A step closer Alzheimer's detection

More than 5-million North Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer's decease, and a quarter of a million more are estimated to be living undiagnosed. Currently, doctors diagnose Alzheimer's by the patients' behavior and by eliminating other possible deceases. The only fool-proof way to diagnose the decease is after it's too late - through autopsy of the brain.

Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine studied concentrations of communicode proteins the blood of living patients. The communicode is a set of 120 proteins that human cells use to communicate with each other. It is thought that the decease damages the communicode proteins in the brain and that these damaged proteins circulate throughout the bloodstream. Doctors diagnosed 20 patients with or without Alzheimer's. The blood test and the doctors' diagnoses agreed in 18 of 20 patients.

Unfortunately, even if diagnosed early, there is no current treatment for the decease. link