{"id":405,"date":"2026-08-03T16:32:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/?p=405"},"modified":"2026-08-03T16:32:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:32:39","slug":"new-alzheimers-blood-test-may-tell-when-symptoms-are-around-the-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"New Alzheimer\u2019s blood test may tell when symptoms are around the corner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Alzheimer\u2019s blood test may tell when symptoms are around the corner <\/span>
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Wednesday, July 1, 2026<\/p>\n

New Alzheimer\u2019s blood test may tell when symptoms are around the corner <\/h1>\n

A novel biomarker beats the leading diagnostic blood test at predicting disease progression.<\/p>\n

Small loops of genetic material\u00a0may be strong indicators of imminent Alzheimer\u2019s disease\u00a0(AD)\u00a0symptoms. In a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study, researchers showed that\u00a0elevated levels of certain circular\u00a0RNAs\u00a0(circRNAs)\u00a0in the blood\u00a0nearly tripled\u00a0patients\u2019 risk\u00a0of developing symptoms,\u00a0suggesting these molecules are more sensitive to symptom onset than traditional\u00a0AD\u00a0biomarkers.<\/p>\n

Current\u00a0AD\u00a0blood tests\u00a0offer reliable diagnoses by\u00a0detecting\u00a0markers of amyloid plaques, a hallmark\u00a0of the disease.\u00a0However,\u00a0these tests, which can produce positive results\u00a0potentially\u00a0decades before cognitive\u00a0impairment, are not\u00a0highly\u00a0informative of\u00a0how a patient\u2019s disease will progress.\u00a0This new\u00a0research lays groundwork for a\u00a0kind of\u00a0test\u00a0that\u00a0could potentially\u00a0predict symptom onset.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a clinical setting, being able to\u00a0identify\u00a0patients on the verge of\u00a0symptom onset\u00a0would be invaluable. Having this\u00a0information could help us\u00a0select\u00a0the right patients for clinical trials and better\u00a0determine\u00a0which treatments are effective at preventing cognitive decline,\u201d said Richard Hodes, M.D., director of NIH\u2019s National Institute on Aging (NIA).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike amyloid plaques,\u00a0which accumulate slowly in the brain,\u00a0circRNAs\u00a0are\u00a0far more dynamic, reflecting\u00a0the brain\u2019s more\u00a0recent\u00a0activity.\u00a0In\u00a0a previous\u00a0study<\/a>,\u00a0Carlos Cruchaga,\u00a0Ph.D.,\u00a0and colleagues\u00a0at the Washington University\u00a0School of Medicine, St. Louis,\u00a0linked\u00a0circRNAs\u00a0in the\u00a0brain to\u00a0dementia and neuropathological severity.\u00a0To learn if these molecules held clinical promise, they needed to see if these associations held up\u00a0among\u00a0circRNAs\u00a0circulating in\u00a0blood, a far more accessible tissue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cruchaga and his co-authors analyzed blood\u00a0data\u00a0from more than 1,200 people\u00a0from multiple independent cohorts, finding a set of 34\u00a0circRNAs\u00a0that were associated with\u00a0AD.\u00a0Predictive models\u00a0based on these associations\u00a0successfully\u00a0identified\u00a0individuals with\u00a0AD\u00a0pathology, performing similarly to models trained on the protein\u00a0pTau217\u00a0data\u00a0\u2014 the leading\u00a0clinical\u00a0blood-based biomarker for AD.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0circRNA\u00a0model\u00a0far\u00a0surpassed the pTau217 model\u00a0when looking into the future, however. The 34\u00a0circRNAs\u00a0were stronger predictors of a patient\u2019s progression to symptomatic AD, with\u00a0additional\u00a0experiments suggesting that their levels seem to diverge from normal about two to four years prior to symptom onset.\u00a0Notably, the authors produced similar findings in samples from two independent cohorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These results\u00a0may be foundational for tests that could not only\u00a0help\u00a0clinicians\u00a0identify\u00a0candidates for novel treatments\u00a0but\u00a0also\u00a0monitor\u00a0their response, especially for drugs that target amyloid plaques.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients being treated with novel A\u03b2-removal therapies,\u00a0can become\u00a0pTau\u00a0negative but still have Alzheimer\u2019s disease. These circular RNAs may grant us a more complete perspective of someone\u2019s overall disease biology,\u201d said Cruchaga, the study\u2019s corresponding author.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Together with commercial partners, the researchers are currently\u00a0working to\u00a0develop\u00a0translatable\u00a0clinical assays\u00a0for blood-based\u00a0circRNAs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have good science and models, but we\u2019re\u00a0ultimately\u00a0doing this to help people,\u201d Cruchaga said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NIH supported this research through NIA grants\u00a0R01AG064614, U01AG084514, R01AG078964, R01AG058501, R01AG071706, P30AG066444, R01AG064877, P30AG066444, P01AG03991, and P01AG026276\u00a0and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) grant\u00a0P01NS131131.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

About the National Institute on Aging (NIA):<\/strong>\u00a0NIA\u00a0seeks\u00a0to understand the nature of aging and diseases associated with growing older, with the goal of extending the healthy, active years of life.\u00a0https:\/\/www.nia.nih.gov<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):<\/strong> NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NIH\u2026Turning Discovery Into Health\u00ae<\/sup><\/p>\n

Reference<\/h3>\n

Bridget Phillips\u00a0et al.\u00a0Blood-Based Circular RNAs for early diagnosis of Alzheimer\u2019s Disease.\u00a0Nature Medicine. 2026. DOI:\u00a010.1038\/s41591-026-04485-5<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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National Institute on Aging<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source: NIH News Releases<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A novel biomarker beats the leading diagnostic blood test at predicting disease progression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-health-medical-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirstier.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}