An inexpensive and simple blood test that can identify the presence of the Alzheimer’s gene as much as ten years before the symptoms show is being worked on by British scientists. If the dementia research is fruitful it could help doctors treat the disease and slow its progression with prescription drugs.
The test will hopefully be available for use within the next three years and would offer potential sufferers and their family’s time to prepare for what is to come in their future.
At the moment diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is based on brain scans and memory tests but absolute proof of the disease’s presence is only possible with examination of the patient’s brain after they pass away.
However, experts at King’s College London found that blood protein levels called clusterin start to increase years before the initial symptoms of Alzheimer’s first start to rear their head. The more clusterin there is in the brain, the more the brain shrinks causing people to become more forgetful.
Dr. Madhav Thambisetty, a researcher for the team, stated that the main goal of Alzheimer’s research has been to find an easy test that is inexpensive and able to accurately detect the presence of the disease as well as its progression.
Simon Lovestone, the head researcher stated that if accurate the test would prove to be as inexpensive as a bag of chips. He believes that it would be used with adults that have family medical history that points to the disease as well as those that have other conditions that often increase the chances of Alzheimer’s.
