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By Daniella Gray
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A simple tweak could make Alzheimer’s blood tests far more reliable, bringing accurate diagnosis a step closer to everyday care.
Blood tests for Alzheimer's disease have generated excitement in recent years because they offer a less invasive alternative to brain scans and spinal taps.
However, scientists are still working to improve their accuracy and determine the best way to use them in hospitals and memory clinics.
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The latest study, published in JAMA Neurology, suggests that combining multiple Alzheimer's-related biomarkers rather than relying on a single measurement may substantially improve diagnostic performance.
Researchers found that assessing proteins linked to both amyloid plaques and tau tangles, the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, helped distinguish people with the condition more accurately than some existing approaches.
While blood tests can detect biological changes associated with Alzheimer's years before symptoms develop, Guglielmo Di Molfetta, a doctoral student in neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg, said more research is needed before they can become a routine part of GP appointments.
"Before they can be implemented in GP clinics, more studies need to be conducted to confirm the prognostic values and ideally have a path towards a disease-modifying therapy option for the individual, otherwise a strong burden is placed on the patient through an early diagnosis," he told Newsweek.
Blood-based biomarkers are designed to detect tell-tale biological changes associated with Alzheimer's.
Among the most promising are phosphorylated tau (p-tau217), which reflects the buildup of tau tangles in the brain, and measurements related to amyloid-beta, the sticky protein that forms plaques between nerve cells.
Researchers have increasingly found that looking at both processes together can provide a clearer picture of what's happening in the brain.
The study builds on a growing body of evidence showing that multi-marker approaches outperform traditional clinical assessment alone.
In previous research involving more than 1,200 patients undergoing evaluation for cognitive symptoms, blood tests that combined p-tau217 measurements with amyloid-beta markers achieved diagnostic accuracies of roughly 88 to 92 percent.
By comparison, primary care physicians identified Alzheimer's disease with substantially lower accuracy when relying on standard clinical evaluation without biomarker information.
Why does combining biomarkers matter? Alzheimer's develops through multiple biological pathways.
Amyloid plaques can begin accumulating years before symptoms appear, while tau pathology is more closely linked to cognitive decline.
By capturing evidence of both, blood tests may be able to reduce false positives and false negatives, giving clinicians more confidence in the results.
Di Molfetta said blood tests could also help solve access issues, which is one of the biggest barriers to Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Advanced brain imaging techniques, particularly tau PET scans, have shown promise in predicting future cognitive decline but are expensive and difficult to provide at scale.
More accessible blood tests could help identify not only who is likely to have Alzheimer's, but also who stands to benefit most from available treatments.
"Therefore, a blood-based test like ours could be used as a more accurate screening for treatment options, compared to p-tau217 alone, to exclude patients with a late-stage tau pathology that might be put at risk of side effects with little to gain from the therapy," Di Molfetta said.
Reference
Di Molfetta G, Brum WS, Pola I, et al. Plasma Biomarkers for Neocortical Tau Burden. JAMA Neurol. Published online August 10, 2026. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2026.2650
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Charlotte Nisbet and Emma Lee-Sang
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