The Alzheimer's vaccine will be ready within 5 years. A good result, for a disease that scares many people. The development of an Alzheimer's vaccine could be a matter of years now, as a study shows Adelaide Flinders University, in Australia, published in the magazine Nature. The first human tests will be carried out by 2018.
And it doesn't stop there. Alzheimer's disease in the future could be diagnosed early, with ad hoc tests, perhaps a blood sample or a urinalysis to be performed already around the age of 40. And thanks to preventive therapies, such as antibodies and vaccines, the disease can be stopped well before the onset of symptoms.
Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, affecting 25 million people worldwide today, and it is frightening precisely because it cancels out who we are and who we have been.
"Today - says Patrizia Mecocci of the University of Perugia - to" diagnose "a potential risk of Alzheimer's we have the tomography with specific tracer for the beta-amyloid peptide, the PET-amyloid that shows accumulations of the toxic peptide in the brain. But it is an expensive test that is reserved for a few subjects, possibly to be involved in clinical trials ".