Newcastle Uni Alzheimer's Blood Test

[merylg]

http://www.newcastle.edu.au/news/20...sts-step-closer-to-alzheimers-blood-test.html

"Newcastle scientists step closer to Alzheimer's blood test
Published: Tuesday, 3 April 2012

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of Newcastle has shown the potential of a simple blood-based test to identify people in the early stages of Alzheimers disease, before any symptoms appear.

The team of four* spent a year studying data from the international Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, the most comprehensive collection of Alzheimers data in the world.

The Newcastle team assessed the levels of 190 proteins in blood from 566 people with either Alzheimers Disease, mild cognitive impairment or normal cognition and showed that measuring a panel of 11 proteins in blood can provide a predictive test with more than 85 per cent accuracy. Monitoring the change in blood protein levels over time could increase accuracy above 90 per cent.
The study was funded by the University of Newcastle and the Hunter Medical Research Institute, and its findings are published today in the prestigious PLoS ONE journal......"

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0034341

 

[fla]

This sounds a lot like the autism test in this thread with the levels of some signalling/control proteins being altered. This is exactly what I expect the first M.E. blood test to look like but with altered levels of different proteins being involved. It's time to start looking at things that cause these protein levels to change.