Test reveals Alzheimer's disease ten years before symptoms appear

Scientists have identified a test that reveals the earliest biological marker of Alzheimer's disease. The test is able to detect the marker up to a decade before symptoms start to develop. This could help to treat those suffering from Alzheimer's, as it is strongly believed by experts that early identification of the disease is key to effective treatment.

Professor Ramon Trullus, leader of the research at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, said: "If our initial findings can be replicated by other laboratories, the results will change the way we currently think about the causes of Alzheimer's.

"This discovery may enable us to search for more effective treatments that can be administered during the pre-clinical stage.”

Currently, the only way to accurately diagnose Alzheimer's disease is by performing a post-mortem examination. However, diagnosis still requires mental tests prior to death in order to look for symptoms. Currently there are around 800,000 people suffering from some form of dementia within the UK. Each year,around 60,000 are attributed to the disease.

The new test can be used to identify the levels of a specific type of genetic material found in the cerebrospinal fluid. A reduction in the levels of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a strong indicator that the disease will develop in time. As the measurement of these levels can be assessed up to ten years before symptoms present, it could mean that late stage dementia could be avoided.

Doctor Trullus suggests that lower levels of mitochondria, which are the areas within cells that turn food into energy, could be a reflection of a decrease in the ability to provide energy to a person's neurons. The drop in the levels also occurs some time before the appearance of tau and amyloid, which are common markers associated with Alzheimer's disease.

The ability to analyse a depletion in mtDNA at such an early stage suggests that the process of developing Alzheimer's disease occurs much earlier than previously thought. This discovery could lead to treatments being developed that are able to block the symptoms of the disease well before they appear.