There’s a new blood test that can predict when a person is likely to start experiencing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis helped develop the highly accurate single blood test. It’s a part of a public-private partnership known as the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Biomarkers Consortium.
More than 7 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease. Health and long-term care costs for AD and other forms of dementia were projected to reach nearly $400 billion in 2025, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“Our work shows the feasibility of using blood tests, which are substantially cheaper and more accessible than brain imaging scans or spinal fluid tests, for predicting the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms,” said Dr. Suzanne E. Schindler, an associate professor in the WashU Medicine Department of Neurology.
She noted that these models could enable clinical trials of potentially preventive treatments to be conducted more quickly.
“In the near term, these models will accelerate our
research and clinical trials,” Schindler added. “Eventually, the goal is to be able to tell individual patients when they are likely to develop symptoms, which will help them and their doctors to develop a plan to prevent or slow symptoms.”Protein Forecasts Symptoms in Alzheimer’s Clock
Schindler is the senior author of the new study, which she said provides an “Alzheimer’s clock” to predict when symptoms would appear within a margin of error of three to four years.
The models that researchers developed use a protein called p-tau217 in an individual’s plasma, the liquid part of the blood, to estimate the age at which they will begin experiencing symptoms of neurodegenerative disease.
Currently, levels of p-tau217 in the plasma can be used to help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s in patients with cognitive impairment.
These tests are not recommended in cognitively unimpaired individuals outside of clinical trials or research.
“We aimed to use measurements from a single plasma sample to estimate not only the probability of a cognitively unimpaired individual
with positive AD biomarkers developing AD symptoms but also when they would be likely to develop symptoms,” researchers wrote in Nature Medicine, where the study was published.RELATED CONTENT: Welcome To Jamrock! Lost In Time Festival 2026 Solidifies Jamaica’s Iconic Reggae Legacy