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Early detection and treatment of Alzheimer's disease require the use of dependable and cost-effective screening technologies. Researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet have revealed that the level of tau, a protein that plays a vital role in the development of severe dementia, is associated with a kind of sugar molecule in the blood. The study, which is published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, can pave the way for a simple screening procedure able to predict onset ten years in advance. "The role of glycans, structures made up of sugar molecules, is a relatively unexplored field in dementia research," says the study's first author Robin Zhou, medical student and affiliated researcher at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (NVS), Karolinska Institutet. "We demonstrate in our study that blood levels of glycans are altered early during the development of the disease. This could mean that we'll be able to predict the risk of Alzheimer's disease with only a blood test and a memory test." In Alzheimer's disease, the neurons of the brain die, which is thought to be a result of the abnormal accumulation of the proteins amyloid beta and tau. Clinical trials for Alzheimer's drugs show that treatment should commence early in the pathological process, before too many neurons have died, to reverse the process before it is too late.