A blood test may flag Alzheimer’s risk years before memory problems start.
A Harvard-led study found that older adults with high levels of a blood biomarker called p-tau217 were far more likely to develop cognitive impairment over the next five to 10 years. The research was presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London and published at the same time in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers tracked nearly 2,700 cognitively healthy adults with an average age of 70 for up to a decade. They found that symptom-free people with very high p-tau217 levels had an estimated 78 percent chance of developing cognitive impairment within 10 years, and about a one in three chance within five years.
People with moderately elevated levels had a 45 percent risk over a decade.
The p-tau217 protein is a modified form of tau, which forms tangles in the brain and is associated with memory loss. Researchers said the blood test gave information beyond what standard brain scans and genetic testing can offer.
Rachel Buckley, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, said the findings show that dementia risk can be detected years before memory problems begin.
“Once verified, these blood tests could be used to recruit patients for clinical trials of treatments to prevent cognitive decline and dementia,” she said in a press release.
“In the future, when treatments are approved for use early in the disease process, these tests could help guide monitoring, treatment decisions and counseling for patients and families,” Buckley added.
Researchers said p-tau217 cannot fully predict one person’s future on its own. They said age, genetics, kidney function and racial background can also affect biomarker levels and dementia risk.
The team said longer studies in more diverse groups are needed to refine the risk estimates.
Maria Carrillo, chief science officer at the Alzheimer’s Association in Chicago, said future treatments could have the greatest impact by targeting the silent stage of the disease before memory issues appear.
“Identifying people at risk earlier could fundamentally change how we diagnose, treat and potentially prevent dementia,” she told Fox News Digital.
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