You got a great story here.
This is something I think a lot of people are
going to find encouraging.
The suggestion from research that a simple blood test could
detect Alzheimer's years before symptoms appear.
Diagnosis of Alzheimer's typically occurs
after symptoms of cognitive decline appear.
But new research could help identify the disease sooner,
and then hopefully new drugs can slow the progression.
So with that, we bring in doctor.
Mark Siegel, Fox News Medical contributor,
Good to see you this morning.
Doctor, tell us a little bit about your take on
this and if you think it could work and how.
Good morning, Martha. Listen, there's two parts to a disease.
One is diagnosing it early enough,
the other is having a treatment available.
If you do find it,
that works. The problem with Alzheimer's is,
by the time we find it this,
it's too late usually to do anything about it.
Now, 6 million people in the United States suffer from
Alzheimer's,
40 million have something called mild cognitive impairment.
And our question is how do you know if you
have mild cognitive impairment,
if you're slipping a bit that you're going to go
on to develop actual dementia or Alzheimer's?
We don't know and we can't tell.
But this blood test, and it's studied in the journal
called Frontiers of Neurology which is excellent study out of
Utah,
a company called Resident developed a way to look at
DNA,
the DNA in your brain and if parts of that
DNA fragments of it
splinter off as brain cells die.
The prediction was there that you could see who was
going to go on to develop Alzheimer's.
Very small study and needs to be shown in a
lot more people before I'm convinced I could use it.
In my office, 50 people studied Martha.
Of the 13 who had Alzheimer's,
all of them had elevated fragments.
100% of the of the six who had mild cognitive
impairment,
All of them had that
DNA fragment. Another six who never progressed to Alzheimer's did
not have an elevation in that fragment.
So in other words, that fragment of DNA may be
able to guide me to say,
look, because I have this discussion in my office all
day,
I say, you know, is it worth giving that drug,
Laconimab lacanbi, the new anti plaque drug?
Well, it's got a lot of side effects,
less than the previous generation can.
It can cause brain swelling,
but it may be worth it if it'll improve your
function.
But I don't. I need to know in advance before
a lot of damage occurs,
before I know if it's worth it.
And one more thing. Alzheimer's is not just a disease
of 6 million people.
As you know, its entire families and communities are affected
by this very tragic disease.
We need to know early who's going to get it,
and then we need to know the treatments.
Yeah, So. And we can put up the signs of
the warning signs of Alzheimer's here on the wall while
we talk about this.
But. So as I understand it what you're saying Mark,
is that it would be extremely helpful to be able
to do a blood test to say whether or not
you are on the road towards Alzheimer's or that you
might be. But then you're concerned about whether or not
you would want to actually put someone on these drugs
if it shows up that they have these
markers because of the side effects.
So, you know, I said that that's a real doctor
decision that has to come into play there
exactly right what you just said.
But I first need to know who's going to progress
and who is it.
By the way, two other points to make a big
study out of Cornell is actually looking at body aging
and brain aging to actually be able to predict it.
And another big study just came out that shows that
women who take estrogen,
estrogen replacement therapy, post menopausal,
decrease risk of Alzheimer's dramatically.
So we're looking deeply at Alzheimer's now,
How do we prevent it?
How do we treat it?
And now the new thing.
Today, can we diagnose it by a simple blood test
before you ever get it?
That's a big advance. We need a bigger study.
Always good to see you,
Mark. Doctor. Mark Siegel. Thank you very much.
Great to see you, Martha.