Takeaway
Midlife measurement of plasma amyloid-β could represent a non-invasive blood-based biomarker of risk for future cognitive impairment.
Why this matters
Pathological changes relating to Alzheimer’s disease begin decades before clinical symptoms appear, highlighting the need for a better understanding of the relationship between early measurements of plasma amyloid-β and clinical phenotypes in late-life. This is the first long-term assessment of this relationship in a large community-based population at midlife. The findings suggest that plasma amyloid-β could be used as a non-invasive biomarker to screen for preclinical signs of dementia, several decades before clinical symptoms first appear.