Scientists may have sniffed out a breakthrough when detecting Alzheimer’s.
The degenerative disease, which affects millions of Americans and gradually destroys memory, thinking skills and the capacity to perform basic tasks, is still notoriously difficult to detect, especially in its initial stages.
But researchers have created a breakthrough nasal swab test that can pick up early signs, even before thinking and memory problems appear.
“We want to be able to confirm Alzheimer’s very early, before damage has a chance to build up in the brain,” said corresponding study author Bradley J. Goldstein in a press release.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed smell-detecting nerve cells collected from a gentle swab placed high inside the nose.
Comparing samples from 22 participants, including those who showed lab-based signs but no symptoms yet, the researchers found clear patterns that distinguished those with early onset or diagnosed Alzheimer’s from healthy patients.
Current blood tests for the disease detect signs that appear later, whereas this nasal swab captures living nerve and immune activity.
“Some of the blood tests are accurate and some are not, and doctors don’t know which tests to use,” explained Dr. Suzanne Schindler, an associate professor of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis.
Other biomarker tests have been developed to detect early stages of tau tangles, a naturally occurring protein that helps stabilize nerve cells. Along with another protein, amyloid beta, tau can build up in the brain and disturb cell function.
Irregular clumps of tau are called neurofibrillary tangles, which are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
Another recently developed test looks at tau tangle levels as a “biological clock” to try and determine when signs of the disease will start to appear.
But the results of this innovative swab test could provide an earlier, more direct look at disease‑related changes and identify people at risk sooner.
“Much of what we know about Alzheimer’s comes from autopsy tissue,” Vincent M. D’Anniballe, the study’s first author, said in a press release. “Now we can study living neural tissue, opening new possibilities for diagnosis and treatment.”
While the initial study was small, loss of sense of smell is a symptom of dementia that can show up a decade before others, with a strong link between anosmia — the medical term for the loss of smell — and an increased risk of dementia.
The research team is expanding their research to larger groups, as well as seeing if the swab can also track how patients are responding to treatments over time.
