Dr. Ali Rezai shares new developments in blood testing that could help doctors identify patients who are at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. #alzheimers #alzheimersawareness

There are now blood tests that allow you to look at your blood test and look at plaques in your blood as a potential screening tool, even if you're not symptomatic or even if you don't know if you have Alzheimer's. So you could potentially look at your blood sample, you wouldn't even need a scan to know if you might have a plaque buildup in the brain? Indeed, so that technology's out there and recently there's been a lot of progress there so you can do a blood test that tells you that you have beta amyloid and then the physicians can do further studies. It's an important, simple screening tool and then you can get a brain scan, a PET scan that basically looks at how much of these protein plaques you have in your brain, this beta amyloid. It's got a lot of ethical questions, what you would do with it. Each person needs to look at their own self and what they want to do with it. Right now, we're only doing it for people who have early Alzheimer's, very early mild cognitive impairment or MCI. But I can see potentially a time in the future where people can say, I want to test my blood. I have a family history of Alzheimer's. So I want to know if I have beta amyloid in my blood. And if I do, maybe I want to get a brain scan to see if I have amyloid in my brain. And it's empowering for an individual to know what may be down the line. You may not get Alzheimer's, but then you know that you have increased beta amyloid in your blood and in your brain. And I want to make a point that's important. It's not just beta amyloid as the only cause of Alzheimer's. There are many factors, but right now it seems to be a key area where therapeutics are being directed with pharma and companies developing strategies to clear that beta amyloid.