A new study from UCLA Health has found that there isn’t just one road to Alzheimer’s disease—there are at least four different paths.
By analyzing the medical records of nearly 25,000 patients, researchers discovered that certain patterns of health conditions over time can raise a person’s risk for developing Alzheimer’s. These results could lead to better ways to predict, prevent, and treat the disease.
The study was published in the journal eBioMedicine. Unlike earlier research that looked at one or two risk factors at a time, the UCLA team focused on how groups of conditions appear in a specific order, showing how Alzheimer’s can develop step by step.
The researchers found four main pathways:
1. The mental health pathway, where psychiatric issues such as depression may lead to cognitive problems later.
2. The encephalopathy pathway, where certain types of brain dysfunction develop and worsen over time.
3. The mild cognitive impairment (MCI) pathway, where memory and thinking problems slowly increase and turn into Alzheimer’s.
4. The vascular disease pathway, where heart and blood vessel problems like hypertension and stroke contribute to dementia risk.
Each of these paths showed different traits in terms of age, health conditions, and likely risk. For example, in many cases, high blood pressure came before depression, and both were linked to higher Alzheimer’s risk.
The lead researcher, Mingzhou Fu, a UCLA medical informatics student, explained that spotting these patterns gives a clearer picture than looking at single conditions on their own. “Knowing the order of how diseases appear may help doctors find patients at risk much earlier,” Fu said.
The team also tested their findings in a large national database called the All of Us Research Program, which includes people from many different backgrounds across the U.S. This confirmed that these four pathways hold true in a wide variety of patients.
They studied 5,762 people who developed Alzheimer’s, identifying 6,794 different paths of diagnosis that led to the disease. Using advanced computer tools like machine learning and network analysis, the team carefully tracked how different illnesses showed up and built on each other over time.
Dr. Timothy Chang, assistant professor of neurology at UCLA Health and senior author of the study, said these patterns could improve how Alzheimer’s is diagnosed and treated. He added that understanding the sequence of conditions might allow doctors to step in earlier with the right support and possibly prevent the disease from progressing.
The study’s findings could have a big impact on how doctors and public health officials approach Alzheimer’s care. For example, by identifying which of the four pathways a person is on, doctors might offer more targeted advice or treatments, such as better management of heart health or mental well-being.
This research adds to growing evidence that Alzheimer’s doesn’t come from a single cause. It builds over time through different chains of events—and knowing which chain is in motion could be the key to stopping it earlier.
If you care about Alzheimer’s, please read studies about Vitamin D deficiency linked to Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and Oral cannabis extract may help reduce Alzheimer’s symptoms.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about Vitamin B9 deficiency linked to higher dementia risk, and results showing flavonoid-rich foods could improve survival in Parkinson’s disease.
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