Despite a lot of advancements in our understanding of dementia over the past few decades, doctors still don’t have a reliable way to tell who will develop the devastating condition. There’s been quite a bit of research into major risk factors, including microplastics exposure, shingles vaccines, sleep quality, and more.

Now, a new study suggests that there may be important clues on how your sex, age, and hormonal changes impact certain biomarkers for dementia that can be picked up in a blood sample. However, that doesn’t mean a simple blood test can predict dementia risk, which further emphasizes the fact that they should not be the sole test doctors rely on for assessing risk.