Japanese and Australian health analysts ascertained another prospect method in determining early Alzheimer’s.
The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling NATSEM, and the Alzheimer’s Association have stated that Alzheimer’s is the second leading cause of death in Australia. In fact, there is all over 5.4% of all deaths in males and 10.6% of all deaths in females each year. Meanwhile, 4.6 million people in Japan are living with dementia. And this number is expected to definitely rise significantly as the population ages. For this reason, the process of determining early Alzheimer’s has been inspired.
This evidence has motivated an international team of scientist from Australia and Japan to develop the world’s first accurate blood test for determining early Alzheimer’s disease. It has the power to detect the existence of the illness up to 20 years prior to the inception of its symptoms.
It, also, identifies the biological factors in blood plasma that reveals the build-up of the protein amyloid-beta. These are accumulated toxic proteins that gradually transforms into plaques and tangles which eventually tend to spread through the cortex in a foreseeable pattern as Alzheimer’s disease approaches.
Spectrometric Technique
Professor Colin Masters from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Australia said that the spectrometric technique offers a diagnosis in a more convenient way for the reason that it guarantees 90 percent accuracy.
Moreover, it is cheaper and more broadly available than the current intrusive, painful, and expensive alternatives that can cure or prevent Alzheimer’s such as positron-emission tomography brain scans — also known as PET scan or cerebrospinal fluid testing.
Brisbane-based CSIRO scientist James Doecke aforementioned that this test is very helpful to Japanese and Australian citizens who aim to plan ahead by 5 or 10 years, including healthy elderly people and those with Alzheimer’s disease. So that it would be so much easier to work on developing a specific therapy for the condition.
The Experimentation Process
Based on Koichi Tanaka, co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the main creator of this procedure, with the collaboration of Mass Spectrometry Research Laboratory, and the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (NCGG) investigation, through requiring of 0.5 milliliter of blood, positron emission tomography images of the brains of 232 subjects will have to be examined, in order to confirm the results. About 252 Australian and 121 Japanese patients aged between 60 and 90 years were involved in the experimentation process.
Alzheimer’s is a kind of dementia that causes conflicts with memory and other cognitive capabilities, serious enough to hamper with daily life. Medicine can temporarily slow progress of the signs of Alzheimer’s. Although, at present there is no treatment to completely cure the disease, it is truly fascinating that the human race is trying the hardest to excavate a clear pathway for the resolution of this issue.
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