Simple Skin Test May Detect Alzheimer’s And Parkinson’s Years In Advance, Study Says

While severe problems with the memory and the nervous system are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s respectively, it’s the skin that could detect the disease early on, perhaps even before symptoms surface.

“Until now, pathological confirmation was not possible without a brain biopsy, so these diseases often go unrecognized until after the disease has progressed,” study author Ildefonso Rodriguez-Leyva said in a statement. “We hypothesized that since skin has the same origin as brain tissue while in the embryo that they might also show the same abnormal proteins. This new test offers a potential biomarker that may allow doctors to identify and diagnose these diseases earlier on.”

The Huffington Post