scientists studied family members with rare genetic variants that formed Alzheimer's disease in middle age, usually between the ages of 30 and 50, and who formed the "genetically dominant Alzheimer's disease (DIAN) research community."
Parents who carry the gene variant have a 50 percent chance of passing it on to their offspring, and any child who inherits the gene typically develops symptoms during periods when their parents are of similar age to Alzheimer's disease, a time range that provides researchers with an opportunity to study changes in the brain in the years before cognitive symptoms occur.
researchers analyzed more than 400 people involved in the DIAN study, 247 of whom carried early-on-oncr genetic variants and 162 were unaffected relatives, each of whom had previously tested blood, brain scans and completed cognitive tests at the DIAN clinic, and about half had been evaluated more than once, usually 2 to 3 years apart.
For people with defective gene variants, the NfL protein index will gradually increase with age, compared with a lower and more stable NfL protein index in people with healthy genes, a difference that was detected 16 years before cognitive symptoms were expected.
, when the team looked at the brain scan results of the testers, they found that the NfL protein index increased at a rate consistent with the thinning and contraction of the wedge frontal leaves, which involve controlling the parts of the brain that control memory. Stephanie Schultz, a graduate student at the University of Washington, said: "The 16 years prior to the oncology of symptoms are an early stage in the development of the disease, but even then we can identify differences between patients and normal populations, which may be a good preclinical biomarker for identifying patients who are about to develop symptoms."
All types of brain nerve damage can cause NfL proteins to overflow from neurons and into the bloodstream, and people with Louis' body dementia and Huntington's disease have higher NfL protein in their cerebrospinal fluid, which increases sharply when they play football with a head ball or are hit in the head.
is understood to have a commercial kit that can detect NfL protein index in the blood and is awaiting fdatic approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But before the test can be used in patients with Alzheimer's disease or other neurodegenerative diseases, researchers need to determine how much NfL protein index in the blood is excessive and how quickly the NfL protein index rises can trigger a disease crisis. (Source: Yang Yan, China Science Journal)
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