This simple blood test could catch Alzheimer’s before it steals your memory

A historical study revealed that a simple blood test could reveal signs of early alert from Alzheimer’s Years before the appearance of symptoms.

By analyzing blood biomarkers in more than 5,700 Hispanic and Latino adults, UC San Diego researchers have identified proteins related to memory loss and cognitive decline, even in good health. This breakthrough offers hope for faster, less invasive and more affordable screening.

Blood -based indices on Alzheimer’s detection

A historical study involving Hispanic and Latino adults has revealed that self -depressed memory and thought problems are linked to blood biomarkers. Researchers at the University of California of San Diego School of Medicine say that this discovery could open the door to a simple blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Such a test would be faster, less invasive and more affordable than the screening methods currently used. The results were published in Jama Network Open.

“We need means to identify underlying neurodegenerative diseases earlier in patients with cognitive symptoms,” said the corresponding author Freddie Márquez, Ph.D., a postdoctoral scholar of the neuroscience department of UC San Diego School of Medicine. “This study highlights the promise of blood -based biomarkers as a more accessible and evolutionary tool to understand the cognitive decline, in particular in the populations that have been poorly served by traditional methods.”

Current blood tests: expensive and limited

Currently, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has only clarified one blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. This test, called Light G ptau217 / Aβ42 plasma The report, can detect proteins linked to Alzheimer’s in the blood but remains expensive and is only offered in specialized medical centers. The question of whether blood tests can be systematically invoked for early detection of Alzheimer’s through wider populations is still uncertain.

To investigate more, the UC San Diego team relied on the data from the Latinos study – neurocognitive aging investigators. This clinical study involved participants in the study / health study of the Latinos’ Hispanic community, the largest long-term long-term survey on the most of the United States and Latino health and Latin health in the United States.

Alzheimer’s risk and representation in research

“We think that Hispanic and Latinos adults are more likely to obtain Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, and this group should have the highest increase in the prevalence of diseases in the coming decades,” said the main author Hector M. González, PH.D., professor in the Department of Neuroscience of the UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Despite this, they are still considerably underrepresented in the search for Alzheimer’s and dementia, which our study aimed to approach.”

The researchers tested the blood of 5,712 Hispanic and / or Latino adults aged 50 to 86, looking for proteins that are present in the brain in people with Alzheimer’s disease, such as amyloid and tau beta proteins. They also assessed the participants in a subjective cognitive decline, which refers to a decline in the cognitive status that the individual perceives.

The researchers discovered:

• Higher blood rates of the NFL (marker of nerve cell lesions) and GFAP (marker of brain inflammation) have been associated with a more self -depressed drop in global thinking, planning and cognitive performance. Higher blood rates of the NFL and the TAU protein (Ptau-181) were also associated with more self-deplary memory drops.
• The blood rates of the amyloid-bêta protein (Aβ42 / 40), a protein well known to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the brain, have shown no association with a subjective cognitive decline.
• Even in cognitive health individuals, associations between NFL and self -deprecated cognitive performance decreases have remained, which suggests that NFL can detect early cognition changes.

In addition to providing evidence that blood biomarkers can be used to detect Alzheimer’s disease early and related dementias, researchers also note that a force of their study is its diversified population.

“By including participants from under-represented communities, we are able to better understand how the social determinants of health and comorbidities can influence cognitive trajectories and the risk of dementia,” added Márquez. “This makes our results particularly relevant for the parameters of the real world.”

Cautious

However, researchers also warn that it will take additional research for this approach to make its way in a generalized clinical practice, and that even if this occurs, the test will always be only a tool in the diagnostic arsenal of a clinician.

It is important to note that there are still many things that we do not know about the usefulness of blood biomarkers for the detection of Alzheimer’s detection, “said Márquez.” These tests have enormous potential, but they should complete existing approaches, and not replace them. »»

Reference: “Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease and subjective cognitive decline in Hispanic and / or Latinos adults” by Freddie Márquez, Wassim Tarraf, Kevin Gonzalez, Deisha F. Valencia, Ariana M. Stickel, Natasha Z. Anita, Daniela Sotres-Alvarez, Bonnie E. Levine, Michael A. Yasa. Zhou, Martha Daviglus, Amber Pirzada, Zachary T. Goodman, Bharat Thyagarajan, Linda C. Gallo and Hector M. González, September 5, 2025, Jama Network Open.
DOI: 10.1001 / JamanetWorkopen.2025.31038

The additional co-authors of the study include Kevin Gonzalez, deisha F. Valencia and Natasha Z. Anita in UC San Diego, Wassim Tarraf in Wayne State University, Ariana M. Stickel and Linda C. Gallo in San Diego State University at the University of Miami, Michael A. Yassa in Uc Irvine, Martha Daviglus and Amber Pirzada at the University of Illinois in Chicago and Bharat Thyagarajan at the University of Minnesota.

This study was funded, in part, by subsidies from the National Institute of Aging (R01AG075758). The study / study of health of the Hispanic community of Latinos (HCHS / SOL) is a collaborative study supported by NHLBI contracts at the University of North Carolina (HHSN268201300001i / N01-HC-65233), University of Miami (Grant N °. HHSN268201300002i / N01-HC-65235), University of Illinois in Chicago (Grant N ° HHSN268201300003i / N01- HC-65236 Northwest University) and the State University of San Diego (Grant N ° HHSN268201300005i / N01-HC-65237).

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