• Posted May 8, 2025

Early Alzheimer's Testing Can Provide Peace Of Mind

THURSDAY, May 8, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Knowing your risk for Alzheimer’s disease can provide peace of mind, but also might contribute to complacency regarding your overall health, a new study says.

People who underwent brain scans to learn their Alzheimer’s risk experienced less anxiety, even if the results showed higher risk, researchers reported May 7 in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

However, people’s motivation to maintain lifestyle changes like exercise and eating a healthy diet also declined after they learned their Alzheimer’s risk, whether or not the results indicated higher or lower risk, researchers said.

“The results highlight how easily people lose motivation to make lifestyle changes aimed at maintaining cognitive health,” lead researcher Sapir Golan Shekhtman, a doctoral student at the Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Center at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, said in a news release. “Strategies to sustain these healthy behaviors are crucial.”

The new study comes on the heels of an Alzheimer’s Association’s annual report, which found that 4 of 5 Americans want to know in advance if they will develop Alzheimer’s, through easy, rapid testing.

For this study, researchers followed nearly 200 healthy adults who underwent imaging scans to check their brain levels of amyloid beta. Toxic amyloid plaques are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

Prior to the scans, participants completed surveys measuring their anxiety, depression, memory concerns and motivation to improve their lifestyle habits.

People who learned that their amyloid levels were low experienced a boost in their mood, results show. Six months after their imaging scans, they had much lower levels of depression, anxiety and memory concerns.

Meanwhile, those who had higher amyloid levels – and thus a potentially increased risk for Alzheimer’s — experienced a decrease in anxiety while their levels of depression or memory concerns remained about the same, researchers found.

“The findings suggest that disclosing amyloid presence does not negatively affect participants, and simply knowing the results seems to decrease negative feelings overall,” researcher Michal Schnaider Beeri, director of the Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s Research Center at the Rutgers Brain Health Institute in New Brunswick, N.J., said in a news release.

However, all participants experienced a decline in their motivation to pursue a healthy lifestyle following their imaging scans, results show.

“These findings hold even greater significance in an era moving toward preventive Alzheimer’s Disease therapies,” senior researcher Dr. Orit Lesman-Segev, a neuroradiologist at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, said in a news release.

“When such treatments become available, cognitively normal individuals will likely undergo screening with Alzheimer’s biomarkers to qualify for targeted therapies,” Lesman-Segev said. “Therefore, it is essential to better understand the response to disclosure and optimize the disclosure process.”

More information

The Alzheimer’s Association has more on amyloid beta and Alzheimer’s.

SOURCE: Rutgers University, news release, May 7, 2025