Nasal swab may catch Alzheimer's disease earlier
New York Post • • health
Key Points:
- Researchers have developed a nasal swab test that detects early signs of Alzheimer's disease by analyzing smell-detecting nerve cells collected from inside the nose, potentially identifying the disease before memory and thinking problems appear.
- The study, published in Nature Communications, showed that this swab test can distinguish individuals with early or diagnosed Alzheimer's from healthy patients by capturing living nerve and immune activity, unlike current blood tests that detect later-stage markers.
- The nasal swab test offers a more direct and earlier look at disease-related changes compared to existing biomarker tests that measure tau protein tangles, which are associated with Alzheimer's progression.
- Loss of sense of smell, or anosmia, is a known early symptom linked to dementia risk, often appearing up to a decade before other symptoms, supporting the relevance of this nasal swab approach.
- The research team plans to expand testing to larger populations and investigate whether the swab can monitor patient responses to treatments over time, potentially improving diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's disease.
