A new study from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has discovered four distinct groups of symptoms that can progress to Alzheimer's disease.
This study, published in the journal eBioMedicine of the THE LANCET Discovery Science system, analyzed medical data from more than 5,700 patients and identified nearly 6,800 different " progressive paths" leading to this common neurodegenerative disease.
Alzheimer's is an age-related disease that causes memory and communication loss, eventually seriously affecting daily activities. Researchers say that understanding the pathways for disease development, rather than just looking at individual risk factors, can help detect early and prevent more effectively.
Four main groups of symptoms are identified:
Mental health path: Start with problems such as depression, anxiety and possibly related to high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or previous digestive disorders. This group shows that mental symptoms may be early signals of Alzheimer's.
The path of brain disease: This is the most "alsistent" development pathway, originating from cerebral vascular, urinary disorders and some other neurological diseases. This group progresses rapidly to Alzheimer's and increases the risk of death.
Mild cognitive decline: Associated with memory and thinking problems. Early stages may include menopause in women and erectile dysfunction in men.
pathology of vascular disease: Focus on conditions that affect blood flow to the brain, associated with stroke and nerve damage. Previously, the patient may have symptoms of back pain, joint disorders and soft tissue.
About 26% of all developmental pathways show a consistent pattern of occurrence for example, high blood pressure often preceded depression, and then led to Alzheimers.
The main author, Associate Professor Timothy Chang (Department of Neurology, UCLA), said that identifying these Sequential Models will help clinicians diagnose more accurately and intervene earlier.
Understanding the path to Alzheimer's not only helps predict risks but also changes approaches to disease prevention from a very early stage," says Mingzhou Fu, Ph.D., lead author of the study.
