Blood test predicts Alzheimer’s before symptoms show
Scientists developed a blood test that can tell your biological age (i.e. your body age) and predict if you will get Alzheimer’s disease even before symptoms appear.
In a seven-year study at King’s College London, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and Duke University in the USA, scientists used a process called RNA-profiling to measure gene expression in human tissues.
Scientists took tissue samples from 25- and 65-year-olds and worked out a pattern in the activation of 150 genes that are needed for healthy ageing. These tests were used to come up with a health age gene score.
Scientists found large differences in gene scores between people born just months from each other. This suggests that people age differently. Those with lower gene scores have “older bodies” and were more at risk to diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s patients were also found to have lower gene scores, suggesting a link to the disease—making it possible to diagnose the disease early.
“Most people accept that all 60 year olds are not the same, but there has been no reliable test for underlying ‘biological age’,” said lead author James Timmons, from King’s College London.
“Our discovery provides the first robust molecular ‘signature’ of biological age in humans and should be able to transform the way that ‘age’ is used to make medical decisions.
“This includes identifying those more likely to be at risk of Alzheimer’s, as catching those at ‘early’ risk is key to evaluating potential treatments.
“This also provides strong evidence that dementia in humans could be called a type of ‘accelerated ageing’” he concludes.
Category: Features, Technology & Devices
