Early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease requires complex and expensive screening methods, but these procedures may only be replaced by a simple blood test.
Scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered a type of blood sugar molecule that is associated with the level of the “tau” protein, which plays an important role in Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study published in the journal “Alzheimer’s & Dementi”, on Wednesday.
The study looked at the relationship of Alzheimer’s disease with “glycans”, which are a form of sugar that consists of a large number of monosaccharides.
This is a relatively unexplored area of dementia research.
Simple blood test
Professor Baahed Karolinska, Sophia Schedeen-Weiss, co-researcher in the study, told Sky News Arabia regarding the results of the research paper:
• In the current study, we show that the level of a specific glycan molecule in the blood, referred to as N-acetylglucosamine, can be used to predict the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
• Glycans analyzed in the blood can predict dementia nearly 10 years before symptoms, such as memory impairment, appear.
• In general, it is difficult to find samples from patients who have been followed for a long time, but the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care, which followed individuals aged 60 or over with blood tests and memory tests for up to 17 years, helped us to find the sample suitable for conducting the study.
• We conducted this study on core samples of 233 individuals, and we believe that its results are widely applicable, and we are verifying this by conducting further studies targeting the analysis of blood “glycan” molecules in larger groups of people.
• In parallel, we have close cooperation in the field of clinical chemistry at the Karolinska University Hospital, which will enable doctors to quickly carry out analyzes in the clinic soon.
The researchers hope that the glycans in the blood will prove to be a valuable addition to existing methods of screening people. To predict and detect Alzheimer’s disease early.
It is noteworthy that the study was conducted in the research group of Lars Turnberg in the Department of Neurology at the Karolinska Institutet, in cooperation with the Center for Geriatric Research at the Karolinska Institutet, the Stockholm Center for Geriatric Research and the Karolinska University Hospital.