SAN FRANCISCO: Researchers have developed a blood test that they say could help neurologists detect Parkinson’s disease and track the illness as it progresses.
“If successful, we expect our findings will translate into a valuable diagnostic tool for Parkinson’s disease,” said the study’s co-author.
There is no cure for the disease, which can cause tremors and severely hamper movement. While medications can be helpful, the illness gets worse over time, and medications do not stop its progression.
Physicians traditionally diagnosed Parkinson’s by analyzing symptoms. Now, brain scans are available that provide insight, but scan images can still leave room for doubt, Potashkin said.
In their new study, researchers say they’ve found two genetic markers that are 90 percent effective at indicating the presence of Parkinson’s disease. The markers are related to how the body processes glucose (blood sugar) and insulin, said the study’s lead author.
The researchers then tracked 101 people with Parkinson’s and 91 healthy people. They found that gene “expression” changed significantly over three years in the Parkinson’s patients.
More research is needed to confirm that the test works, and the researchers would like to make it more accurate…