Biomarkers Identify One Form of Alzheimer’s Disease Long Before Symptoms Appear

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), have just released the news that they have been able to identify a certain form of Alzheimer’s disease long before the obvious symptoms appear. These particular biomarkers are specific to a rare inherited form of the disease but the discovery yields hope that similar biomarkers can be found for other forms of the devastating neurological disease.

Scientific estimation says that as many as 10 million American Baby Boomers will be diagnosed with the disease at some point during their lives. Most of them will develop sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, a form of the disease that almost always develops after the age of 65, also known as late-onset Alzheimer’s.

The other form of the disease is considered an early-onset form, usually developing before the age of 65. This early-onset form, known as familiar Alzheimer’s disease, or FAD, affects no more than 2 percent of all patients with the disease and is an inherited disease. When one parent develops the disease, all his or her children run a 50-50 chance of getting it, too.

It’s the FAD-type of disease that has revealed the biomarkers, largely due to the predictability of the disease developing in a patient’s offspring. Researchers studied the children of FAD patients and found biochemical changes in their blood and cerebrospinal fluid as much as 30 years before the onset of overt, or noticeable, symptoms developed. Identification of the biomarkers is expected to reveal the chain of biological events that lead to the onset of overt symptoms as well as to suggest preventive and treatment strategies.

The research team says the mutations in several proteins that signal the eventual development of FAD may not work the same way in sporadic Alzheimer’s but the two diseases progress in ways that are almost identical, leaving the research team optimistic. The team says its findings warrant further research.

John Ringman, an associate professor of UCLA’s neurology department, led the research team, which published its findings in the latest issue of the medical journal, Neurology. The research was funded by the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center of California, the Brotman Foundation of California, the Shirley and Jack Goldberg Trust, the National Institute on Aging, and the Sidell Kagan Foundation.

Source: UCLA

Filed under: Alzheimer's Disease, Elderly Care, Medical Research