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Skin sample from a person could be used to detect Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, says Dr Ildefonso Rodriguez-Leyva and his colleagues from the University of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. An early detection of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in patients would help doctors in rendering quality treatment to the irreversible brain disorders.

Researchers are looking for the biomarkers in the molecules of blood or even exhaled breath that could assist in detecting the presence of the disease in the body, reports BBC news. Rodriguez-Leyva and his colleagues believe that skin is a good biomarker for spotting the brain disorders.

Since the skin and brain have the same origin in the developing embryo, skin should be able to represent the brain at least in the molecular levels, reason the researchers. Post-mortem analysis of skin sample of Parkinson’s disease patients reveals the same protein present in the brain associated with the disease, say the investigators.

Researchers studied 65 volunteers among whom 53 had Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, while 12 of them were healthy controls. Skin samples from behind the ears of the subjects were taken to test for the signs of association with either Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease, especially for the presence of proteins tau and alpha-synuclein.

The tests revealed high levels of tau and alpha-synuclein proteins in the skin samples of 20 Alzheimer’s and 16 Parkinson’s patients compared to healthy controls and people with other types of dementia.

Rodriguez-Leyva said that more research is needed to confirm the association of skin in detecting the brain disorders, but the present findings are exciting as skin biopsies from living patients could be of some help in spotting the diseases. He also added that skin biopsies could be potential biomarkers that help doctors to identify the diseases early on.

Dr Arthur Roach, Parkinson's UK director of Research and Development, said that skin biopsy is possible diagnostic method and is minimally invasive but demands more innovation in these areas to help diagnose Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

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