Alzheimer's test
(no Alzheimer's test is 100 percent accurate yet)
Please Help Support Alzheimer's Research Today!
Your Alzheimer's donation will help billions live without it.
Alzheimer's is a brain disease that causes the memory to slowly erode, eventually ending in death. When symptoms of dementia appear, it's not uncommon for patients to seek out memory centers such as the one at Johns Hopkins to find out what's going on.
Though a good medical history, a physical and cognitive tests are typically the first type of work-up a person receives, there are an increasing array of methods for evaluating brain function earlier and more accurately, says Alzheimer's Association chief medical and scientific officer Bill Thies.
Tests for biomarkers — substances in the body such as proteins that indicate underlying disease — hold promise. They include newer and more complex MRI and PET scan imaging, not widely used yet, which can measure the size of brain regions and can look for the amyloid plaques and tau tangles that are the physical hallmarks of the disease, Thies says. Genetic tests for certain "risk genes" also can be conducted. The extended diagnosing period is a result of the fact that no Alzheimer's test is 100 percent accurate yet, says Marilyn Albert, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. So answers come from only a composite picture that the multiple tests piece together.
"We don't have a single, simple test the way we do for prostate cancer, for example. You have to do a series of evaluations," says Albert, who says the tests also help rule out other causes of cognitive decline — such as cardiovascular and thyroid problems — which sometimes can be reversed with treatment.
Without a brain biopsy done during an autopsy that can reveal plaques and tangles, it's impossible to know for sure whether Alzheimer's is the root cause, she says. Even then, it's still considered a probable diagnosis, she says, noting that at least 10 percent of people believed to have Alzheimer's while alive turn out not to have the diagnosis on autopsy. Read more: thenewsstar.com
No food safety threat from cloned animals
There is no indication that eating meat and milk from cloned animals holds any greater food safety risk than consumption of non-cloned food, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has said. Read more: foodproductiondaily.com
No comments:
Post a Comment