ROYAL OAK, Mich. - Researchers at a Metro Detroit hospital chain believe they have created a blood test that can detect Alzheimer's disease in people before symptoms develop.
Alzheimer’s is caused by an accumulation of proteins in the brain that causes plaque build-up, inflammation and, eventually, death of brain cells
Geneticists at Beaumont Health say they used artificial intelligence to identify more than 150 differences in patients with the disease compared to patients who are healthy.
These little differences represent changes in people's genes before symptoms progress and Alzheimer's causes irreversible damage. And now researchers believe they have discovered a blood test that detects those changes.
The findings, published today in an academic journal PLOS ONE, were discovered by the chairman of the Beaumont Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
"The holy grail is to identify patients in the pre-clinical stage so effective early interventions, including new medications, can be studied and ultimately used," said Dr. Bahado-Singh. "That’s why we are excited about the results of this research."
With an aging population in the U.S. and more than 47 million diagnosable cases worldwide, the early detection of the disease will be a significant tool that scientists can use in studying and preventing future cases.
Future projections of Alzheimer's disease expect 131 million people to be diagnosed by 2050, which the World Health Organization would designate as a global health priority.
"Drugs used in the late stage of the disease do not seem make much difference, so there is a tremendous amount of interest in diagnosis in the early stages of the disease," said Dr. Khaled Imam, Beaumont Health’s Director of Geriatric Medicine and a co-author of the study. "Any delay in symptom onset is likely to be very beneficial."
Currently, there is no cure for the disease and any early detection methods of the disease are invasive and expensive. Any drugs that reduce symptoms don't do much to slow the progression of the disease - which happens as plaque builds up in the brain as a result of an accumulation of protein. It eventually leads to the death of brain cells.
Beaumont's study looked at the blood samples of 24 Alzheimer's patients and 24 healthy patients. The researchers looked at the white blood cells in each of the samples and compared certain biomarkers in the genes to see if there were differences between patients.
Eventually, they discovered a key change in the genes of white blood cells that had been triggered to fight inflammation in the brain. Those changes "indicate the disease process has started."
"It’s almost as if the leukocytes (white blood cells) have become a newspaper to tell us, ‘This is what’s going on in the brain,’" Dr. Bahado-Singh said.