1 in 10 over-70s meet criteria for drugs to slow dementia

BLOOD tests have revealed 11% of over-70s may benefit from drugs that can slow the early stages of Alzheimer's but the medication is too expensive for the NHS.

- STORM NEWTON

In a groundbreaking study, British and Scandinavian researchers looked for biomarkers associated with the development of dementia.

Not everyone with these will go on to develop the disease but they might be good candidates for intervention.

Experts at King's College London, Stavanger University Hospital in Norway and Sweden's University of Gothenburg analysed 11,486 blood samples from over-57s.

Memory

They found the frequency of Alzheimer's disease neuropathological changes (ADNC) - deposits of proteins in the brain that lead to the death of nerve cells - increased with age.

The work also discovered ADNC was lower than previously estimated in younger people.