Risk of Dementia Can Be Detected 10 Years in Advance... "Four Plasma Proteins Identified"

Analysis of the Relationship Between Plasma Proteins and Dementia Onset

Four plasma proteins that can be used to predict the risk of developing dementia (ACD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD) 10 years before diagnosis have been discovered. Dr. Wei Jintai's team from Fudan University Shanghai Medical College in China announced on the 13th in the scientific journal Nature Aging that they analyzed the relationship between plasma proteins and dementia onset in over 52,000 adults registered in the UK Biobank and identified four proteins that can be used as long-term predictors of dementia risk.

The research team searched for plasma biomarkers related to dementia prediction in data from 52,645 dementia-free participants (median age 58) registered in the UK Biobank and investigated how well each biomarker predicted the onset of ACD, AD, and VaD over a median follow-up period of 14.1 years.

During the follow-up period, a total of 1,417 individuals were diagnosed with dementia. Among them, 219 developed dementia within 5 years, and 833 were diagnosed within 10 years from the start of the study, while 584 developed dementia after 10 years.

The team found that among 1,463 plasma proteins included in the analysis, four proteins were consistently associated with the onset of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia. These four plasma proteins are glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light chain (NEFL), growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), and latent transforming growth factor beta binding protein 2 (LTBP2).

Based on this, a 10-year prediction model for ACD, AD, and VaD was developed, showing that all four proteins had high predictive accuracy. In particular, GFAP, which has long been noted as a dementia-related marker, showed the strongest association with dementia. Individuals with high GFAP levels had a 2.32 times higher risk of developing dementia compared to those with lower levels. Additionally, GFAP and LTBP2 exhibited very high specificity for dementia prediction, and GFAP and NEFL began to change at least 10 years before a dementia diagnosis.

The research team stated that this suggests GFAP has the potential to be an early biomarker for assessing the risk of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia, and that these findings provide important implications for identifying high-risk groups and early intervention in dementia.