What if the cure for Alzheimer’s disease could be found long before the age where people are most susceptible to it?
A new nationwide program called the AHEAD study aims to answer that question and bring researchers one step closer to defeating Alzheimer’s for good.
Dr. Julio Rojas, a neurologist and associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said minerals called amyloid proteins that build up in the brain are a big cause of Alzheimer’s.
“These proteins start to accumulate 15-20 years before symptom onset. So that’s the best time to treat the disease,” he explained.
He said the AHEAD study is a new and innovative program designed to spot risk factors — like the buildup of amyloid proteins — in healthy people, giving them a heads-up and time to mitigate.
“We have sites at 75 places in the nation. In your area, it’s Georgetown University [that is] recruiting people,” he told WTOP.
Rojas said they are looking for people to participate. He said those who think they might be at risk, but are still healthy and have good cognitive function are perfect candidates.
He said you can visit aheadstudy.org to find out how you can participate.
If you choose to be a part of it, he said you will receive a brain scan, which can identify risk factors — like amyloid protein buildup — and qualify you for participation in the study.
The process involves taking a new, FDA-approved medication designed to help prevent Alzheimer’s in those who are at risk so that they hopefully never end up being diagnosed; or have the effects significantly lessened.
“It’s given through the vein, through an infusion, so people come here every few weeks to get the infusion,” Rojas explained.
He said researchers hope this study and its effects on at-risk patients could be the breakthrough, the latchkey discovery, needed in the fight against neurodegenerative disease. He said all populations are invited and encouraged to participate in the study.
Rojas told WTOP that Alzheimer’s can affect minority populations like Hispanic and Black people disproportionately — for reasons beyond aging.
“There are also social factors — that mostly have to do with access to care,” he said. “It’s something I see in my practice all the time, especially among those who are Hispanic, who do not get the care they need earlier in the process. They come in and are already in very advanced stages of the disease.”
He said this study, which is for everyone, allows for participants to be monitored by some of the best-trained doctors in the country, free of charge, and could open up certain populations to a new level of care they might not have had access to before.
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