A couple of recent news items worthy of posting. First, a new blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/health/alzheimers-blood-test.html?searchResultPosition=4
Second, a new study documents a substantial decline in new cases of dementia in US and Europe. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/health/alzheimers-dementia-rates.html?searchResultPosition=1
This blood test very, very accurately predicts who’s got Alzheimer’s disease in their brain, including people who seem to be normal,” said Dr. Michael Weiner, an Alzheimer’s disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. “It’s not a cure, it’s not a treatment, but you can’t treat the disease without being able to diagnose it. And accurate, low-cost diagnosis is really exciting, so it’s a breakthrough.”
Second, a new study documents a substantial decline in new cases of dementia in US and Europe. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/health/alzheimers-dementia-rates.html?searchResultPosition=1
Despite the lack of effective treatments or preventive strategies, the dementia epidemic is on the wane in the United States and Europe, scientists reported on Monday.
The risk for a person to develop dementia over a lifetime is now 13 percent lower than it was in 2010. Incidence rates at every age have steadily declined over the past quarter-century. If the trend continues, the paper’s authors note, there will be 15 million fewer people in Europe and the United States with dementia than there are now.
The study is the most definitive yet to document a decline in dementia rates.