In the United States, nearly 6 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease, a neurological condition that affects a person’s ability to remember, think, speak, and perform daily tasks.
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is caused by microscopic bleeding or blood vessel blockage in the brain, while other causes include thyroid issues or deficiency of vitamins.
A study, published in the journal Neurology, has found that an inflammatory biomarker in the blood called sCD14 could help in predicting early dementia.
Lead study author Dr. Matthew Pase of the Florey Institute for Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, told Medical News Today, “Dementia is a complex syndrome often resulting from numerous causes. In addition to biomarkers (amyloid and tau proteins) of Alzheimer’s disease, biomarkers of inflammation and neuronal injury may help improve the prediction of clinical dementia.”
“The development of cost-effective blood biomarkers for dementia could improve clinical research and practice by permitting widespread low-cost screening and [assisting] in identifying at-risk participants for dementia prevention trials,” Dr. Pase added.
“Biomarkers of neural inflammation, such as sCD14, are promising candidates to study since inflammation appears to be a common pathway triggered by a variety of mechanisms leading to dementia,” he added.
Explaining the inflammation is the key predictor of dementia, Dr. Pase said, “Inflammation has been identified as a contributor to many neurological diseases. Injury to the brain that predisposes [it] to dementia, whether due to vascular brain injury, Alzheimer’s proteinopathy, or head trauma, is accompanied by a neuroinflammatory response.”
The new study found that higher sCD14 levels were associated with brain injury, aging, and cognitive decline.
Dr. Pase said, “Further research is needed to validate our findings across diverse populations. As we measured sCD14 in blood, it would be of interest to examine the extent to which blood sCD14 mirrors inflammation in the brain.” “Lastly, since dementia is multifaceted, it will be important to determine which combinations of biomarkers best predict the risk of future dementia,” he concluded.
