Alzheimer's blood marker could help detect disease years before symptoms, researchers say
BOSTON - A marker in the blood may help detect Alzheimer's disease years before a patient develops symptoms.
Alzheimer's disease begins decades before memory loss starts to show, and early diagnosis gives a patient the best chance of slowing down the disease with drugs.
Now, researchers in Europe have found that increased levels of a protein called GFAP in the blood could signal activation of immune cells in the brain and reflect changes of Alzheimer's as many as 10 years before brain damage occurs.
