Skin Test to Predict Early Alzheimer's Disease

The discovery of enzymes which react abnormally in the skin of a patient who suffers from Alzheimer's disease may be a medical breakthrough, as this could be extremely beneficial in early diagnosing of the degenerative mental disease.

The early onset of Alzheimer's disease cannot be predicted by brain tests because all mental illnesses are put in the same group and medical experts cannot make the difference between Alzheimer's and other similar mental disorders. Therefore, the skin test would be the most accurate test to track down Alzheimer's.

Another benefit from the new skin test that traces abnormal enzymes in the epidermis is that it diagnoses early stages of Alzheimer's, when the mental disorder may still be treated and dementia can be prevented. Late stages of Alzheimer lead to the debilitating mental disease known as dementia.

Tapan Khan and Daniel Alkon at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute in Rockville, Maryland, conducted the research on the enzymes that help identifying Alzheimer's in patients, In their report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the two scientists state that the newly developed skin test can distinguish Alzheimer's from other mental disorders, such as Parkinson's. They also sustain that when tracked down at an early stage, Alzheimer's can be successfully treated.

"When it begins, Alzheimer's disease is often difficult to distinguish from other dementias or mild cognitive impairment. Potential treatments of Alzheimer's, however, are likely to have their greatest efficacy before the devastating and widespread impairment of brain function that inevitably develops after four or more years," Dr. Daniel Alkon stated.

In a large trial, the two experts found that when affecting someone's brain, Alzheimer's disease stimulates a specific enzyme, called MAP Kinase Erk 1/2, to change its properties and causes it to develop abnormal features. Tests were carried out on various tissues belonging to dead people, whose cause of death was known. Some of the deceased individuals have been known to suffer from Alzheimer's.

Predicting Alzheimer's by means of a skin test is possible because the degenerative mental disease does not only affect one's brain, but also causes a change in the way in which cells of the body communicate with each other.