Often, the biological processes of Alzheimer’s Disease begin many years prior to the display of symptoms, making the pursuit of predictive diagnostics a paramount effort.  Simon Lovestone, from King’s College London (United Kingdom), and colleagues analyzed blood samples from 1,148 people: 476 with Alzheimer’s, 220 with mild cognitive impairment and 452 elderly controls without dementia. The researchers honed in on 26 proteins previously found to be linked with Alzheimer’s Disease, and found that 16 of the  proteins were strongly associated with brain shrinkage in either mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s.  The team then ran a second series of tests to see which of these could predict which patients would progress from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s; they identified a combination of 10 proteins capable of predicting with 87% accuracy whether people with mild cognitive impairment would develop Alzheimer’s disease within a year.  Writing that: “We have identified 10 plasma proteins strongly associated with [Alzheimer’s] disease severity and disease progression,” the study authors submit that:  “Such markers may be useful for patient selection for clinical trials and assessment of patients with predisease subjective memory complaints.”  For the news source visit: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/08/us-health-alzheimers-idUKKBN0FC2IC20140708

Hye A, Riddoch-Contreras J, Baird AL, Ashton NJ, Bazenet C, Lovestone S, et al.  “Plasma proteins predict conversion to dementia from prodromal disease.”  Alzheimers Dement. 2014 Jul 3.