Study: Proteins May Predict Dementia Years in Advance

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Facts

  • A new study of frozen blood samples, which was published in the journal Nature Aging, has found a group of proteins that can help predict multiple forms of dementia ten years before the disease is diagnosed.1
  • After screening blood samples from over 50K healthy adults in the UK Biobank over 14 years, 1,417 of them developed dementia. The researchers found that the proteins GFAP, NEFL, GDF15, and LTBP2 are firmly correlated with dementia.2
  • Using an artificial intelligence (AI) supported analysis system — controlling for age, sex, education level, and genetics — the researchers were able to correlate the presence of these proteins with the development of dementia with 90% accuracy.3
  • While previous research has already pinned the proteins GFAP and GDF15 as potential links to Alzheimer's disease, this study found that people with high levels of GFAP were twice as likely to develop dementia and roughly three times as likely to get Alzheimer's.2
  • While the study's authors noted that their work has yet to be independently verified, one of the proteins correlated with dementia, neurofilament light, is already being used for diagnosing and monitoring other diseases including multiple sclerosis.1

Sources: 1Reuters.com, 2Nature and 3News & Events.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Alzheimer's Society. As dementia diagnostic technology grows more and more accurate, it's now time to get the countless people who knowingly and unknowingly suffer from this disease access to this potentially life-saving technology. This can include putting patients with dementia symptoms into clinical trials like these, as well as starting to produce and distribute such blood tests throughout society at large.
  • Narrative B, as provided by NCBI. While developing state-of-the-art diagnostic tests is certainly important, the public should also be aware of known preventative steps people can take to minimize the risk of developing dementia. Leading medical institutions, such as the journal The Lancet, have suggested that low education levels, hearing loss, obesity, and high blood pressure, among other things, are all fixable comorbidities linked to dementia. It's vital to address root-cause stressors.

Predictions