--- title: Alzheimer's Disease: Research Gets Closer to Blood Test description: The new Alzheimer's Disease prediction method had 87% accuracy in a recent study canonical: https://time.com/2963692/alzheimers-disease-blood-test/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-08T12:21:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:01:09.434Z article:section: Health og:title: Scientists are Getting Closer to a Blood Test for Alzheimer's og:description: The new Alzheimer's Disease prediction method had 87% accuracy in a recent study og:url: https://time.com/2963692/alzheimers-disease-blood-test/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf686f00bb7f639f5/6986984413c79f7018192b71/alzheimer-brain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Brain of a patient affected by Alzheimers disease og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists are Getting Closer to a Blood Test for Alzheimer's twitter:description: The new Alzheimer's Disease prediction method had 87% accuracy in a recent study twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf686f00bb7f639f5/6986984413c79f7018192b71/alzheimer-brain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Scientists Are Getting Closer to a Blood Test for Alzheimer's > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Study: More People Die From Alzheimer’s Than We Thought [Watch (HLS stream): Study: More People Die From Alzheimer’s Than We Thought](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/9fyDTyHY.m3u8) (1:22)  _Published 2014-03-06. An irreversible brain disorder that gradually destroys memory and eventually leads to death, Alzheimer’s disease was blamed for more than 83,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2010. But researchers believe the actual number could be six times larger._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 8, 2014 12:21 PM UTC  Brain of a patient affected by Alzheimers disease Brain of a patient affected by Alzheimers diseaseGetty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 8, 2014 12:21 PM UTC A team of scientists have identified 10 proteins in the blood that can predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The study, which was published in the journal _Alzheimer’s & Dementia_, looked at more than 1,000 people and is considered a significant step toward the development of a blood test for Alzheimer’s. The trouble with the disease is that developing drug treatments is difficult since they are often given in clinical trials when the disease has already progressed too far. The hope is that identifying the disease earlier could pave the way for drugs to halt its progression. In the study, researchers examined blood samples from 1,148 people. There were 476 with Alzheimer’s, 220 with ‘Mild Cognitive Impairment’ (MCI) and 452 elderly control subjects who did not have dementia. All the blood samples were tested for 26 proteins that were previously linked to Alzheimer’s, and some the participants also had an MRI scan on their brain. First, the researchers found that 16 of the 26 proteins were strongly linked to brain shrinkage that happens with Alzheimer’s and MCI. In a second round of testing, researchers looked at which of the 16 could predict if MCI became Alzheimer’s. It was then that they found the combination of 10 proteins that were able to predict which people with MCI would eventually get Alzheimer’s within a year. The prediction method had 87% accuracy. “Memory problems are very common, but the challenge is identifying who is likely to develop dementia,” slead study author Dr. Abdul Hye from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London said [in a statement](http://www.eurekalert.org/emb%5Freleases/2014-07/kcl-sst070714.php). “There are thousands of proteins in the blood, and this study is the culmination of many years’ work identifying which ones are clinically relevant. We now have a set of 10 proteins that can predict whether someone with early symptoms of memory loss, or mild cognitive impairment, will develop Alzheimer’s disease within a year, with a high level of accuracy.” Detecting the disease early-on could be a major breakthrough for clinical trials and would be less expensive than current methods that use brain imaging or cerebrospinal spinal fluid to identify the disease. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2963692/alzheimers-disease-blood-test/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2963692/alzheimers-disease-blood-test/"},"headline":"Scientists Are Getting Closer to a Blood Test for Alzheimer's","datePublished":"2014-07-08T12:21:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:01:09.434Z","description":"The new prediction method had 87% accuracy in a recent study","url":"https://time.com/2963692/alzheimers-disease-blood-test/","keywords":["Research","Aging","Alzheimer's"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf686f00bb7f639f5/6986984413c79f7018192b71/alzheimer-brain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf686f00bb7f639f5/6986984413c79f7018192b71/alzheimer-brain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Brain of a patient affected by Alzheimers disease","caption":"Brain of a patient affected by Alzheimers disease","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2963692/alzheimers-disease-blood-test/","name":"Scientists Are Getting Closer to a Blood Test for Alzheimer's"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Study: More People Die From Alzheimer’s Than We Thought","description":"An irreversible brain disorder that gradually destroys memory and eventually leads to death, Alzheimer’s disease was blamed for more than 83,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2010. 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