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What if you could protect future generations from Alzheimer’s disease by simply visiting Johns Hopkins’ Bayview campus three times over two years?

A new study at Hopkins, funded by the National Institute on Aging, is recruiting adults 60 and up with mild cognitive impairment.

Hopkins researchers are focused on the role stress plays in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

“We’re trying to see if the response to stress today predicts cognitive decline in two years,” explained Dr. Cynthia Munro, the study’s principal investigator. “Our ultimate goal is to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.”

After all, if scientists can predict who will get Alzheimer’s, perhaps they can prevent its progression.

More than six million Americans have Alzheimer’s, and between 10% and 15% of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) develop dementia each year, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

People who have a diagnosis of MCI are eligible for this Hopkins clinical trial, known as the Stress-AD study. However, if you have memory problems but don’t have an official diagnosis, you may be eligible, too.

Stress can be measured

How will Hopkins researchers measure stress? They’ll use a version of a standard laboratory test known as the Trier Social Stress Test, developed in 1993 in Trier, Germany.

First, participants will give a five-minute speech in front of an audience. Next, they’ll do a five-minute mental math problem. After those on-the-spot tasks, researchers will measure the amount of stress hormones in the participants’ saliva. They’ll also take blood samples.

“One or both of those [tasks] are stressful for most people,” Munro said. “The Trier stress test is the gold standard of how to induce stress in a lab setting.”

When researchers measure the hormone response to stress and then follow up two years later, they’ll be able to tell if, say, a high level of certain stress hormones can predict the degree of cognitive impairment.

Munro’s team will also take blood samples to see how genes associated with the risk for Alzheimer’s disease might influence the relationship between stress hormones and cognitive impairment.

Despite the arithmetic and public speaking, though, the clinical trial is a simple one for participants, who are required to visit Hopkins just three times over a two-year period, provide blood and saliva samples, complete questionnaires and take tests of memory and thinking skills. Compensation of up to $300 will be provided.

“It’s a really easy study for people to do,” Munro said.

For more information about the Stress-AD study, or to see if you qualify, call (410) 550-6271.