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Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

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Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#161

Post by altruios »

lopis wrote: post #92
sigmoid10 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accurate detection in individuals is still important for testing any potential cure. Otherwise you can only do normal population studies over a very long time and pray that you didn't miss on any confounding variables. With this level of accuracy in diagnosing, you can do targeted testing.

While that is true, it doesn't change the sentiment behind “We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” if knowing the diagnosis doesn't help you personally. Sure you might have a sense of responsibility for mankind but you still know you can't do anything to save yourself. With that said, lifestyle changes can slow down the onset of Alzheimer's, so knowing the diagnosis isn't totally useless.

> We have no cure. I don’t want to know.

This is an incredibly short sighted, fragile-ego protecting, selfish instinct.

Making plans while you are cognizant is valuable, and the sooner you know, the longer and better plans you can make. Making plans with friends and family should be done sooner than later with these kinds of things.

It absolutely helps to personally to know, but people avoid emotional pain like the plague. So they delay and delay and then the emotional pain is amplified anyway when things come to ahead. It really is better to rip that band-aid off sooner... I think.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#162

Post by ahazred8ta »

TechnicalVault wrote: post #136
dataflow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analogy has a rather fatal flaw, which is that we already know people who've gotten Alzheimer's , and we also know for a fact people will continue to fall victim to it, at a pretty predictable rate. i.e. the detection has already happened ! Anyone who was waiting for a potential victim to appear before researching the cure already has all the reasons they need to research it. Detecting whom exactly the next vict…

The reason the test and actually knowing who is likely to develop the disease is useful is that we don't know enough about the early pre-symptomatic stages of Alzheimer's. A lot of research has been focused on purging the plaques which form in the late stages of the disease and thus failed because these seem to be symptomatic rather than causative. The false positives are also very interesting from a research point o…

[testing positive for the disease but it's not progressing] -- Yes, exactly this. There are people with two copies of the bad APOE4 gene. 95% of them develop early-onset Alzheimer's in their 50s. The medical community is now very intensely studying the remaining 5% to find out what's causing them to NOT get sick.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#163

Post by cafebeen »

janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

While not a cure, there are many known modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s, so to some extent we know enough to deflect / mitigate dementia: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#164

Post by david-gpu »

MarkusQ wrote: post #157
david-gpu wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forming a personal opinion after years of interest in the subject is fine. You asserting that opinion as a fact is the problem. It is a tale as old as time. See the story behind the term. ultracrepidarian: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ultracrepidarian#English

Versus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority See also: https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabricatio... Amateur's asserting their opinions as facts isn't great, but epistemologically it's no worse (and systemically, like less harmful) than when the experts do it.

Experts, when given the chance, have a tendency to speak with nuance and describe the degree of confidence they have in different statements.

Compare this with an amateur writing with certainty about a subject that subject matter experts continue to debate after decades of work.

I know which one of the two I would rather bother listening to.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#165

Post by 8crazyideas »

Sorry, but the test hasn't been shown to be 94.5% accurate. The study was structured as: 1. neurologist makes clinical diagnosis using usual tools and records most likely diagnosis and their confidence in it 2. new p-tau test is done. 3. neurologists reassess their confidence, and change their mind in many cases. There is no "gold standard" here (tough to have in AD) and not even a period of clinical follow-up to assess for any interval change. The study shows that patients got reclassified, but never showed that such reclassification was more accurate than the initial one, and by how much. There is an implication that because in a different, retrospective study the test did show some accuracy, that it would be helpful in this new situation. But that's about it, and different than directly showing this to be the case.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#166

Post by RiverStone »

ahazred8ta wrote: post #162
TechnicalVault wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason the test and actually knowing who is likely to develop the disease is useful is that we don't know enough about the early pre-symptomatic stages of Alzheimer's. A lot of research has been focused on purging the plaques which form in the late stages of the disease and thus failed because these seem to be symptomatic rather than causative. The false positives are also very interesting from a research point o…

[testing positive for the disease but it's not progressing] -- Yes, exactly this. There are people with two copies of the bad APOE4 gene. 95% of them develop early-onset Alzheimer's in their 50s. The medical community is now very intensely studying the remaining 5% to find out what's causing them to NOT get sick.

Can you provide the source for the 95% figure?

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#167

Post by wordglyph »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #158
wordglyph wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your gut bacteria is the prevention and the cure.

That's a hypothesis. If we knew that for certain, it would be really big news; and we could investigate to learn why , and then we could isolate the causative factors and perhaps find other ways of deploying them… If you know something the rest of us don't, prove it: show us the evidence, show us the specific hypotheses, describe a repeatable experiment, show us the results if such an experiment has been performed. I…

You do realize they already are investigating, right? Even looking into MS and parkinson. ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE (AD) and AD DEMENTIA Umbrella review (systematic reviews of SRs): https://www.nature.com/articles/s44400-025-00048-6

Systematic review + meta-analysis (basal microbiota; AD): https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11672027/

Replicated case-control + functional metagenomics (AD dementia): https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.100...

Large-cohort metagenomics (stage-specific / early pathology signals): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40164697

Mendelian randomization (AD): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38788075/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S227458072... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40665707/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25424823261422629 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.20.25333769v...

Narrative / mechanisms (useful synthesis, not primary causal proof): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15681...

MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT (MCI) / DEMENTIA (cognition-focused evidence) Systematic review (MCI or Alzheimer’s dementia; PRISMA, PROSPERO): https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8377/17/10/155 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41149776/

Scoping review (MCI and AD gut microbiomes + interventions, through Feb 2023): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12825029/

Systematic review of microbiota-targeted interventions for cognition/dementia risk: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027153172...

RCT-focused systematic review/meta-analysis of probiotics for cognitive impairment risk/AD/MCI: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12645680/

FMT in dementia/MCI context (review of effects across neuro cohorts): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266635462...

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS (MS) Microbiome signatures via global data integration / ML: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12383397/

Systematic review/meta-analysis of probiotics in MS (preclinical + clinical): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Systematic review + meta-analysis (antimicrobial exposure and MS risk; microbiome-disruption relevant): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22110...

Mendelian randomization (gut microbiota causally linked to MS): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39065244/ https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/12/7/1476

Broad MS gut dysbiosis and therapeutic modulation review: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12668904/

MS gut-brain-barrier and intestinal barrier review: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10....

Example MS cohort biomarker/signature work: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-64369-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-19998-1

PARKINSON’S DISEASE (PD) Multi-cohort metagenomic meta-analysis (Nat Commun, 2025): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56829-3 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40335465/

Large metagenomics cohort (Nat Commun, 2022): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34667-x

Integrated multi-cohort gut metagenome (Movement Disorders, 2023): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36691982/ https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.100...

Metagenomic analysis (Movement Disorders, 2024): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39192744/

PD causal-inference and MR discussion (review-type synthesis): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12512240/

MR study example (PD gut microbiota): https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/fulltext/2025/10310/caus...

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#168

Post by hn1986 »

criddell wrote: post #129
hn1986 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are treatments that can help slow progression, especially if it's found early.

What are they? I've read about basic lifestyle suggestions (diet and exercise), but I consider that the baseline. What can be done beyond that?

Lots of good info here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/

Look up some of the more recent treatments - many of which will get better with time. That's why detecting Alzheimer's early is a big deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#169

Post by ahazred8ta »

RiverStone wrote: post #166
ahazred8ta wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[testing positive for the disease but it's not progressing] -- Yes, exactly this. There are people with two copies of the bad APOE4 gene. 95% of them develop early-onset Alzheimer's in their 50s. The medical community is now very intensely studying the remaining 5% to find out what's causing them to NOT get sick.

Can you provide the source for the 95% figure?

Sloppy wording. -- Fortea (2024) -- Over 95% of people with two copies have amyloid beta in their cerebrospinal fluid. (not full-blown Alzheimers symptoms, just early detection)

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/06/scie...

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#170

Post by dataflow »

friendzis wrote: post #107
dataflow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analogy has a rather fatal flaw, which is that we already know people who've gotten Alzheimer's , and we also know for a fact people will continue to fall victim to it, at a pretty predictable rate. i.e. the detection has already happened ! Anyone who was waiting for a potential victim to appear before researching the cure already has all the reasons they need to research it. Detecting whom exactly the next vict…

> Detecting whom exactly the next victim is going to be isn't really going to change anything as far as researching a treatment or cure goes. Your reasoning relies heavily on this statement, which is only true if occurrence is entirely random, which is in most cases not true. A condition can easily mask the cause of the condition and then you have a confounder(-s) that you have no way of controlling. If you can build…

Not to sound like an LLM, but what else can I say—you're absolutely right!
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