Alzheimer’s disease can be devastating. We at Biohackr Health are dedicated to try to reduce the risk of dementia, which is why we focus on brain health and healthspan. But is there a way to know if you are developing dementia? Could you know this early on with a simple blood test?
This was in July 2024 in JAMA (the Journal of American Medicine) “Blood Biomarkers to Detect Alzheimer Disease in Primary Care and Secondary Care.”
We have looked at amyloid and tau to try to identify Alzheimer disease in people. This study:
- 1213 patients who were having cognitive evaluation
- Study done in Sweden. Mean age 74. 48% women
- They looked at plasma phosphorylated p-tau217 to non p-tau217
- They combined the tau ratio with the amyloid ratio
- Amyloid probability score 2 “APS2” – which looks at the amyloid beta 42 and amyloid beta 40 plasma ratio-has high diagnostic accuracy of 60-70% for Alzheimer’s
- They found this biomarker blood test had superior diagnostic accuracy to a standard clinical evaluation.
They conclude that APS2 and percentage of p-tau217 alone “had high diagnostic accuracy for identifying Alzheimer’s Disease among individuals with cognitive symptoms using predefined cutoff values.”
This will help diagnose Alzheimer’s more accurately (?and maybe sooner ) with a simple blood test. More trials need to be done.
How can Biohackr Health help?
Dementias are not all the same and frequently is a multifactorial issue. We believe in trying to do prevention and optimizing your health, particularly starting at an early age. Please see our page on brain health and read our blogs. This is emerging science. There are some treatments which we know do help reduce dementia risk, like hormone replacement for menopausal women. There are some dementias that have a strong genetic component. We will keep looking for ways to help.
