A new study has found an association between levels of a sugar molecule in blood and a key protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), potentially paving the way for the development of a simple, non-invasive screening to predict the risk of AD up to 10 years in advance.

According to Devdiscourse, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found that a sugar molecule called glycan is linked to the level of tau, a protein that plays a critical role in the development of severe dementia.

Glycans are sugar molecules that are found on the surface of proteins, and determine the location and function of these proteins in the body.

“We demonstrate in our study that blood levels of glycan are altered early during the development of the disease,” said Robin Zhou, from Karolinska Institutet who is the lead author of the study that was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. “This could mean that we’ll be able to predict the risk of Alzheimer’s disease with only a blood test and a memory test.”

In the progression of AD, the brain neurons die possibly because of the accumulation of the proteins amyloid beta and tau, says Devdiscourse. In clinical trials of AD drugs, results show that if treatments are commenced early enough, before too many neurons have died, it may be able to reverse the progress of the disease before it’s too late.

By measuring blood glycan levels, the researchers found that people with matching levels of glycans and tau were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s-type dementia.

“We also show that a simple statistical model that takes into account blood glycan and tau levels, the risk gene APOE4 and a memory test, can be used to predict Alzheimer’s disease with a reliability of 80 % almost a decade before symptoms such as memory loss appear,” said co-author Sophia Schedin Weiss.

The data was collected from blood samples taken from 233 participants in the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care from 2001 to 2004. The participants were regularly monitored every three to six years, assessing them for factors such as memory loss and dementia for a total period of 17 years. The researchers found that people with matching levels of tau and glycan in their blood had more than twice the risk for developing AD.

According to Technology Networks, it is estimated that 6.7 million Americans over the age of 65 are living with AD. There is currently no cure or treatments to slow the progression of the disease, though there are some drugs available to help manage or ease its symptoms. Current screening methods, such as sampling cerebrospinal fluid and brain imaging, can be expensive and difficult to perform. Noninvasive screening methods such as detecting biomarkers in the blood would provide both practical and financial benefits.

“We are collaborating with researchers in primary care in Sweden to evaluate different biomarkers for dementia at primary health care centers,” said Weiss. “We hope that the glycans in the blood will prove to be a valuable complement to current methods of screening people for Alzheimer’s disease that will enable the disease to be detected early, “ the researcher said.