Cross-sectional Study for the Identification of Blood Biomarkers in Healthy Young and Old Individuals

Ageing is clearly the most important risk factor for AD and other dementias but, despite the amount of evidence supporting this fact, the exact mechanism that link ageing and AD is still unknown and, up to now, potential therapies for AD by targeting ageing have been poorly explored. This study aims to provide a better understanding of the link between ageing and AD by means of measuring in human blood those factors that have been found to be 'pro-youthful' (GDF-11, CSF2, TIMP-2, oxytocin) or 'pro-aging' (CCL2, CCL11, CCL19, Haptoglobine, B2-microglobuline) in experimental animal models, but have not been comprehensively studied in humans. In this proof-of-concept study these blood factors in extreme groups of age, namely young adults (18-25 yo) and old adults (≥70 yo) will be measured and the hypothesis of whether the 'pro-youthful' and 'pro-ageing' blood factors change throughout age tested. In order to include a wider range of age, human umbilical cord blood and plasma from teenagers (which is already available from a previous study) will also be included. The ultimate goal of this study is to select the more promising blood factors and obtain data on the effect size of the differences that may allow us in the future to design a larger study.