There is a red thread, a link between the self -employed cognitive decline and some blood biomarkers, which could open the way to a simple blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. To identify it a team of scientists from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, authors of a study that is part of the trend in full development of works aimed at making the diagnosis of this pathology as early as possible. The results of this last research, conducted on Hispanic and Latin adults, are published in the magazine ‘Jama Network Open’ and outlines an approach that could be “faster, less invasive and more convenient” than existing screening tools, explain the experts. With the aging of the population and the numbers of patients affected by growing Alzheimer, it is a goal on which several groups are working. “We need methods to identify any neurodegenerative diseases in patients with cognitive symptoms early,” underlines the corresponding author of the study Freddie Márquez, post-dental researcher of the Department of Neuroscience of the Californian University. A promise can be represented by “blood -based biomarkers”, which are looming as a “most accessible and scalable tool to understand cognitive decline, in particular in the populations that have been scarcely treated with traditional methods”, reasoning Márquez. Currently there is only one blood test approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. Although this test can detect the proteins in the blood associated with the disease that steals memories, it is currently “very expensive and available only in specialist assistance contexts”, illustrate experts. It is not yet clear whether the blood can be used reliablely for the early diagnosis of large -scale Alzheimer. To answer this question, the researchers used the data of a clinical study-‘Study of Latinos-Investment of Neurocognitive AGING’-which evaluated the neurocognition in a subgroup of participants in the wider and long-term long-term study on health and the pathologies of Hispanic and Latin American in the United States (the Hispanic Community Health Hispanic Community Study/Study of Latinos). “It is believed that Hispanic and Latin adults will record the greatest increase in the prevalence of the disease in the coming decades”, highlights the author Senior Hector M. González, professor of the UC neuroscience department of San Diego School of Medicine. “Despite, despite, they are still significantly underneathing the research on Alzheimer’s and dementia, an aspect that our study proposed to face”. The researchers analyzed the blood of 5,712 adults of this group, age between 50 and 86 years old, looking for proteins present in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s, such as Beta-Hamiloid and Tau. They also evaluated the subjective cognitive decline of the participants, that is, the decline perceived by the person himself. By putting these elements together, scientists discovered that higher blood levels of NFL (damage marker to nerve cells) and GFAP (brain marker) are associated with a greater decline – self -employed – thought, planning and overall cognitive performance. Higher blood levels of NFL and Tau protein (PTAU-181) have also been associated with a greater decline-self-employed-of memory. While the blood levels of the beta-amyloid protein (Aβ42/40), a protein notoriously associated in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease, have not shown association with subjective cognitive decline. Even in cognitively healthy people the associations between NFL and self -refined drops in cognitive services have remained valid, which – the experts evaluate – suggests that NFL could detect early changes in cognition. In addition to providing evidence of the fact that blood biomarkers can be used to detect alzheimer’s and dementias early, researchers also underline that a strong point of study is its heterogeneous population. “Including participants from under -representative communities, we are able to better understand how the social determinants of health and comorbilities can influence cognitive paths and the risk of dementia”, adds Márquez. “This makes our results particularly relevant for the contexts of the real world”. Further research will now be needed – they would like to point out the authors – before this approach finds wide diffusion in clinical practice and, even when this happens, the test will still be one of the tools in the doctor’s diagnostic arsenal. “It is important to emphasize that there is still much that we do not know about the usefulness of blood biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s”, concludes Márquez. “These tests have enormous potential, but they should integrate existing approaches, not to replace them”. —Salutewebinfo@adnkronos.com (web info)
