A urine test could detect early-stage Alzheimer’s
Many aspects of Alzheimer's remain unknown and too often the diagnosis comes when the disease is already in an advanced stage but, according to a recent study, a urine test could help experts intervene earlier. All the details
Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia in later life , is very difficult to identify in its early stages. In fact, there is no specific test to determine if a person is affected by the disease and often the diagnosis is reached by exclusion, after a careful examination of the physical and mental conditions and not by means of tangible evidence specific to the disease.
But according to a study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, the breakthrough for early detection of Alzheimer's could be a simple urine test, less invasive and cheaper than current options.
TOOLS FOR DETECTING ALZHEIMER
Although there is no cure for Alzheimer's, recognizing the disease as early as possible is essential both to give the affected person the opportunity to plan for the years to come and to undertake therapies (such as donepezil or galantamine) capable of reducing the severity of symptoms and slow the progression .
However, until about 20 years ago, an autopsy was the only way to confirm whether an individual had Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia.
Today, according to the National Institute on Aging , doctors can check for disease-associated biomarkers by performing lumbar puncture, which is a lumbar puncture that extracts cerebrospinal fluid.
In particular, doctors are looking for biomarkers such as the amyloid beta peptide, which is responsible for the plaques that build up in the brain.
A URINE BIOMARKER
But study authors, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and WuXi Diagnostics Innovation Research Institute in China chose to investigate formic acid's role as a urinary biomarker of Alzheimer's disease as they noted that the abnormal metabolism of formaldehyde is a key feature of age-related cognitive impairment.
I STUDY
574 participants at the Memory Clinic of the Sixth People's Hospital in Shanghai were recruited for the study. The people, who ranged from healthy cognition to Alzheimer's disease, were divided into five groups: 71 participants with healthy cognition; 101 with subjective cognitive decline; 131 with cognitive impairment without mild cognitive impairment; 158 with mild cognitive impairment and 113 with Alzheimer's disease.
The researchers collected urine samples from the participants to analyze formic acid levels and also took blood samples for DNA analysis.
THE RESULTS
After comparing formic acid levels between the groups, the researchers found that there was a difference between participants with good cognition and those with at least some degree of impairment.
In general, the groups with some level of cognitive decline all had higher urinary formic acid levels than the group with healthy cognition, and Alzheimer's patients had significantly higher levels.
While the link between Alzheimer's and formic acid needs to continue to be investigated, this, the authors write, "means that urinary formic acid can be used for early diagnosis [of Alzheimer's disease]."
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/un-test-delle-urine-potrebbe-individuare-alzheimer-in-fase-iniziale/ on Tue, 13 Dec 2022 06:58:39 +0000.