Early Detection for Alzheimer's: A Step Forward?

News today about a blood test that may predict whether someone will develop Alzheimer's Disease in later years. The study was reported in the Journal Nature Medicine.

It seems there are 120 proteins in human blood, of which 18 show a signature for Alzheimer's Disease. Researchers at Stanford University developed a blood test that forces those 18 markers to "light up" when the blood is drawn from an Alzheimer's patient in 90 percent of cases. Further, tests were run on patients, several years ago, before they ever showed signs of the disease, and predicted accurately those who would develop it.

An estimated 4.5 million Americans suffer from the "long good-bye" that is Alzheimer's Disease. Of them, 66,000 die each year.

But for me, it's much more personal than that. My mother has advanced stage Alzheimer's disease. So I look at this disease from the "smart patient" side, and I look at it personally -- because my grandmother, my mother's mother, had Alzheimer's, too (although it wasn't called that when she died in the mid-1970s). I am forced to wonder each day -- am I next in line?

To this test, I say, halleluyah! But only because it may eventually lead to a cure, or at least an effective treatment. Personally I don't think I would want to take the test to know I would descend into the fog of Alzheimer's in a few years. What do you think?