Cancer is one of the leading causes of death, killing one out of every sixth person in the world. Like every other chronic disease, an early diagnosis of cancer can prove to be pivotal for successful treatment. Luckily, with medical advancements, there have emerged blood tests that are capable of diagnosing it at early stages. While the following tests are not a replacement for traditional screening methods, they can aid the battle against this deadly disease.

5 Tests That Help In Early Cancer Diagnosis

1. Liquid Biopsy

Liquid biopsy is a diagnostic test that analyzes circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) found in the blood. This non-invasive technique enables the detection of cancer-related genetic mutations. Research indicates that liquid biopsies can identify tumors in various types of cancer, including lung, breast, and colorectal cancers.

The ability to monitor tumor progression and treatment response through routine blood tests makes liquid biopsy an invaluable tool in cancer management, especially for identifying minimal residual disease and predicting potential relapse.

2. CA-125 Test

CA-125 test measures the levels of cancer antigen 125 in the blood, primarily serving as a marker for ovarian cancer. Elevated CA-125 levels may suggest the presence of ovarian tumors, although these levels can also rise due to benign conditions like endometriosis or pelvic inflammatory disease. Research has shown that regular monitoring of CA-125 can aid in the early detection of ovarian cancer, particularly in high-risk women, such as those with a family history of the disease.

3. Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test

PSA test measures the level of prostate-specific antigen in the blood and is commonly used for the early detection of prostate cancer. High PSA levels may indicate prostate cancer but can also be associated with benign conditions like benign prostatic hyperplasia or prostatitis. A study by the American Cancer Society demonstrated that PSA screening could reduce prostate cancer mortality by up to 30%. However, the test has faced criticism for potential overdiagnosis and overtreatment, making it essential for patients to discuss the benefits and risks of PSA testing with their healthcare providers.

4. Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) Test

AFP test measures alpha-fetoprotein levels, a protein produced by the liver and yolk sac during fetal development. Elevated AFP levels in adults may indicate liver cancer or germ cell tumors. This test is particularly useful for monitoring patients with liver cirrhosis, who are at an increased risk for developing hepatocellular carcinoma. A study published in Hepatology found that routine AFP testing could lead to earlier liver cancer detection, improving patient prognosis. Patients with chronic liver disease should consider regular AFP screenings as part of their cancer surveillance strategy.

5. Methylated Septin 9 (mSEPT9) Test

mSEPT9 test is a blood-based assay that detects methylated DNA from the SEPT9 gene, associated with colorectal cancer. Approved for clinical use, this test offers a vital tool for early screening in average-risk individuals. A clinical trial published in New England Journal of Medicine demonstrated that the mSEPT9 test has a sensitivity of 68% for detecting colorectal cancer, presenting a promising alternative to traditional screening methods like colonoscopy.

Did you know? Multiple sclerosis (MS) can begin affecting the body many years before clear symptoms appear, often going unnoticed until the condition is well established. According to researchers at the University of British Columbia, people start using healthcare services more often as far as 15 years before their first obvious MS signs.

Fatigue, anxiety, and mild depression may quietly creep in, but they are often dismissed or blamed on life’s usual chaos. The trouble is, the myths swirling around MS are even more persistent than the symptoms. Some are outdated, some are just plain wrong, and all need to be shown the door.

Here is a myth-busting guide to separate MS fact from fiction.

Myth 1: Everyone with MS eventually needs a wheelchair

Nope. The MS Society says most people never use one. Reportedly, even 15 years post-diagnosis, only about 20 per cent need a wheelchair, cane, or crutches. And for those who do, mobility aids can mean freedom, not limitation, a tool to stay independent rather than a sign of defeat.

Myth 2: People with MS cannot work

Completely untrue. Many continue thriving in their careers for years. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society points out that while some may adjust their work or hours, legal protections, medical advances, and supportive tech keep many in the workforce. In fact, employment often provides structure, identity, and social connection, all of which can benefit mental health.

Myth 3: People with MS should not exercise

Myth 4: If symptoms are minor, there is no need for medication

Tempting logic but flawed. MS is a progressive disease, and even mild symptoms can mask deeper nerve damage. Research shows early treatment can slow disease progression and improve long-term outcomes. Waiting for symptoms to worsen is a gamble you do not want to take.

Myth 5: People with MS should not get pregnant

Myth 6: If I have MS, my children will get it too

While genetics play a role, MS is far from guaranteed for the next generation. Identical twins share only a 20–40 per cent risk; for non-identical twins, it is 3–5 per cent. The MS Society says 1 in 67 children of a parent with MS will develop it, compared with 1 in 500 in the general population.

Myth 7: MS is always fatal

Led by Dr. Marta Ruiz-Algueró, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC, the recent study analysed the medical histories of 2,038 Canadians with MS and compared them to more than 10,000 people without the condition. Using detailed administrative and clinical records that spanned 25 years, researchers tracked how often patients visited healthcare providers before their first classical MS symptoms.

15 years before diagnosis, people who later developed MS were already visiting general practitioners more frequently. Their complaints often centred on fatigue, pain, dizziness, headaches, and mental health concerns like anxiety and depression.

How MS Works?

The symptoms can include:

• Fatigue
• Odd tingling or numbness that shows up anytime
• A wobbly sense of balance or coordination
• Vision that suddenly decides to play tricks on you
• Muscles that feel like they have gone on strike
• Memory and thinking skills that sometimes wander off mid-task

In a nutshell, MS is a bit of a medical puzzle which is unpredictable and complicated and is still keeping scientists on their toes. But with sharper tools to spot it, smarter treatments to tackle it, and a lot more awareness than in decades past, living with MS today is a very different story. Busting these myths is not just about tidying up the facts; it is about handing people the knowledge to live well, keep working, love fiercely, and get on with life without unnecessary fear attached.

When Melbourne pediatrician Professor Melissa Wake talks about the future of health, she starts with a sobering fact:

Today's children may live shorter lives than their parents.

It is worth the thought that why despite the medical advances, preventable diseases remain among the biggest killers worldwide.

To this, her response, along with a team of scientists at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute is to launch Generation Victoria.

Generation Victoria is a groundbreaking health study that involves more than 125,000 children and their parents. It is one of the largest projects of its kind and at the core, lies the understanding of exposome.

What Is The Exposome?

It is the some of environmental exposures, including the physical, chemical, psychological, and social. It is what we encounter over the course of our lives, and how they interact with out biology.

It includes tangible factors such as diet, lifestyle, income, education, air pollution, and climate conditions, as well as more invisible elements like chemical pollutants, pathogens, and even noise levels. It also accounts for internal processes influenced by these exposures, such as the microbiome (gut bacteria), inflammation, and metabolic activity.

READ: How Green Therapy Can Help You Lower Anxiety And Depression

"Many of these factors overlap and happen in unequal ways," Professor Wake explains, as is reported by ABC News. "If you grow up in a poor area, your exposome is likely to be shaped by external stressors, polluted air, fewer opportunities, and lower income."

In other words, the exposome is not just about where you live, but how every aspect of your environment, from the air you breathe to the relationships you have, shapes your long-term health.

Why Does Exposome Matter?

Johns Hopkins University researcher Dr Fenna Sillé estimates that up to 70%, and in some chronic illnesses, as much as 90%, of disease risk is linked to environmental exposures rather than genetics.

"If the genome is your biological blueprint, the exposome is the lifelong record of how the world interacts with that blueprint," she says, as is reported by ABC News.

Understanding the exposome could help explain why rates of certain illnesses are rising, even among younger generations. For instance, cancers in Australians under 50 are increasing at what researchers call “alarming” rates. Hypotheses point to factors like obesity, sedentary lifestyles, chemical exposure from plastics, and shifts in gut bacteria due to ultra-processed diets and antibiotic use.

Beyond One Toxin At A Time

For decades, researchers studied environmental health risks by isolating single hazards. For instance, it was focused on one pollutant, one chemical, and observing its effects. But that approach misses the reality of human life, says Dr Nick Osborne, an epidemiologist and toxicologist at the University of Queensland.

"In the real world, there are a lot of exposures happening at once," Dr Osborne says, as is reported by ABC News. "The exposome is about recognizing that the body is a complex system interacting with a complex environment."

Advances in artificial intelligence and computational modelling now allow scientists to process vast amounts of overlapping exposure data, making it possible to see the bigger picture.

ALSO READ: UK Scientists Scan Over 100,000 People, What The Human Imaging Study Could Reveal About Your Health?

How Will This Study Help With Exposome?

GenV is tracking more than 50,000 babies born in Victoria between 2021 and 2023, and their parents, over decades. The aim is to link patterns of exposure with disease risk and test interventions to prevent illness.

The study will collect health data at key stages of life, ages 6, 11, and 16 for children, along with samples such as blood, saliva, and breastmilk. Parents will also share updates on their children’s mental and physical health through an app.

Alongside individual health records, researchers will map “layers” of the exposome. These include family and community-level factors, air quality, climate, built environments, food access, and even shopping patterns. Tools such as satellite mapping, environmental monitors, and policy tracking will help assemble a detailed picture.

The goal is not simply to document exposures, but to act on the most critical ones.

"It would be nice to know everything, but what we really need are the most important things, and we need to act on them," Professor Wake says, as is reported by ABC News.

The long-term nature of the study means researchers can test interventions and see their impact decades later. Could changes in urban design reduce childhood asthma rates? Could improving early nutrition lower lifetime risks of diabetes and heart disease?

READ: How Does Your Lifestyle And Environment Impact Aging?

What Are The Challenges?

The problem comes at the very minute level, it is impossible to capture every detail of a person's environment. However, researchers say that even if partial exposome mapping can uncover meaningful insights, it too is helpful.

Some exposures leave measurable imprints, changes in metabolism, or epigenetic effects, where the environment alters how genes function without changing the DNA sequence itself.

This complexity also means causation is hard to prove. Often, disease risk stems from a mix of genetic predisposition and environmental triggers. As Dr Osborne explains: “You might have the ‘bad’ genes, but if you’re not exposed to the ‘bad’ environment, you don’t get the disease.”

The Human Genome Project, launched in May by an international team Dr Sillé, gave scientists a map of our genetic code. It seeks to do the same for environmental exposures.

If successful, it could transform our understanding of disease prevention, shifting focus from treating illnesses to altering the environmental factors that cause them in the first place.

While GenV’s ambition is to turn exposome data into action. By showing how different life pathways lead to health or illness, it hopes to influence not just medical practice but urban planning, education policy, and food systems.

"We are particularly interested in testing whether we can change disease risk, by how much, and for whom," Professor Wake says. "And because we’ve got that long-term horizon, we should be able to look 20, 30, 40 years down the track."

A new study published this week in Nature has found that the loss of lithium, which is a naturally occurring element in the brain. This could be an early warning sign of Alzheimer’s disease and a key driver of its progression. Alzheimer’s affects more than 7 million Americans, and this finding offers fresh hope for treatment strategies.

The research, led by Bruce A. Yankner, a professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School, shows that lithium plays a vital role in maintaining the health of all major brain cell types in mice. When lithium levels in the brain drop, it appears to contribute to nearly all the major forms of brain deterioration seen in Alzheimer’s disease.

While lithium’s link to Alzheimer’s is new, the metal itself has a long medical history, most notably in mental health treatments.

What Is Lithium?

Lithium is the lightest metal found in nature. Silvery and soft, it’s best known today for powering our smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles, all thanks to its ability to store large amounts of energy and discharge electrons quickly.

Its use in everyday products has an unusual history.

The original version of the soft drink 7Up contained lithium citrate and was marketed as “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” reported the Washington Post.

Lithium was removed in 1948 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned its inclusion in soft drinks.

Today, Australia leads the world in lithium production, while Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina form the so-called “lithium triangle” due to their rich reserves.

Lithium’s Role in Mental Health

Lithium carbonate, a chemical form of the metal, has been a cornerstone in the treatment of bipolar disorder since its approval by the FDA in 1970. It is considered a mood stabilizer and is sometimes prescribed for long-term depression management.

Although researchers still don’t fully understand how it works, lithium is thought to reduce stress in the brain and boost neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and reorganize itself over time.

The new Nature study adds to this understanding, showing that our brains naturally contain small amounts of lithium.

Historically, lithium use in psychiatry dates back to the mid-19th century, but it gained prominence in the late 1940s when Australian psychiatrist John Cade found it helped stabilize bipolar patients.

“It’s been around for decades, and we have a lot of research and evidence supporting its use,” said Elizabeth Hoge to the Post. Hoge is a psychiatry professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine. However, Hoge cautioned that lithium treatment requires regular monitoring of kidney and thyroid function.

ALSO READ: Could Lithium Deficiency In The Brain Trigger Alzheimer’s?

Balwinder Singh, a psychiatry professor at the Mayo Clinic, as reported by the Post, calls lithium the “gold standard” for bipolar disorder, though it is prescribed less often in the U.S. than in Europe. Only about 10–15% of American bipolar patients take lithium, compared with around 35% in Europe. Singh also highlighted its unique benefit: “Lithium is the only mood stabilizer consistently shown to reduce suicidality.”

That said, some research has questioned lithium’s effectiveness for bipolar depression, finding it may not outperform placebos or antidepressants in certain cases.

Why Researchers Are Exploring Lithium for Alzheimer’s

Lithium’s potential role in Alzheimer’s is not entirely new. Past studies have hinted at its protective effects on the brain.

A 2017 Danish study suggested that communities with higher lithium levels in drinking water had lower rates of dementia.

Yankner’s team became interested in lithium after measuring the levels of 30 different metals in the brains and blood of three groups: cognitively healthy individuals, those in the early stages of dementia, and those with advanced Alzheimer’s. Of all the metals tested, only lithium showed a significant difference among the groups.

Lithium appears to help maintain the brain’s “communication network” by supporting neuron connections, producing the myelin that insulates those connections, and aiding microglial cells in clearing cellular debris—processes essential for memory and cognitive health.

How This Could Lead to New Treatments

In lab tests, Yankner’s team administered small amounts of lithium orotate, a different lithium compound, to mice with Alzheimer’s-like symptoms. The treatment reversed the disease model and restored brain function in the animals.

While the results are promising, Yankner stressed that it’s too early for people to start taking lithium for Alzheimer’s. The compound has not yet been tested in humans for this purpose, and lithium can be toxic if improperly dosed.

“This should spur clinical trials,” Yankner said, but he also cautioned that “things can change as you go from mice to humans.”

For now, the research offers an intriguing lead but not an immediate solution. Clinical trials, if launched soon, could take years to confirm whether lithium could safely and effectively slow or prevent Alzheimer’s in people.

A Small Metal With Big Potential

Scientists, now, are beginning to understand that it may also hold a key to protecting the brain from one of the most devastating diseases of our time.

If future studies confirm lithium’s benefits for Alzheimer’s, it could pave the way for a treatment that works by restoring something the brain naturally produces, rather than introducing an entirely foreign substance.