Alzheimer’s disease is a dreaded diagnosis. The idea of slowly but surely losing your cognitive skills until you can no longer even recognize your favorite people is terrifying. Moreover, given the current state of medicine, the neurodegenerative disease is incurable and also poses an enormous challenge to the relatives of those affected.
Alzheimer’s, named after the German neurologist Alois Alzheimer, is characterized by the death of nerve cells in the brain. As a result, patients become increasingly forgetful, confused and disoriented. In addition, the progressive disease changes the personality and behavior of those affected; some become restless, aggressive or depressed. In aging societies in industrialized countries, Alzheimer’s disease is gradually becoming a widespread disease as the risk of developing this disease increases with age.
It is no wonder that enormous sums of money are spent on research into this grisly suffering. So far there has been no resounding success – the causes of the mysterious disease are not yet fully understood, and so far there is no drug that can stop the loss of nerve cells in the brain. As before, it is only possible to slow the progression of the disease and alleviate its symptoms.
But now the research may have made a decisive breakthrough: A study by scientists from Britain and China has discovered several proteins in frozen blood samples, the presence of which points to various forms of dementia – Alzheimer’s disease is just one form of such neurodegenerative diseases – more than ten years before diagnosis can predict.
The largest such study to date, published in the journal Nature Aging, came about as part of ongoing research in which several teams are trying to identify patients at risk of dementia using a simple blood test. If successful, many researchers believe it would be an advance that would significantly accelerate the development of new treatment methods.
The researchers from the University of Warwick in Coventry and Fudan University in Shanghai examined 52,645 blood samples from the British Biobank research archive. The samples were taken between 2006 and 2010 from people who showed no signs of dementia at that time. Of the people from whom these blood samples came, 1,417 developed dementia from various causes within the next 14 years: Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia – which is caused by the destruction of brain tissue due to reduced or blocked blood supply – or a another form of dementia.
The scientists now used artificial intelligence to investigate the protein signatures that are common in these people and could be linked to the development of dementia. They analyzed a total of 1,463 proteins, 11 of which were identified and combined into a protein panel that has high accuracy in predicting future dementia.
In particular, it was shown that people whose blood contained higher levels of the four proteins glial filament protein (Gfap), neurofilament light chain (Nefl), growth/differentiation factor 15 (Gdf15) and latent transforming growth factor beta-binding protein 2 ( Ltbp2) consistently showed a higher risk of developing one of the forms of dementia.
In people with elevated Gfap levels, this risk was 2.32 times higher. Elevated GfaP levels may be caused by inflammation in the brain that causes certain cells – called astrocytes – to overproduce the protein. This finding confirms the results of previous studies that indicated the contribution of GfaP. Gdf15 has also been proposed as a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer’s disease.
The blood protein Nefl, in turn, is associated with damage to nerve fibers, while increased Gdf15 levels can occur following damage to the brain’s blood vessels. Elevated levels of Gfap and Ltbp2 are highly specific for dementia, but not for other brain diseases.
The values of these four protein biomarkers were compared with known risk factors such as age, gender, education level, genetic susceptibility and family history using prediction algorithms developed by artificial intelligence. The scientists trained the model using data from two-thirds of the study participants and tested its performance using data from the remaining 17,549 people. The protein profiles allowed researchers to predict dementia with an estimated accuracy of 90 percent – almost 15 years before the disease was clinically confirmed.
Early diagnosis in dementia patients is important because new medications can slow the progression of the disease, but only if the disease is detected early enough. These new drugs include lecanemab and donanemab, which, however, can cause serious side effects.
Nowadays, however, the diagnosis is often only made when those affected notice memory problems or other symptoms. However, the disease may have been going on for years. “Once we make the diagnosis, it is almost too late,” explains computational biologist Jian-Feng Feng of Fudan University, co-author of the study. Diagnosis also relies on invasive and/or expensive methods, such as spinal canal puncture to detect complex biomarkers, or imaging procedures such as brain MRI scans.
Currently, brain scans can detect abnormal levels of a protein called beta-amyloid (β-amyloid, Aβ), whose deposits in the brain are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Although it is also possible to detect Alzheimer’s disease early, the tests are expensive and insurance companies often do not cover the costs.
The blood test could replace or complement such procedures. “We hope to use this to develop a screening kit that can be used in national healthcare,” says Feng. The researchers are currently in discussions with companies to develop the blood test. However, the costs are still several hundred francs; they must decrease dramatically to make the test profitable. (mr)
source: watson
I’m Maxine Reitz, a journalist and news writer at 24 Instant News. I specialize in health-related topics and have written hundreds of articles on the subject. My work has been featured in leading publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and Healthline. As an experienced professional in the industry, I have consistently demonstrated an ability to develop compelling stories that engage readers.
