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Considering how awful much of the news has been the past few weeks, it is possible you missed the good news in the field of medical science. Doctors and researchers have been making advances and pushing the limits of our knowledge as they find new ways to prolong our lives. Even if the disease is yet incurable, every bit of research we can stumble upon becomes one more valuable piece that might eventually solve the puzzle. Alzheimer’s disease is one such scourge for which any advance in research is newsworthy. Kevin Cirilli is the founder of the website Meet the Future (MTF.TV), where he chronicles the latest in medical breakthroughs. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to discuss a blood test that might become the new standard to diagnose Alzheimer’s.
Cirilli explained to hoist Larry Mendte why the blood test is such an advance in Alzheimer’s treatment: “[Currently] you have to get a PET scan or a spinal tap in order to detect Alzheimer’s, but now, with this FDA approval, you’ve just got to get a blood test. With early detection, folks can start getting it in their mid-50’s. Early detection means before the symptoms even start to come on, which lets you get earlier treatment, and as the treatments get better, you know, this is a major, major breakthrough for Alzheimer’s.”
Cirilli also laid out two new procedures that involved doctors who adjusted human DNA to alter the course of a disease before it became an issue: “In the U.K., scientists were using a hand-held DNA sequencer to detect brain tumors. That used to take two months; now it just takes two hours which is a major breakthrough… [And in Philadelphia], there was the first time doctors were able to go in when a baby had a very rare disease, and they offered a personalized DNA fix- so it was code editing inside of an actual human cell to correct the defect.”
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