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Early diagnosis is extremely important, particularly while people are still symptom-free and treatments are most effective, Mosconi said. In addition, maintaining overall good health will help protect brain health, she said.

"This includes checking for blood pressure, cholesterol levels, glucose levels, arteriosclerosis and vascular damage in general, because improving cardiovascular health is particularly important to also promote brain health," Mosconi said. "If an individual finds out that they are at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease and are not taking much care of their health, that's already a good reason to start immediately."

Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer's Association's National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council, believes the findings could prove promising for drug research.

"One could collect the children of mothers with Alzheimer's disease, divide them into a placebo group and a drug-test group, and follow them with neuropsych tests and brain scans to see whether the group receiving the drug had delayed onset or prevention," Gandy said.

Greg M. Cole, associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, said the findings could help in diagnosis.

"Our best hope is to catch the disease early and treat early," Cole said. "One way of doing this is to identify people with significant genetic risk, but we only know one common risk factor, ApoE4 gene," he said.

Using imaging methods to follow the brain's regional energy use, doctors can detect signs of Alzheimer's in those at risk from ApoE4 many years before developing dementia, Cole said. This study shows similar results in people with a family history who don't have the ApoE4 risk factor, he added.

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