The Brain Tells Us Very Little About the Future of Alzheimer’s Detection

Recent research opens new possibilities for diagnosing, monitoring and maybe preventing the debilitating illness.

There are 5.5 million Alzheimer’s sufferers in the United States alone – and no known cure. Alzheimer’s disease negatively impacts not only individuals who have it, but the families who must care for them, taking both a financial and emotional toll. How can we address this huge and growing challenge to public health?

One solution is to find out how to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease earlier and more effectively, before sufferers have already begun to decline physically and mentally. New research reveals Alzheimer’s can be predicted up to 16 years before symptoms present. Ironically, the research did not examine the brain, but rather, showed how the blood could be key to fighting back.

Currently, to diagnose Alzheimer’s we rely on self-reported symptoms like memory loss, followed by brain exams and analysis which rules out other causes. Alzheimer’s can be definitively diagnosed upon a person’s death, through observation of the deceased patient’s brain. The problem here is obvious: the diagnosis, and any possible attempt at fighting or mitigating the disease or its consequences, comes too late. This process remains the standard way Alzheimer’s is diagnosed and monitored – but looking at exhibited symptoms and the brain does not have to be the only method.

In a study published last month, researchers found that by measuring changes in the level of a blood protein – neurofilament light chain (NfL) – we could potentially use a blood test to predict Alzheimer’s disease up to 16 years before symptoms begin to appear. The implication here is that clinicians can not only diagnose Alzheimer’s well in advance, but monitor its progress as the years go on. More research is still required in this area, as clinicians do not yet have a blood test that can fulfill the promise of this new discovery. But what the NfL study does is expand the potential horizon for diagnosis beyond symptoms and physical exams.

The same goes for a second breakthrough on Alzheimer’s research published last month. This came from a study published in medical journal Science Advances, which tested the link between Alzheimer’s and gum disease – using both people currently afflicted with the disorder and mice. Finding that gum infection in mice led to an increase of the same bacteria found in the human patients, the researchers concluded that Alzheimer’s could be a result of the destruction of gum tissue. This may reveal that the frontline of the defense against Alzheimer’s, or at least an early indicator of its presence, is in oral hygiene. Addressing gum disease could both allow us to diagnose Alzheimer’s earlier and reduce its probability.

These developments could lead to a radically different future for how health care addresses this potent disease. In the short term, predicting or diagnosing Alzheimer’s earlier will allow individuals and families to adopt lifestyle changes that reduce the negative health, financial and emotional aspects of the disease. They can also begin planning well in advance to ease the burden on relatives, while families will have more time to become accustomed with the ways in which they can make enduring this illness as comfortable as possible for sufferers.

But ideally, earlier diagnosis will allow us to more effectively develop and test drug treatments by monitoring Alzheimer’s progression before victims deteriorate mentally and physically. Indeed, the pharmaceutical industry is funding research to develop tests to catch and treat Alzheimer’s through ways other than examining and testing the brain, but more research is still needed.

Alzheimer’s disease is a daunting challenge to medical science. But given what has already happened this year, we can expect greater progress in the future – provided we commit enough resources and determination to move forward.

Kevin Hrusovsky is founder and chairman of Powering Precision Health a movement driving the change for proactive, preventative healthcare detection and treatment.