Simple Skin Test May Detect Alzheimer's

Until now, pathological confirmation of Alzheimer's was not possible without a brain biopsy, so the disease often goes unrecognized, or patients are misdiagnosed.

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There can be no doubt that a simple test that could accurately diagnose Alzheimer's disease would make an important difference. It would answer this simple question - Is it Alzheimer's or something else?

A large fraction of Alzheimer's patients are misdiagnosed; and, in some cases they are suffering from something that can be treated. Imagine the angst and fear that some families face unnecessarily.

The study showed that skin biopsies can be used to detect elevated levels of abnormal proteins.

"Until now, pathological confirmation was not possible without a brain biopsy, so these diseases often go unrecognized until after the disease has progressed," said study author Ildefonso Rodriguez-Leyva, MD, at Central Hospital at the University of San Luis Potosi in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. 

"We hypothesized that since skin has the same origin as brain tissue while in the embryo that they might also show the same abnormal proteins. This new test offers a potential biomarker that may allow doctors to identify and diagnose these diseases earlier on."

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Skin test may shed new light on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases

• For the study, researchers took skin biopsies from 20 people with Alzheimer's disease, 16 with Parkinson's disease and 17 with dementia caused by other conditions and compared them to 12 healthy people in the same age group. T
• hey tested these skin samples to see if specific types of altered proteins were found--ones that indicate a person has Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

As compared to healthy patients and ones with dementia caused by other conditions, those with both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's had seven times higher levels of the tau protein. People with Parkinson's also had an eight times higher level of alpha-synuclein protein than the healthy control group.

"More research is needed to confirm these results, but the findings are exciting because we could potentially begin to use skin biopsies from living patients to study and learn more about these diseases. This also means tissue will be much more readily available for scientists to study," said Rodriguez-Leyva. "This procedure could be used to study not only Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, but also other neurodegenerative diseases."

Sources of Information

Washington Post
Time
BBC News

The study was supported by the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico. Learn more about Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases at http://www.aan.com/patients. The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 28,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care.

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