By Murray Sherriffs
Researchers at the University of California San Diego, have found a novel blood-based biomarker can predict a woman’s risk of developing dementia, up to 25 years before symptoms appear.
The study was published JAMA Network Open.
Levels of phosphorylated tau 217—a protein linked to the brain changes seen in Alzheimer’s patients—are strongly associated with future mild cognitive impairment and dementia among the older women who were cognitively healthy at the start of the study.
The first author of the study Aladdin H. Shadyab, UC San Diego associate professor of public health and medicine at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and the School of Medicine, says that “…we may be able to identify women at elevated risk for dementia decades before symptoms emerge.”
That kind of long lead time opens the door to earlier prevention strategies and more targeted monitoring, rather than waiting until memory problems are already affecting daily life.”
