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Knowing Alzheimer's risk may cause years of anxiety without guaranteeing illness will occur.

Predictive Alzheimer’s tests show only increased risk, not certainty of developing the disease.

Current laws don’t fully protect predictive test results from insurers or other third parties.

If you had the opportunity to learn with near-perfect certainty from a blood test whether or not you are destined to become afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease or some other currently incurable brain disease, would you take it?

Let’s assume that you would prefer to learn the results of the test. At what age would you prefer to learn your fate? “Probably toward the last decade or so of my life,” you might say, “but not in my twenties or thirties.” That’s the choice of most people I’ve asked. At whatever age, what would you do with that knowledge?

While pondering that question, let’s explore some of the implications if you decide not to take the test: First, before making your decision, you should know that treatments for Alzheimer’s disease leave much to be desired. Anti-amyloid therapies slow the progression of the disease by only 6 to 9 months.

What’s more, the treatments themselves carry the risk of life-threatening brain swelling, which requires urgent critical care, perhaps even brain surgery. In addition, a review issued in 2026, which analyzed 17 anti-amyloid studies with a total of 20,342 patients, concluded that the effect on amyloid dementia was “trivial” and the effect on functional ability was described as “small at best,” according to the researchers.

And there are other factors that must be taken into account.........

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