Alzheimer’s: Signs can be detected up to 9 years before the first symptoms appear

People who would develop the disease had difficulty performing certain tasks nearly a decade before diagnosis, a study in the UK reveals.

RIO – Scientists from the University of Cambridge, UK, have revealed that it is possible to detect the first signs of dementia up to nine years before the patient receives a specific diagnosis, such as Alzheimer’s.

In the work published this Friday, 14, in the publication Alzheimer’s and dementia: the newspaper of the Alzheimer’s Association, the team of scientists analyzed information from Biobank, the British biomedical database. The team found signs of difficulty in several specific areas, such as troubleshooting and remembering specific numbers.

“When we look at the patients’ histories, it is very clear that they already had some signs of cognitive problems many years before the symptoms became evident enough to warrant a diagnosis,” said Nol Swaddiwudhipong, lead author of the study.

The findings raise the possibility that, in the future, patients at higher risk of developing some type of dementia may be mapped for early interventions or for clinical trials of new drugs.

Analysis of the information gathered in the biomedical database revealed that people who developed Alzheimer’s already performed worse than healthy individuals in problem-solving tasks, reaction time to stimuli, ability to remember numbers, prospective memory (our ability to remember something to do later), among others. This has also been seen in people who have developed a rare form of dementia called frontotemporal dementia.

Diabetes medication can reduce the risk of dementia

A study published this week in the scientific journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care also found that some drugs against diabetes they can reduce the risk of dementia by up to 22% in patients. According to the researchers, the findings help better plan drug selection for patients with type 2 diabetes and high-risk dementia, a condition that affects brain function and is associated with its two main subtypes. Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia.

Scientists compared the risk of developing dementia in patients with type 2 diabetes, aged 60 years or older, treated with three classes of drugs: sulfonylurea (ON), thiazolidinedione (TZD) and metformin (ENCOUNTERED). Treatment lasted at least a year, and after that time, the group taking TZD had a 22% lower risk of having any type of dementia than participants taking MET alone.

According to them, the findings make a significant contribution to the literature on the effects of diabetes medications on dementia. The study, however, is considered to be observational in nature. The team believes future research may reuse oral antidiabetic agents for dementia prevention and may consider prioritizing the use of TZD.

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Source: Terra

Benjamin

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