{"id":766025,"date":"2026-07-16T10:01:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/766025\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T10:01:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:01:28","slug":"alzheimers-blood-test-may-identify-healthy-people-at-high-risk-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/766025\/","title":{"rendered":"Alzheimer\u2019s blood test may identify healthy people at high risk, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0blood test\u00a0may predict if apparently healthy older adults are likely to develop Alzheimer\u2019s symptoms in the next five or 10 years, researchers reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n

That information could be reassuring or terrifying, but for now it\u2019s a potential tool to\u00a0speed drug development\u00a0by helping to identify and enroll high-risk people into studies of possible Alzheimer\u2019s treatments or preventive strategies.<\/p>\n

Already large clinical trials are testing if certain drugs could prevent or at least delay the disease<\/a> \u2014 and if any of those pan out, doctors will need an easy way to tell who should try them.<\/p>\n

A new blood test could predict Alzheimer\u2019s symptoms in healthy older adults within five to 10 years. motortion \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

The scientists behind the new study stress that it\u2019s too soon for healthy people to seek out the so-called p-tau217 test, which is\u00a0currently used\u00a0to help diagnose whether people experiencing cognitive problems have Alzheimer\u2019s or another disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait and get tested when you can potentially do something about it,\u201d stressed Dr. Reisa Sperling of the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, the study\u2019s senior author. \u201cAt this point it wouldn\u2019t change what I would tell someone to do. I\u2019d still tell them to\u00a0eat well, sleep well, exercise a lot<\/a>\u00a0and stay engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new findings showed that symptom-free older adults who harbored very high levels of p-tau217 had a 38% risk of developing cognitive impairment over five years. That risk grew to 78% by 10 years.<\/p>\n

The research was published in JAMA and presented at the Alzheimer\u2019s Association International Conference in London.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear exactly what causes Alzheimer\u2019s, but its telltale markers are brain-clogging amyloid plaques and neuron-killing tau tangles. <\/p>\n

The p-tau217 test measures a form of tau that correlates with how much plaque buildup someone has and gives a hint about tangles, Sperling said.<\/p>\n

A human brain affected by Alzheimer\u2019s disease is displayed at the Museum of Neuroanatomy at the University at Buffalo, NY. AP Photo\/David Duprey<\/p>\n

The Mass General Brigham team analyzed data from 2,684 older adults who were healthy when they\u2019d joined some long-running Alzheimer\u2019s studies, receiving the p-tau217 blood test at enrollment and yearly cognitive checkups.<\/p>\n

Between the earliest enrollment in 2004 and last year, about 478 had developed cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n

Study participants with very low p-tau217 levels likewise had a low risk of developing cognitive impairment over the five- to 10-year period.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a conundrum in predicting Alzheimer\u2019s: Lots of people harbor high levels of amyloid plaques yet never get dementia. <\/p>\n

Evidence of Alzheimer\u2019s disease on PET scans at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. REUTERS<\/p>\n

A leading theory is that at some point amyloid buildup triggers an abnormal type of tau to form tangles, leading to symptoms.<\/p>\n

Sperling said the blood test data offers some new clues. While different intermediate levels of p-tau217 signaled progressive risk, only the very highest level seemed to correlate with other evidence about that tipping point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a gradual process where amyloid and tau build up in the brain and this blood-based biomarker is telling you how far you are in that process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Scientists not involved in the study praised it but also offered some reasons to be cautious. One is that only a small fraction of study participants had been tracked for a full decade, so there\u2019s less confidence in the 10-year risk estimate than the five-year risk estimate.<\/p>\n

Also, the predictions could be clouded by other factors \u2014 older people may be at risk of dying from something else, or have heart-related problems that can cause vascular dementia<\/a> rather than Alzheimer\u2019s, noted Drs. Suzanne Schindler of Washington University in St. Louis and David Wolk of the University of Pennsylvania in a commentary published in JAMA.<\/p>\n

The blood tests \u201care not yet precise enough to guide individualized prognosis,\u201d wrote Schindler, who also studies p-tau217\u2019s prognostic potential, and Wolk. Still, they said the new work has \u201cprovided a crucial piece of the puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already \u201cwe have people coming saying, \u2018I want this blood test. I have a family history of Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u2019\u201d said Jessica Langbaum of the Banner Alzheimer\u2019s Institute in Phoenix, something she strongly discourages \u2014 for now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings are quite strong,\u201d Langbaum added, and a predictive blood test would be \u201creally important\u201d \u2014 but only if ongoing studies eventually find a drug that could help people before symptoms begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0blood test\u00a0may predict if apparently healthy older adults are likely to develop Alzheimer\u2019s symptoms in the next five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[2594,18368,78463,1491,8609,1103,97,252,253,3284],"class_list":["post-766025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-aging","tag-alzheimers-disease","tag-blood-tests","tag-brains","tag-death","tag-dementia","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-study-says"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}