A new research has unveiled that the levels of a protein called clusterin cannot help in the detection of Alzheimer's disease. The levels can only indicate the severity of the disease.

Alzheimer's affects around 26 million people across the globe. The cost of treating the disease was $604 billion in 2010 alone. The number of cases of Alzheimer’s disease is expected to rise three times by 2050.

Experts claim that the disease can be diagnosed with certainty in a living patient. It can only be confirmed after examining the brain in an autopsy after a patient has died. Monique Breteler of the Erasmus MC University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who conducted this study, said that clusterin levels cannot be used as an indicator of the disease but the clusterin level increases during the disease course. Measurements of clusterin do not seem to be clinically useful.

Researchers, scientists and drug makers have failed to develop potential treatments that stop or reverse the progression of the disease. Bapineuzumab, an experimental drug being developed by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson is among the most effective treatment for the disease but other companies have failed to develop any drug.