David Silverman/Getty
Researchers at Georgetown University have published a study in Nature Medicine claiming they have found a way to successfully predict the onset of Alzheimer's disease with 90 percent accuracy, thanks to a test that relies on examining fat levels in the blood. The researchers compared the blood samples of 53 people with Alzheimer's with 53 people who remained mentally agile over five years to conclude there were significant differences in levels of 10 lipids or fats in the blood. Studying these lipid levels was the key to predicting the disorder, though it needs to be tested on a larger sample size to be confirmed. With the ability to predict the degenerative brain disorder comes the ethical challenge of whether people would want to know they will suffer from it. Said the Alzheimer's Society's Dr. Doug Brown, “If this does develop in the future, people must be given a choice about whether they would want to know, and fully understand the implications."