A blood test may predict dementia risk in women as early as 25 years in advance, according to findings from a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Wednesday.
Researchers evaluated whether there were associations between the levels of the protein plasma phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) found in someone’s blood and their risk for mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, and dementia. P-tau217 has been studied for use as a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease.
The study included a cohort of 2,766 women in the U.S., ages 65 to 79, who did not have cognitive impairment at the start of the study. The participants were recruited between 1996 and 1999, and were assessed for up to 25 years, through 2021.
Among the total number of participants, researchers found at the conclusion of the study that 1,311 women developed either MCI or dementia — and that those who had higher baseline levels of p-tau217 at the beginning of the study were more likely to develop dementia or MCI.
But the outcome of the study revealed other interesting associations.
The participants were randomized into different groups at the beginning of the study: One group of women was assigned to estrogen hormone therapy, versus a placebo, and the other was assigned to estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy, versus a placebo.
Researchers found that the p-tau217 association with dementia was greater in the women assigned to estrogen hormone therapy plus progestin compared to those assigned a placebo. The associations did not significantly vary, however, in the estrogen hormone therapy versus placebo group.
There were also larger associations between p-tau217 and dementia and MCI for women who were older than 70, and for women who had the APOE ε4 gene, the study stated. “Having at least one copy of the APOE-ε4 gene increases your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“The key takeaway is that our study suggests it may be possible to detect risk of dementia two decades in advance using a simple blood test in older women,” Aladdin H. Shadyab, University of California, San Diego, associate professor of public health and medicine and lead author of the study, told Fox News Digital.
“Our findings show that the blood biomarker p-tau217 could help identify individuals at higher risk for dementia long before symptoms begin,” he added.
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There were some limitations noted in the study. For example, researchers pointed out that only older women were examined, and that dementia was not examined by subtype. Also, the sample size of Black women was smaller than that of white women, which may have affected the results, researchers said.
The study had found that p-tau217 associations with MCI or dementia were greater in white women than in Black women and that p-tau217 “was not associated with incident MCI in Black women.” But researchers found similarities between both racial groups when it came to predicting dementia by age and p-tau217 associations.
Ian McDonough, an associate professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton, who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today that the outcome of the study suggests that “plasma biomarkers are not going to be a one-size-fits-all forecasting solution.”
“We need to better identify subgroups of older adults (as well as middle-aged adults) for whom these plasma markers might be most predictive and those for whom they could even be misleading (like Black Americans) because they might suggest a low risk for dementia, when in fact they are at high risk,” McDonough said.
Research has shown that physical and mental activities and a healthy diet may play an important role in reducing your risk for dementia. And it’s important to be aware of potential early signs.
Dr. Stephanie Nothelle, a geriatrician and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, previously told HuffPost that while early signs of dementia can “run the gamut,” there tend to be a few that present first. They include short-term memory loss, personality changes, consistently having a difficult time with word-finding, and troubling with planning.
As for increased difficulty with planning, Nothelle explained that she describes “executive functioning” as the “planning part of your brain” — meaning your ability to plan a complex task with several logistics, like a dinner party, for example.
“If you’re not able to do that anymore, that can be a sign that there’s something going on,” Nothelle said.
Overall, it’s important to remember to always reach out to your health care provider for any questions or concerns you may have.
