Major breakthrough for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s on the horizon

One of the biggest challenges with Alzheimer’s disease is reaching an accurate diagnosis. Right now, physicians often aren’t able to determine if a patient is suffering from this devastating condition until the disease has progressed beyond “the point of no return,” so to speak. Which makes treatment that much more difficult. But some brand new research may change all of that. In fact, this may be one of the biggest breakthroughs for Alzheimer’s ever.

Researchers in Mexico have discovered that a simple skin test that may be able to accurately diagnose Alzheimer’s disease (AD), as well as Parkinson’s disease (PD), and other neurodegenerative diseases.

These investigators found that skin biopsy specimens from patients with AD and PD had significantly higher levels of tau protein (p-Tau) compared with those from patients without these diseases. In addition, patients with PD had higher levels of a protein called α-synuclein (α-Syn).

All science-speak aside, what this essentially means is that there is a test for these diseases that can be done in standard labs in every hospital around the world. Since we have no good testing for these diseases now, this is amazingly good potential news; these tests will make a diagnosis quite simple.

Unfortunately this test isn’t quite ready for prime-time just yet. Researchers still need to determine what levels of these proteins indicate the presence of disease. But even in the early stages, this is really a breakthrough of incredible magnitude.

I’ll keep you updated on this test as more research is done.

Until then, there are plenty of things you can do to protect yourself from debilitating neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I’ve written a number of articles on both these conditions, both here in the Reality Health Check and in my monthly Logical Health Alternatives newsletter. You can view the complete archive by visiting www.drpescatore.com, and entering “Alzheimer’s” and/or “Parkinson’s” into the Search function at the top of the page. (Subscribers can download past newsletter articles and issues for free by logging into the Subscriber area of the site with your username and password.)

Source:

“Skin Test May Aid Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Diagnosis.” Medscape Medical News, 2/25/15