A new method to predict Alzheimer’s risk has been developed by researchers, who believe that spotting the condition early could help speed up the creation of new treatments for the disease.
The method can help identify those who are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. This means that they could get tested before symptoms appear.
Using a genetic predictor, the researchers looked at 7.1 million common DNA variants and determined an individual's risk based on their specific DNA variants.
The researchers initially looked at tens of thousands of people from a past study and their method was refined and validated with data from more than 300,000 further people.
Some experts have suggested that spotting the disease early could help uncover potential treatments. Past attempts to uncover possible treatments may have been unsuccessful because they involved patients whose disease was too advanced to be treated, experts suggest.
While some treatments can ease symptoms, developing treatments that prevent or slow disease progression has been more challenging.
Better methods to identify people at high risk of developing the condition could aid treatment research.
People with Alzheimer’s experience gradual loss of memory and other cognitive functions.
Senior author Dr Amit Khera said: “We developed a genetic predictor of Alzheimer’s disease associated with both clinical diagnosis and age-dependent cognitive decline.
“By studying the circulating proteome of healthy individuals with very high versus low inherited risk, our team nominated new biomarkers of neurocognitive disease.”
In the new study Manish Paranjpe of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the US and colleagues analysed data on 7.1 million common DNA variants – alterations to the standard DNA sequence – from an earlier study that included tens of thousands of people with or without Alzheimer’s.
Using this data they developed a novel method that predicts a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s, depending on which DNA variants the person has.
Researchers say their DNA-based method is unlikely to be suitable for doctors to predict a patient’s risk of Alzheimer’s because it may be less accurate for non-European populations.
The findings are published in Plos Genetics.
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