Study results in animal experiments and in humans nourish the suspicion that dementia changes could one day be treatable after all because in scientific studies a gene has been discovered by chance which could offer a new diagnostic method for early detection of Alzheimer’s dementia. Chemical modification in a specific gene called preselinin 1 (PSNE 1) could be used as a so-called biomarker to confirm the diagnosis of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This chemical modification of basic building blocks of the genetic material of a cell is called DNA methylation and is the characteristic of such a disease. This makes new therapeutic approaches possible because until now it has not been possible to treat the disease. The biomarker PSNE 1 should be monitored to determine which environmental triggers have a negative impact on brain function and neurodegeneration, which can mainly be attributed to a poor lifestyle with poor nutrition. In animal experiments on mice, such changes were observed, but also in post-mortal human brain tissue of Alzheimer’s patients and in babies and adolescents before and after birth. In addition, the researchers are sure that in the future, blood samples could also be meaningful to predict such genetic changes in the DNA of humans, because such epigenetic changes are also conspicuous in the blood of humans. To this end, 20 blood samples from healthy and sick people were compared, which showed that there was an overexpression of genetic material of the PSNE 1 type, indicating a direct relationship between the extent of gene expression and DNA methylation. The results of the research have already been published in the English language journal „Epigenetics“, which allowed the analysis of patterned DNA alteration. Specific blood tests, which are non-invasive, thus making it easy to use diagnostic methods to treat dementia and Alzheimer’s patients of the future with epigenetic therapy methods, i.e. the question is raised as to which factors ultimately affect the activity of a gene and hence the development of the cell.
