Parkinson’s Disease Early Detection Possible With Blood Test
Parkinson’s Disease Early Detection Possible With Blood Test
Publish Date: 2026-01-29 04:50:00
Source Domain: www.technologynetworks.com
A team of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, has succeeded in identifying biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease in its earliest stages, before extensive brain damage has occurred. The biological processes leave measurable traces in the blood, but only for a limited period. The discovery thus reveals a window of opportunity that could be crucial for future treatment, but also for early diagnosis via blood tests, which could begin to be tested in healthcare within five years.
Parkinson’s is an endemic disease with over 10 million people affected globally. As the world’s population grows older, this number is expected to more than double by 2050. At present, there is neither an effective cure nor an established screening method for detecting this chronic neurological disorder at an early stage before it has caused significant damage to the brain.
In a new study published in npj Parkinson’s Disease, a research team from Chalmers University of Technology and Oslo University Hospital, Norway, reports on decisive steps towards an early diagnosis of Parkinson’s.
“By the time the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease appear, 50 – 80 per cent of the relevant brain cells are often already damaged or gone. The study is an important step towards facilitating early identification of the disease and counteracting its progression before it has gone this far,” says Danish Anwer, a doctoral student at the Department of Life Sciences at Chalmers and the study’s first author.
Important window of opportunity discovered
In the study, the researchers focused on two processes thought to be involved in the very early phase of the disease, which can last up to 20 years in Parkinson’s patients before motor symptoms are fully developed. One of the processes is the body’s DNA damage repair, which is the cells’ built-in system for detecting and correcting damage. The second is the cells’ stress response, a survival reaction activated by threats, in…
