Researchers in Cardiff are setting out to link the genetic and lifestyle causes of Alzheimer’s disease, it was announced today.
The researchers are leading a world-wide project aiming to bring together information about more than a million people.
They hope their findings will lead to improve ways to treat the disease and to prevent it.
Some £6 million is to be spent on the project, led by Cardiff University, and backed by the UK Medical Research Council and Alzheimer’s Research UK together with some EU and Welsh government funding.
Researcher Professor Julie Williams said: “For too long scientists studying Alzheimer’s have been working in silos, engaged in a single-minded ‘race’ to try and beat the disease. That’s simply not going to happen unless we pull together.
“The aim of our study is to harmonise the research of scientists studying the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s with the work of those studying the lifestyle influences, with the ultimate goal to creating more personalised treatments for the disease – and, better yet, treatments that offset it altogether."
She added: "The insights gleaned will pave the way for a new era of therapies for the disease. We predict that in future, based on this unrivalled data, GPs may be able run a simple test to analyse a patient’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
"A combination of gene therapy, drugs and lifestyle changes could then be prescribed to reduce that risk."
Dr Eric Karran, of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: "Our risk of developing Alzheimer’s is likely to be down to a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors, and the better we understand these factors the greater our chance of finding ways to intervene.
"With half a million people in the UK currently living with Alzheimer’s, we urgently need to find treatments that can make a difference.”
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