8 ms·

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

451 points by wglb 8mo ago

wglb 8mo ago
Paper is at Springer Nature Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-026-13676-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-026-13676-6
toisanji 8mo ago
Great but the big problem is how to actively treat it. Sleep is a huge factor and that’s a problem for us insomniacs :(
janalsncm 8mo ago
For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. If it turns out that driving a Prius on Tuesdays slows down Alzheimer’s, a larger pool of subjects would allow us to figure that out.
- viking123 8mo ago
  Well, the AI CEOs are telling we will have AGI in ~5 years, so with millions of agents with AGI this thing should be sorted soon ;)
- tptacek 8mo ago
  The accuracy of this test is nowhere nearly good enough to do population-wide screening. The clinical setting for this test is memory clinics in which Alzheimers is already relatively highly likely differentially, and even there you're going to get a surprising number of false positives. (There's enough info in the supplemental link on this page to have an LLM do the Bayes math for you.)
  - probably_wrong 8mo ago
    Off-topic: I only came to this thread because I thought "I bet some comment will manage to somehow include LLMs in the discussion". Looks like my prior was not too bad :)
- melling 8mo ago
  This again? The test is optional. Feel free to skip it. Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade.
  - tptacek 8mo ago
    Nobody is ever going to do that with this test, because the overwhelming majority of positive test results in a population-wide sample will be false, and the proposed diagnosis is devastating. This is a test for people who already have symptomatic dementia that helps confirm the diagnosis.
    - Dylan16807 8mo ago
      Well this test isn't for whether you will get Alzheimer's, so that disqualifies it before we even consider the accuracy. But apparently your odds go above 30% if you live long enough, so if you could test for being in that cohort I think that result would be too common to actually be devastating.
  - jcranmer 8mo ago
    > Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade. Pharmaceutical companies have spent something like $50 billion on developing Alzheimer's drugs with, well, the most furtive of straw-grasping to show for it. It's probably the most expensive single disease target (especially as things like cancer are families of diseases)... the failure to have good results isn't for lack of money, and merely throwing more money at it is unlikely to actually make progress towards meaningful treatments.
    - hattmall 8mo ago
      It just seems really obvious to me that it's not one disease. One problem with the research is that there is SO much money. It's corrupting. There's a whole thing about the plaque cartel and if you aren't testing around a possibly flawed concept the availability of funds is much lower. I just feel the thinking is off, it's like we are trying to treat cuts by removing scabs and scar tissue. We really need deep investigation on the sources, which I feel in many cases are industrial chemicals and how some people's body / immune system respond to them. One of the most compelling studies I saw was how distance from a Golf Course predicted neurodegenerative diseases, based on their use of certain pesticides.
- zdc1 8mo ago
  I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. It's also better for people around the Alzheimer's patient, as it will let them understand why someone's personality and behaviours may be changing, and possibly let them be bit more forgiving of such changes. It will also give family more time to plan and understand the health and community services and support are offered wherever they live.
  - organsnyder 8mo ago
    > I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. Everyone should assume that they could lose their full mental capacity at any moment. Strokes, brain injuries, etc. can occur at any age with no warning. My wife and I finally went through the entire estate planning process several years ago. It was comforting to know that we had a plan for a myriad of scenarios (including the incredibly depressing decision of where our assets would go if our entire family—us and our kids—was gone at the same time).
- voidhorse 8mo ago
  There are more personal practical reasons too. Even though it cannot be reversed or eradicated (yet, let's hope) detection can allow individuals to adopt interventions that help either adjust their lives to better cope with its progression or help mitigate some of the detrimental behavioral consequences. In addition, if you have family to care for it may be impetus to get certain things in order for them before later stages of the disease, etc. It's horrible and bleak, but I could certainly see why one might want to know. In the lucky case, it can also relieve anxiety. Even though false negatives may still be possible, receiving a negative detection might give people who have anxiety about certain symptoms relief, since they can rule out (rightly or wrongly) a pretty severe disease.
- treetalker 8mo ago
  If the patient still has periods of lucidity but the disease is suspected to be advancing, knowing they have it could prompt them to get their legal affairs in order.
- bgirard 8mo ago
  It's very useful to understand what you're struggling from even if it's not curable. It explains your symptoms, your experience and help you understand what you're going through. Understanding that you're suffering from something incurable is also helpful in not looking for other ineffective methods to cure a mysterious illness.
- ronbenton 8mo ago
  Having struggled with hard to diagnose health issues before, I can’t emphasize enough how much of a relief it is to put a name on the disease that is causing you so much harm. It is frankly shocking to think disease diagnosis would be a useless thing
- Baeocystin 8mo ago
  I know two people who have been taking the new monoclonal antibody treatment for it. One who was a bit further along when she started, and did not show any significant improvement. The one who started while she was still in the early stages has completely arrested her descent. She hasn't recovered much of what she already lost, but she's still able to live independently and enjoy life, and her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year. That's a hell of a thing.
  - maybelsyrup 8mo ago
    Wait what treatment is this?
    - aix1 8mo ago
      Probably either lecanemab (older) or donanemab (newer).
      - Baeocystin 8mo ago
        In my friend's case, donanemab, FWIW.
  - ulfw 8mo ago
    How do you know it's completely arrested? Best these type of drugs can do is give you a few months extra window (say 4-6 months). They're not a cure. Sadly.
    - rowanG077 8mo ago
      They tell you this: > her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year
    - Baeocystin 8mo ago
      Completely arrested? I don't. But it appears to be arrested in ways that matter for mental acuity, for now. I've taken care of a parent with Alzheimer's, and helped several other caregivers over the years with their own family's journeys, and one thing I can tell you is that I have never, ever seen an actual halting of the progression for this long. The descent is usually a stairstep pattern, but the steps are on the matter of weeks to a month or two. My friend has been stable for a year. This is all new. There is research hinting at Alzheimer's subtypes, some of which are more likely to respond than others. Even halting the decline is a huge potential breakthrough.
- toomuchtodo 8mo ago
  If a loved one is suffering from this, this diagnostic would allow for interventions such as guardianship to assume financial and logistical responsibility for them with less subjective decisioning based on observations alone.
- hn1986 8mo ago
  there are treatments that can help slow progression, especially if it's found early.
  - criddell 8mo ago
    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?
    - hn1986 8mo ago
      Lots of good info here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/ 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab
- staticassertion 8mo ago
  I assume this is hugely beneficial for research on intervention methods, not for treatment. I think everyone is focusing on "I'd rather know" but imagine if you could get larger populations with a diagnosis earlier on, how impactful that would be for testing an intervention?
- irjustin 8mo ago
  > why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s At a personal level, I've been through this with my grandfather. I want to know. My family wants to know. I want to prepare because there are things I want to do today that I know I won't be able to do in the future. In many ways, it's just like many terminal cancer diagnoses. You're going to lose that person, but you have some time.
  - hattmall 8mo ago
    But it is a wildly variated, almost meaningless diagnosis. 3 of my 4 grandparents got Alzheimer's diagnosis as well as my mom and mother-in-law. The variation of progression and symptoms is so wide that it really seems like a catch-all. One grandmother was fine until about 72 and in 2 years forgot who people were and 4 years had lost all executive function and passed away. The other one was diagnosed in her early 80s and lived to be 96 with no major progression, like slightly more repeating, but never forgetting people or not knowing how to talk etc. Similar dichotomy between my mother and mother-in-law but with considerably different presentations of symptoms. It's a weird disease and IMO not even really a disease it's a bunch of different causes of cognitive impairment under one umbrella but shouldn't be separated out much further to find actual causes and treatments.
- protocolture 8mo ago
  Most people get a dementia (or related) diagnosis after they are deep enough in it so that they cant do much about it or get their affairs in order. My grandfather had a "fall" at work, he then left that job, and held down 2 more engineering jobs before he was diagnosed with a stroking condition and subsequent dementia. I got the distinct impression he thought he had more time, but rapidly declined. If he knew he was short of time before his rapid decline he probably would have done things differently. Like not buying a house he would later have to sell to pay for aged care. If he knew he was at risk of a workplace accident he probably wouldn't have worked as an after hours safety engineer at a major treatment plant, where if the worst had happened he could have endangered others.
- OneMorePerson 8mo ago
  Being able to know someone's risk factor would be important for how we treat elderly people. I know someone who is 85 and super sharp (previously worked as a corporate accountant and banker), they still have a better memory than a lot of 40-50 year olds, and yet they are constantly harassed by eldercare "agents" for the state because whenever they make a investment decision that is even slightly questionable they get reported to the state by the bank. Sometimes the bank refuses to authorize transactions. If they could conclusively prove they aren't at risk I think they would be left alone much more often.
- gilgoomesh 8mo ago
  For 20-ish% of Alzheimer's patients, the Shingles vaccine may be a treatment. This has been suspected for a few years now but has received recent confirmation studies. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-research-shingles-vaccine-treatment-alzheimers-disease https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-rese...
  - adrian_b 8mo ago
    While the study was about the shingles vaccine, I wonder if having passed normally through shingles influences positively or negatively the chances of later developing Alzheimer's.
- Aurornis 8mo ago
  > For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Getting an accurate diagnosis is always important. Cognitive decline could be caused by other problems, some of which are more treatable than others. If this test came back negative it would suggest extra testing to rule out other conditions like a brain tumor or hydrocephalus.
- redox99 8mo ago
  > For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed There's Lecanemab and Donanemab. The effects are modest however.
  - ChadNauseam 8mo ago
    Trontinemab is in trials right now and has 92% of patients achieving low amyloid levels. And more people should be able to take it as it causes less brain swelling (ARIA-E). I'm unaffiliated, I just follow medical research in my free time. But I'm quite hopeful about this medication
- peter_retief 8mo ago
  This disease is in my family, honestly not sure I would want to know if I will get it.
- shevy-java 8mo ago
  I understand the "detect deadly progression but no cure" problem; this was the same rationale people used when Huntington disease could be verified in diagnostics. Many people don't want to know, but some want to know, in particular as you can manage some things here or there - diet affects many things, for instance, even aside from metaboic genetic defects. And for any (molecular) therapy at a later time you need to understand the molecular basis to some extent. Some things can be found out via trial and error (vaccination and before) but for some disease that can not work. Alzheimer is quite complex.
- eshack94 8mo ago
  Not saying anything about the article at-hand, but assuming we were able to detect it with such certainty, I think it would greatly increase the funding, rigor, and breadth or research devoted to finding a cure or treatment that actually worked.
- raincole 8mo ago
  > doctors correctly diagnosed Alzheimer's in 75.5% of cases, but when incorporating blood test results, diagnostic accuracy increased to 94.5% These patients are already seeing doctors. Would you rather your doctor to hide the diagnosis just because your disease isn't curable (for now)? It's not like we're testing the whole population in masse.
- KurSix 8mo ago
  Even without a cure, there's still a lot of practical value in knowing earlier
- snowhale 8mo ago
  [dead]
- scott_w 8mo ago
  > For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. Your point at the end is essentially correct. There's a couple of reasons that come to my mind: Early detection lets us test cures more quickly. You can see if the treatment is working without waiting 30 years for symptoms to develop or not. If prevention is all that works, we can verify lifestyle changes, again without having to wait 30 years for symptoms to develop. Early detection means there's more of a chance of any future treatment succeeding and the patient returning to a normal life. Think of early detection of cancer or heart disease meaning you can be treated with less risky medication and procedures and minimise the damage being done.
- hankman86 8mo ago
  To rule out Alzheimers when you wonder whether your recent episodes of forgetfulness have an underlying medical cause. That aside, some moderately effective drugs have recently been approved that can slow down the disease in its early stages. And even if you are no candidate for these: you can start organising the life around you while you still can. Like moving to an assisted living facility.
dzink 8mo ago
This needs to include life-changing false positive rates. Imagine being given a diagnosis like this - people around you who know and any corporations who can sniff it out by snooping on your communications can lead to much rejection early in life. What happens when the diagnosis is as positive when it shouldn’t have been?
- cpncrunch 8mo ago
  As per the article, the test is used in conjunction with clinical diagnosis, not instead of.
- Aurornis 8mo ago
  This isn't a predictive test that someone could take in early life. It's used to refine clinical diagnosis after patients present with cognitive severe decline. By the time someone gets this test, they have severe problems. The purpose of this test is to assist with the right diagnosis.
- Mathnerd314 8mo ago
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03622-w https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03622-w this is the paper they're basing the research on. So in primary care, the accuracy rates are in the 80s. So that's something like a 17% false positive rate. That's still like 5 to 1 odds of getting a correct result though. It's much better than nothing.
refurb 8mo ago
94.5% is actually terrible. If you have a prevalence of 10 in 1000, how do the numbers shake out? Well, you test all 1,000. If we assume a 95% accuracy for false-positive and false negatives? Of the 990 that you test that don't have the disease, the test will false state 50 do have the disease. Yikes! And of the 10 that do have the disease? You'll miss 1 of them.
- Aurornis 8mo ago
  This improves the diagnostic accuracy from around 75% to 95%. It's not terrible. This is a relatively good number. Diagnostics is just terribly difficult.
- monster_truck 8mo ago
  I got bad news about the specificity for most things this serious. Think the only one we absolutely nail is infectious disease detection. Spoilers: It's anywhere between 1-15 and 5-30% for false positives and 1-15/5-40 for false negatives. That's imaging, biomarkers, cancer screenings, etc Like, where do you think the concept of "second opinions" came from? Whimsy? Lets go ask a second doctor if I actually have cancer, it'll be fun!
- aix1 8mo ago
  > 94.5% is actually terrible. This statement is quite broad and misses several important factors. First of all, a test's sensitivity and specificity. The math in your example assumes a balanced test, but on what basis? The math comes out quite different for high-sensitivity or high-specificity tests. (Unfortunately, I could not find the numbers for the test in the linked article.) Secondly, whom are we testing? The prevalence rate in your example (1%) is unrealistically low even for the general population. But would we screen the general population? No, we'd screen high-risk groups: the elderly, those with certain APOE genotypes etc. Predictive values of a test depend hugely on the prevalence rate. Lastly, it depends on how the results are used. If it's a high-sensitivity test used to decide whom to send to the next tier in a multi-tier diagnostic system, it could actually be quite effective at that (very rarely missing the disease while greatly reducing the need for more expensive or more invasive testing).
suprgeek 8mo ago
Since the recent discoveries about Shingles Vaccine delaying dementia https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/link-between-shingles-vaccine-and-slowed-dementia-is-promising-says-expert/ https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/link-between-shingles-vaccine-... One of interesting checks in this study might be to check when (if) any of the participants had taken this vax and what the impact might be on an Alzimer's diagnosis.
- gabll 8mo ago
  Purely anecdotal, but I witnessed a person starting to experience a severe cognitive decline right after the two doses of the Shingles Vaccine. It can surely be a coincidence, but I was very surprised when I read about this study.
  - cik 8mo ago
    This anecdote is just that - a one off. We can use experiments, and papers to learn more, and should.
bradley13 8mo ago
Maybe I've misunderstood something, but how can they know the accuracy of the test? It is the best test out there, so if it misses a diagnosis, how do they reliably catch the false negative?
- MarcelOlsz 8mo ago
  If the patient forgets to follow-up. Badum tss. Thanks for the layup.
  - smt88 8mo ago
    Besides being a bad joke, this is in terrible taste on a thread read by people with Alzheimer's patients in their lives, and it violates HN's rules that discussion should be valuable and inspire curiosity.
  - junon 8mo ago
    This isn't Reddit.
- DavidSJ 8mo ago
  It’s one of the best blood tests. There are also PET scans, lumbar punctures (spinal taps), and postmortem analyses of brain tissue.
- WA 8mo ago
  Person has Alzheimer‘s (diagnosed by neurological assessment). Test this person with a blood test.
lencastre 8mo ago
so 94,5% sensitivity, or specificity? this thing with medical testing and false positives is tricky
janeway 8mo ago
“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 not wait for the cure before improving the measurement. You improve the measurement so that a cure becomes possible, targeted, and effective. Medicine is no different. Refusing to improve early, probabilistic diagnosis because today’s treatments are modest confuses sequence with outcome. Breakthroughs do not emerge from vague labels and mixed populations. They emerge from precise, quantitative stratification that allows real effects to be seen. The danger is not that we measure too early. It is that we continue making irreversible clinical and research decisions using imprecise, binary classifications while biological insight and therapeutic tools are advancing rapidly. Building the probabilistic layer now is not premature. It is how we make future intervention feasible.
- rossant 8mo ago
  I agree. I feel that many medical doctors do not share this mindset.
- jader201 8mo ago
  > “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.” I don’t think the analogy fits, for a couple reasons. 1. People not wanting to know whether they have Alzheimer’s is because of the fear of a fate worse than death — living with Alzheimer’s. 2. People not wanting to know whether they have Alzheimer’s is not the same was not wanting a way to detect it. As you said, being able to measure it may help lead to a cure/treatment. I doubt people are against improving detection — they may just not want the detection to be applied personally.
  - r0ze-at-hn 8mo ago
    Cure is the wrong word. Alzheimer’s can be best described as a failure of a system and "debris" accumulates faster than it can be "cleared". There are many moving parts and everyone is unique about the cause of their system failure. Wrote up my current systems understanding here https://metamagic.substack.com/p/the-alzheimers-equation https://metamagic.substack.com/p/the-alzheimers-equation, but it makes clear why treatments that target only one variable are mathematically doomed to fail to work on everyone and why there will never be a single "cure". It explains without needing to read 10,000 papers why we keep getting research talking about treatment X helps in some, but not all cases or symptom Y is associated in some, but not all, etc.
shevy-java 8mo ago
Alarm bells go up. 94.5% in itself is suspicious. It insinuates precision. I highly doubt you can go anywhere near 0.5% correctness.
- rustyhancock 8mo ago
  It says "accuracy". For the overall assessment. I.e. it needs the original 75% accuracy or so and boosts it another 20%. The problem is that the assessment itself is slow, expensive and requires skill. What we really want from a test is high specificity (a positive test means you have accuracy) and high sensitivity (if you get a negative test you don't have it). This is how we can offer screening.
- raincole 8mo ago
  > Compared with the final diagnosis, the pre-biomarker diagnosis was maintained in 71/200 cases (75.5%) (Kappa = 0.576), while the post-biomarker diagnosis was maintained in 189/200 cases (94.5%) (Kappa = 0.906). Even without this method, the doctors have been able to give diagnosis with 75.5% accuracy (according to the paper's claim).
- KingMob 8mo ago
  > 94.5% in itself is suspicious No it's not, that's a reported mean, presumably with the right number of significant digits. If you want to criticize the variance/stddev, do so, but you picked the wrong metric if that's what you wanted to complain about.
  - emil-lp 8mo ago
    How about this: def has_alzheimers(patient): return False What accuracy does this have?
    - KingMob 7mo ago
      High accuracy, actually, but non-existent sensitivity and high bias. What you're looking for is called "signal detection theory".
TheCapeGreek 8mo ago
PSA to those with family affected by dementia/Alzheimer's at a relatively early age (say <70yo): Get them tested for STDs, specifically Syphilis. Left untreated for a very long time (decade+), it spreads to the brain and causes dementia among other things. Older generations with stigmas, taboos, or from lower educational backgrounds seem (to me) less likely to get tested, so it seems plausible. Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their neurologist.
- kakacik 8mo ago
  Lenin famously died from it, you could see that obscure blank stare of a crazy person on his later photos
  - gametorch 8mo ago
    It's still debated whether Lenin died of syphilis. It's less wrong to say he died of strokes.
  - zoeysmithe 8mo ago
    He was shot in 1918 leaving bullets in his body and left him weakened, then in 1922 he suffered at least three debilitating strokes. He lost his ability so speak and had to learn to speak again. He even proposed assisted suicide because he was suffering so much. He then had a final fatal stroke in 1924. I don't think "he looks crazy so he must have had some STD" is medically accurate or remotely appropriate on what's supposed to be an academic forum. He most likely had brain damage towards the end thus his illness of course was reflected on his body looked. Lenin's eyes reflected his post-stroke damage. He was quite sane in his life and his work expanding on Marx is of course extremely important.
- bonsai_spool 8mo ago
  > Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their neurologist. The reason this was detected is that such testing is a standard practice with new dementia patients—among many other tests that identify etiologies of dementia. No need for a 'PSA'.
anthk 8mo ago
40 hz ultrasounds are part of the remedy.
- yard2010 8mo ago
  Sir this hackernews please provide sources
  - anthk 8mo ago
    https://news.mit.edu/2025/study-suggests-40hz-sensory-stimulation-may-benefit-some-alzheimers-patients-1114 https://news.mit.edu/2025/study-suggests-40hz-sensory-stimul...
    - wizzwizz4 8mo ago
      n=5, success rate 60%, not blinded; but it does appear that they already had reason to test the treatment, so it's not a green jellybeans situation.
mariuolo 8mo ago
Could earlier diagnoses contribute to finding causes and treatments?
- energy123 8mo ago
  Or it's cached and ready to be useful when a treatment does come around. Either way it's welcome.
- KurSix 8mo ago
  Maybe that’s actually one of the biggest reasons researchers care so much about earlier diagnosis
guerby 8mo ago
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8755961/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8755961/ "A narrative review on the effects of a ketogenic diet on patients with Alzheimer's disease" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1279770724003932 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S127977072... "Effects of ketogenic diet on cognitive function of patients with Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis" And anecdotes from the field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86CFw0qhVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86CFw0qhVc Revolutionizing Assisted Living: Hal Cranmer's Ketogenic & Carnivore Approach to Senior Wellness / Metabolic Mind
kittikitti 8mo ago
This is Theranos levels of marketing.
KurSix 8mo ago
I'd be curious to see how it performs outside of a specialist neurology setting and in larger, more diverse populations
aaronrobinson 8mo ago
We have no cure now but that may change and depend on early detection just as taking meds now can slow the onset. I don’t want to know makes no sense to me. You would plan your whole life differently and it would actually be quite liberating once you’d come to terms with it.
tgv 8mo ago
A detail, but an important one: the blood test brought the initial diagnosis closer to the final one. The result reflects the agreement between both diagnoses. The usefulness of the blood test depends on the quality of the final diagnosis, which can still be wrong.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
8crazyideas 8mo ago
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.

451 points by wglb 8mo ago

wglb 8mo ago

Paper is at Springer Nature Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-026-13676-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-026-13676-6

toisanji 8mo ago

Great but the big problem is how to actively treat it. Sleep is a huge factor and that’s a problem for us insomniacs :(

janalsncm 8mo ago

For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. If it turns out that driving a Prius on Tuesdays slows down Alzheimer’s, a larger pool of subjects would allow us to figure that out.

viking123 8mo ago
Well, the AI CEOs are telling we will have AGI in ~5 years, so with millions of agents with AGI this thing should be sorted soon ;)
tptacek 8mo ago
The accuracy of this test is nowhere nearly good enough to do population-wide screening. The clinical setting for this test is memory clinics in which Alzheimers is already relatively highly likely differentially, and even there you're going to get a surprising number of false positives. (There's enough info in the supplemental link on this page to have an LLM do the Bayes math for you.)
- probably_wrong 8mo ago
  Off-topic: I only came to this thread because I thought "I bet some comment will manage to somehow include LLMs in the discussion". Looks like my prior was not too bad :)
melling 8mo ago
This again? The test is optional. Feel free to skip it. Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade.
- tptacek 8mo ago
  Nobody is ever going to do that with this test, because the overwhelming majority of positive test results in a population-wide sample will be false, and the proposed diagnosis is devastating. This is a test for people who already have symptomatic dementia that helps confirm the diagnosis.
  - Dylan16807 8mo ago
    Well this test isn't for whether you will get Alzheimer's, so that disqualifies it before we even consider the accuracy. But apparently your odds go above 30% if you live long enough, so if you could test for being in that cohort I think that result would be too common to actually be devastating.
- jcranmer 8mo ago
  > Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade. Pharmaceutical companies have spent something like $50 billion on developing Alzheimer's drugs with, well, the most furtive of straw-grasping to show for it. It's probably the most expensive single disease target (especially as things like cancer are families of diseases)... the failure to have good results isn't for lack of money, and merely throwing more money at it is unlikely to actually make progress towards meaningful treatments.
  - hattmall 8mo ago
    It just seems really obvious to me that it's not one disease. One problem with the research is that there is SO much money. It's corrupting. There's a whole thing about the plaque cartel and if you aren't testing around a possibly flawed concept the availability of funds is much lower. I just feel the thinking is off, it's like we are trying to treat cuts by removing scabs and scar tissue. We really need deep investigation on the sources, which I feel in many cases are industrial chemicals and how some people's body / immune system respond to them. One of the most compelling studies I saw was how distance from a Golf Course predicted neurodegenerative diseases, based on their use of certain pesticides.
zdc1 8mo ago
I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. It's also better for people around the Alzheimer's patient, as it will let them understand why someone's personality and behaviours may be changing, and possibly let them be bit more forgiving of such changes. It will also give family more time to plan and understand the health and community services and support are offered wherever they live.
- organsnyder 8mo ago
  > I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. Everyone should assume that they could lose their full mental capacity at any moment. Strokes, brain injuries, etc. can occur at any age with no warning. My wife and I finally went through the entire estate planning process several years ago. It was comforting to know that we had a plan for a myriad of scenarios (including the incredibly depressing decision of where our assets would go if our entire family—us and our kids—was gone at the same time).
voidhorse 8mo ago
There are more personal practical reasons too. Even though it cannot be reversed or eradicated (yet, let's hope) detection can allow individuals to adopt interventions that help either adjust their lives to better cope with its progression or help mitigate some of the detrimental behavioral consequences. In addition, if you have family to care for it may be impetus to get certain things in order for them before later stages of the disease, etc. It's horrible and bleak, but I could certainly see why one might want to know. In the lucky case, it can also relieve anxiety. Even though false negatives may still be possible, receiving a negative detection might give people who have anxiety about certain symptoms relief, since they can rule out (rightly or wrongly) a pretty severe disease.
treetalker 8mo ago
If the patient still has periods of lucidity but the disease is suspected to be advancing, knowing they have it could prompt them to get their legal affairs in order.
bgirard 8mo ago
It's very useful to understand what you're struggling from even if it's not curable. It explains your symptoms, your experience and help you understand what you're going through. Understanding that you're suffering from something incurable is also helpful in not looking for other ineffective methods to cure a mysterious illness.
ronbenton 8mo ago
Having struggled with hard to diagnose health issues before, I can’t emphasize enough how much of a relief it is to put a name on the disease that is causing you so much harm. It is frankly shocking to think disease diagnosis would be a useless thing
Baeocystin 8mo ago
I know two people who have been taking the new monoclonal antibody treatment for it. One who was a bit further along when she started, and did not show any significant improvement. The one who started while she was still in the early stages has completely arrested her descent. She hasn't recovered much of what she already lost, but she's still able to live independently and enjoy life, and her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year. That's a hell of a thing.
- maybelsyrup 8mo ago
  Wait what treatment is this?
  - aix1 8mo ago
    Probably either lecanemab (older) or donanemab (newer).
    - Baeocystin 8mo ago
      In my friend's case, donanemab, FWIW.
- ulfw 8mo ago
  How do you know it's completely arrested? Best these type of drugs can do is give you a few months extra window (say 4-6 months). They're not a cure. Sadly.
  - rowanG077 8mo ago
    They tell you this: > her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year
  - Baeocystin 8mo ago
    Completely arrested? I don't. But it appears to be arrested in ways that matter for mental acuity, for now. I've taken care of a parent with Alzheimer's, and helped several other caregivers over the years with their own family's journeys, and one thing I can tell you is that I have never, ever seen an actual halting of the progression for this long. The descent is usually a stairstep pattern, but the steps are on the matter of weeks to a month or two. My friend has been stable for a year. This is all new. There is research hinting at Alzheimer's subtypes, some of which are more likely to respond than others. Even halting the decline is a huge potential breakthrough.
toomuchtodo 8mo ago
If a loved one is suffering from this, this diagnostic would allow for interventions such as guardianship to assume financial and logistical responsibility for them with less subjective decisioning based on observations alone.
hn1986 8mo ago
there are treatments that can help slow progression, especially if it's found early.
- criddell 8mo ago
  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?
  - hn1986 8mo ago
    Lots of good info here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/ 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab
staticassertion 8mo ago
I assume this is hugely beneficial for research on intervention methods, not for treatment. I think everyone is focusing on "I'd rather know" but imagine if you could get larger populations with a diagnosis earlier on, how impactful that would be for testing an intervention?
irjustin 8mo ago
> why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s At a personal level, I've been through this with my grandfather. I want to know. My family wants to know. I want to prepare because there are things I want to do today that I know I won't be able to do in the future. In many ways, it's just like many terminal cancer diagnoses. You're going to lose that person, but you have some time.
- hattmall 8mo ago
  But it is a wildly variated, almost meaningless diagnosis. 3 of my 4 grandparents got Alzheimer's diagnosis as well as my mom and mother-in-law. The variation of progression and symptoms is so wide that it really seems like a catch-all. One grandmother was fine until about 72 and in 2 years forgot who people were and 4 years had lost all executive function and passed away. The other one was diagnosed in her early 80s and lived to be 96 with no major progression, like slightly more repeating, but never forgetting people or not knowing how to talk etc. Similar dichotomy between my mother and mother-in-law but with considerably different presentations of symptoms. It's a weird disease and IMO not even really a disease it's a bunch of different causes of cognitive impairment under one umbrella but shouldn't be separated out much further to find actual causes and treatments.
protocolture 8mo ago
Most people get a dementia (or related) diagnosis after they are deep enough in it so that they cant do much about it or get their affairs in order. My grandfather had a "fall" at work, he then left that job, and held down 2 more engineering jobs before he was diagnosed with a stroking condition and subsequent dementia. I got the distinct impression he thought he had more time, but rapidly declined. If he knew he was short of time before his rapid decline he probably would have done things differently. Like not buying a house he would later have to sell to pay for aged care. If he knew he was at risk of a workplace accident he probably wouldn't have worked as an after hours safety engineer at a major treatment plant, where if the worst had happened he could have endangered others.
OneMorePerson 8mo ago
Being able to know someone's risk factor would be important for how we treat elderly people. I know someone who is 85 and super sharp (previously worked as a corporate accountant and banker), they still have a better memory than a lot of 40-50 year olds, and yet they are constantly harassed by eldercare "agents" for the state because whenever they make a investment decision that is even slightly questionable they get reported to the state by the bank. Sometimes the bank refuses to authorize transactions. If they could conclusively prove they aren't at risk I think they would be left alone much more often.
gilgoomesh 8mo ago
For 20-ish% of Alzheimer's patients, the Shingles vaccine may be a treatment. This has been suspected for a few years now but has received recent confirmation studies. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-research-shingles-vaccine-treatment-alzheimers-disease https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-rese...
- adrian_b 8mo ago
  While the study was about the shingles vaccine, I wonder if having passed normally through shingles influences positively or negatively the chances of later developing Alzheimer's.
Aurornis 8mo ago
> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Getting an accurate diagnosis is always important. Cognitive decline could be caused by other problems, some of which are more treatable than others. If this test came back negative it would suggest extra testing to rule out other conditions like a brain tumor or hydrocephalus.
redox99 8mo ago
> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed There's Lecanemab and Donanemab. The effects are modest however.
- ChadNauseam 8mo ago
  Trontinemab is in trials right now and has 92% of patients achieving low amyloid levels. And more people should be able to take it as it causes less brain swelling (ARIA-E). I'm unaffiliated, I just follow medical research in my free time. But I'm quite hopeful about this medication
peter_retief 8mo ago
This disease is in my family, honestly not sure I would want to know if I will get it.
shevy-java 8mo ago
I understand the "detect deadly progression but no cure" problem; this was the same rationale people used when Huntington disease could be verified in diagnostics. Many people don't want to know, but some want to know, in particular as you can manage some things here or there - diet affects many things, for instance, even aside from metaboic genetic defects. And for any (molecular) therapy at a later time you need to understand the molecular basis to some extent. Some things can be found out via trial and error (vaccination and before) but for some disease that can not work. Alzheimer is quite complex.
eshack94 8mo ago
Not saying anything about the article at-hand, but assuming we were able to detect it with such certainty, I think it would greatly increase the funding, rigor, and breadth or research devoted to finding a cure or treatment that actually worked.
raincole 8mo ago
> doctors correctly diagnosed Alzheimer's in 75.5% of cases, but when incorporating blood test results, diagnostic accuracy increased to 94.5% These patients are already seeing doctors. Would you rather your doctor to hide the diagnosis just because your disease isn't curable (for now)? It's not like we're testing the whole population in masse.
KurSix 8mo ago
Even without a cure, there's still a lot of practical value in knowing earlier
snowhale 8mo ago
[dead]
scott_w 8mo ago
> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. Your point at the end is essentially correct. There's a couple of reasons that come to my mind: Early detection lets us test cures more quickly. You can see if the treatment is working without waiting 30 years for symptoms to develop or not. If prevention is all that works, we can verify lifestyle changes, again without having to wait 30 years for symptoms to develop. Early detection means there's more of a chance of any future treatment succeeding and the patient returning to a normal life. Think of early detection of cancer or heart disease meaning you can be treated with less risky medication and procedures and minimise the damage being done.
hankman86 8mo ago
To rule out Alzheimers when you wonder whether your recent episodes of forgetfulness have an underlying medical cause. That aside, some moderately effective drugs have recently been approved that can slow down the disease in its early stages. And even if you are no candidate for these: you can start organising the life around you while you still can. Like moving to an assisted living facility.

dzink 8mo ago

This needs to include life-changing false positive rates. Imagine being given a diagnosis like this - people around you who know and any corporations who can sniff it out by snooping on your communications can lead to much rejection early in life. What happens when the diagnosis is as positive when it shouldn’t have been?

cpncrunch 8mo ago
As per the article, the test is used in conjunction with clinical diagnosis, not instead of.
Aurornis 8mo ago
This isn't a predictive test that someone could take in early life. It's used to refine clinical diagnosis after patients present with cognitive severe decline. By the time someone gets this test, they have severe problems. The purpose of this test is to assist with the right diagnosis.
Mathnerd314 8mo ago
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03622-w https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03622-w this is the paper they're basing the research on. So in primary care, the accuracy rates are in the 80s. So that's something like a 17% false positive rate. That's still like 5 to 1 odds of getting a correct result though. It's much better than nothing.

refurb 8mo ago

94.5% is actually terrible. If you have a prevalence of 10 in 1000, how do the numbers shake out? Well, you test all 1,000. If we assume a 95% accuracy for false-positive and false negatives? Of the 990 that you test that don't have the disease, the test will false state 50 do have the disease. Yikes! And of the 10 that do have the disease? You'll miss 1 of them.

Aurornis 8mo ago
This improves the diagnostic accuracy from around 75% to 95%. It's not terrible. This is a relatively good number. Diagnostics is just terribly difficult.
monster_truck 8mo ago
I got bad news about the specificity for most things this serious. Think the only one we absolutely nail is infectious disease detection. Spoilers: It's anywhere between 1-15 and 5-30% for false positives and 1-15/5-40 for false negatives. That's imaging, biomarkers, cancer screenings, etc Like, where do you think the concept of "second opinions" came from? Whimsy? Lets go ask a second doctor if I actually have cancer, it'll be fun!
aix1 8mo ago
> 94.5% is actually terrible. This statement is quite broad and misses several important factors. First of all, a test's sensitivity and specificity. The math in your example assumes a balanced test, but on what basis? The math comes out quite different for high-sensitivity or high-specificity tests. (Unfortunately, I could not find the numbers for the test in the linked article.) Secondly, whom are we testing? The prevalence rate in your example (1%) is unrealistically low even for the general population. But would we screen the general population? No, we'd screen high-risk groups: the elderly, those with certain APOE genotypes etc. Predictive values of a test depend hugely on the prevalence rate. Lastly, it depends on how the results are used. If it's a high-sensitivity test used to decide whom to send to the next tier in a multi-tier diagnostic system, it could actually be quite effective at that (very rarely missing the disease while greatly reducing the need for more expensive or more invasive testing).

suprgeek 8mo ago

Since the recent discoveries about Shingles Vaccine delaying dementia https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/link-between-shingles-vaccine-and-slowed-dementia-is-promising-says-expert/ https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/link-between-shingles-vaccine-... One of interesting checks in this study might be to check when (if) any of the participants had taken this vax and what the impact might be on an Alzimer's diagnosis.

gabll 8mo ago
Purely anecdotal, but I witnessed a person starting to experience a severe cognitive decline right after the two doses of the Shingles Vaccine. It can surely be a coincidence, but I was very surprised when I read about this study.
- cik 8mo ago
  This anecdote is just that - a one off. We can use experiments, and papers to learn more, and should.

bradley13 8mo ago

Maybe I've misunderstood something, but how can they know the accuracy of the test? It is the best test out there, so if it misses a diagnosis, how do they reliably catch the false negative?

MarcelOlsz 8mo ago
If the patient forgets to follow-up. Badum tss. Thanks for the layup.
- smt88 8mo ago
  Besides being a bad joke, this is in terrible taste on a thread read by people with Alzheimer's patients in their lives, and it violates HN's rules that discussion should be valuable and inspire curiosity.
- junon 8mo ago
  This isn't Reddit.
DavidSJ 8mo ago
It’s one of the best blood tests. There are also PET scans, lumbar punctures (spinal taps), and postmortem analyses of brain tissue.
WA 8mo ago
Person has Alzheimer‘s (diagnosed by neurological assessment). Test this person with a blood test.

lencastre 8mo ago

so 94,5% sensitivity, or specificity? this thing with medical testing and false positives is tricky

janeway 8mo ago

“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 not wait for the cure before improving the measurement. You improve the measurement so that a cure becomes possible, targeted, and effective. Medicine is no different. Refusing to improve early, probabilistic diagnosis because today’s treatments are modest confuses sequence with outcome. Breakthroughs do not emerge from vague labels and mixed populations. They emerge from precise, quantitative stratification that allows real effects to be seen. The danger is not that we measure too early. It is that we continue making irreversible clinical and research decisions using imprecise, binary classifications while biological insight and therapeutic tools are advancing rapidly. Building the probabilistic layer now is not premature. It is how we make future intervention feasible.

rossant 8mo ago
I agree. I feel that many medical doctors do not share this mindset.
jader201 8mo ago
> “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.” I don’t think the analogy fits, for a couple reasons. 1. People not wanting to know whether they have Alzheimer’s is because of the fear of a fate worse than death — living with Alzheimer’s. 2. People not wanting to know whether they have Alzheimer’s is not the same was not wanting a way to detect it. As you said, being able to measure it may help lead to a cure/treatment. I doubt people are against improving detection — they may just not want the detection to be applied personally.
- r0ze-at-hn 8mo ago
  Cure is the wrong word. Alzheimer’s can be best described as a failure of a system and "debris" accumulates faster than it can be "cleared". There are many moving parts and everyone is unique about the cause of their system failure. Wrote up my current systems understanding here https://metamagic.substack.com/p/the-alzheimers-equation https://metamagic.substack.com/p/the-alzheimers-equation, but it makes clear why treatments that target only one variable are mathematically doomed to fail to work on everyone and why there will never be a single "cure". It explains without needing to read 10,000 papers why we keep getting research talking about treatment X helps in some, but not all cases or symptom Y is associated in some, but not all, etc.

shevy-java 8mo ago

Alarm bells go up. 94.5% in itself is suspicious. It insinuates precision. I highly doubt you can go anywhere near 0.5% correctness.

rustyhancock 8mo ago
It says "accuracy". For the overall assessment. I.e. it needs the original 75% accuracy or so and boosts it another 20%. The problem is that the assessment itself is slow, expensive and requires skill. What we really want from a test is high specificity (a positive test means you have accuracy) and high sensitivity (if you get a negative test you don't have it). This is how we can offer screening.
raincole 8mo ago
> Compared with the final diagnosis, the pre-biomarker diagnosis was maintained in 71/200 cases (75.5%) (Kappa = 0.576), while the post-biomarker diagnosis was maintained in 189/200 cases (94.5%) (Kappa = 0.906). Even without this method, the doctors have been able to give diagnosis with 75.5% accuracy (according to the paper's claim).
KingMob 8mo ago
> 94.5% in itself is suspicious No it's not, that's a reported mean, presumably with the right number of significant digits. If you want to criticize the variance/stddev, do so, but you picked the wrong metric if that's what you wanted to complain about.
- emil-lp 8mo ago
  How about this: def has_alzheimers(patient): return False What accuracy does this have?
  - KingMob 7mo ago
    High accuracy, actually, but non-existent sensitivity and high bias. What you're looking for is called "signal detection theory".

TheCapeGreek 8mo ago

PSA to those with family affected by dementia/Alzheimer's at a relatively early age (say <70yo): Get them tested for STDs, specifically Syphilis. Left untreated for a very long time (decade+), it spreads to the brain and causes dementia among other things. Older generations with stigmas, taboos, or from lower educational backgrounds seem (to me) less likely to get tested, so it seems plausible. Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their neurologist.

kakacik 8mo ago
Lenin famously died from it, you could see that obscure blank stare of a crazy person on his later photos
- gametorch 8mo ago
  It's still debated whether Lenin died of syphilis. It's less wrong to say he died of strokes.
- zoeysmithe 8mo ago
  He was shot in 1918 leaving bullets in his body and left him weakened, then in 1922 he suffered at least three debilitating strokes. He lost his ability so speak and had to learn to speak again. He even proposed assisted suicide because he was suffering so much. He then had a final fatal stroke in 1924. I don't think "he looks crazy so he must have had some STD" is medically accurate or remotely appropriate on what's supposed to be an academic forum. He most likely had brain damage towards the end thus his illness of course was reflected on his body looked. Lenin's eyes reflected his post-stroke damage. He was quite sane in his life and his work expanding on Marx is of course extremely important.
bonsai_spool 8mo ago
> Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their neurologist. The reason this was detected is that such testing is a standard practice with new dementia patients—among many other tests that identify etiologies of dementia. No need for a 'PSA'.

anthk 8mo ago

40 hz ultrasounds are part of the remedy.

yard2010 8mo ago
Sir this hackernews please provide sources
- anthk 8mo ago
  https://news.mit.edu/2025/study-suggests-40hz-sensory-stimulation-may-benefit-some-alzheimers-patients-1114 https://news.mit.edu/2025/study-suggests-40hz-sensory-stimul...
  - wizzwizz4 8mo ago
    n=5, success rate 60%, not blinded; but it does appear that they already had reason to test the treatment, so it's not a green jellybeans situation.

mariuolo 8mo ago

Could earlier diagnoses contribute to finding causes and treatments?

energy123 8mo ago
Or it's cached and ready to be useful when a treatment does come around. Either way it's welcome.
KurSix 8mo ago
Maybe that’s actually one of the biggest reasons researchers care so much about earlier diagnosis

guerby 8mo ago

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8755961/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8755961/ "A narrative review on the effects of a ketogenic diet on patients with Alzheimer's disease" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1279770724003932 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S127977072... "Effects of ketogenic diet on cognitive function of patients with Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis" And anecdotes from the field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86CFw0qhVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86CFw0qhVc Revolutionizing Assisted Living: Hal Cranmer's Ketogenic & Carnivore Approach to Senior Wellness / Metabolic Mind

kittikitti 8mo ago

This is Theranos levels of marketing.

KurSix 8mo ago

I'd be curious to see how it performs outside of a specialist neurology setting and in larger, more diverse populations

aaronrobinson 8mo ago

We have no cure now but that may change and depend on early detection just as taking meds now can slow the onset. I don’t want to know makes no sense to me. You would plan your whole life differently and it would actually be quite liberating once you’d come to terms with it.

tgv 8mo ago

A detail, but an important one: the blood test brought the initial diagnosis closer to the final one. The result reflects the agreement between both diagnoses. The usefulness of the blood test depends on the quality of the final diagnosis, which can still be wrong.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

8crazyideas 8mo ago

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.