The new holy grail in the fight against Alzheimer’s, the most common neurodegenerative disease, is the ability to detect it earlier and earlier, even before symptoms appear. Two studies published this week are steps toward that possibility, and raise controversial questions as to whether early screening should be made available to the general population to look for the disease’s first molecular signs. That would allow for the identification of individuals who are at the highest risk. But it would also generate a large number of false positives that could overwhelm healthcare services.

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“If no one asks me, I know what time is. When they ask me, I no longer know,” wrote the philosopher Augustine of Hippo 17 centuries ago. Something very similar happens now with aging: we all understand what it is, but when we ask ourselves why we must age and die, doubts arise. Even the world’s leading experts face the same uncertainty: at best they offer very different answers.

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