A new study reveals that a blood test has been developed by Scientists that can detect Alzheimer’s proteins that build up in the brain up to 20 years before symptoms of the disease appear.
The test was created by researchers at Washington University St Louis and the report shows the 94 per cent accuracy at predicting the devastating brain disease.
The only treatment of Alzheimer’s is to slow down disease’s progression if it’s given early on as the disease has no cure. There are seven stages of the disease and people are mostly diagnosed during the disease’s third stage.
A co-author of the new study, Dr. Suzanne Schindler, told DailyMail.com: ”it might not be because the drugs don’t work, kind of paradoxically,’ says co-author of the new study,”
”We think that amyloid is what initiates and is necessary to cause Alzheimer’s, but it’s not sufficient [on its own].”
”If we can target its accumulation early on we may be able to prevent the disease but the problem is that a lot of these trials started giving the medication late in the course of the disease when you already have a lot of damage and other processes going that are pretty impossible to top.”
The blood test Dr. Schindler and her team could detect Alzheimer’s far earlier and they are developing cheaper and, their latest tests in 158 cognitively normal people over 50 suggest.
Dr. Schindler thinks that the availability of a cheaper test for earlier detection of Alzheimer’s plaques ”will speed up the process so we can find an effective drug faster.”
”The value of the test is in identifying people very early in the course of the disease and essentially clear out amyloid, and those people theoretically would not go on to develop dementia,”
”Of course, this has to be proven, but we think it might work.”
”But to do this, you have to have a good test.”