Alzheimer's Disease Affects African-Americans Differently Than Whites

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A study conducted at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago reveals that Alzheimer's disease affects the brain of African-Americans differently than whites. 

The study published in the journal Neurology found that African-Americans are less likely to develop Alzheimer's than people of White descent, but when the brain disease does occur, the debilitating disease affects the former differently. This suggests that other treatment options and prevention strategies should be made for Blacks.

The research was spearheaded by Lisa L. Barnes, neurologist at Rush University Medical Center. She and her colleagues investigated the brain autopsy of 41 African-Americans and 81 deceased European-Americans who had died of Alzheimer's dementia.

According to the press release published in Eureka Alert, the researchers found that almost all had Alzheimer's disease in their brain. They found that three-quarters of African-Americans had mixed Alzheimer's disease pathology and other pathologies that contributed to dementia (infarcts, localized brain necrosis because of embolism and/or Lewy bodies, harmful protein associated with dementia) while half of the whites had mixed pathologies.

This means that less than a quarter of African-Americans and half of the European-Americans had pure Alzheimer's disease pathology. These results suggest that Alzheimer's disease affect African-Americans differently.

"Studying how Alzheimer's disease looks in the brain in individuals of different races may help us to further understand the disease and pinpoint strategies for prevention and treatment," Dr. Barnes said in the press release.

Time reports that Barnes was astonished by the presence of Lewy bodies. These are proteins that grow inside nerve cells particularly in Parkinson's disease and dementia. The outlet revealed that since Blacks are more prone to stroke and hypertension, the researchers expected more infarcts but were surprised to see their findings mixed with Lewy bodies.

The presence of Lewy bodies may be due to the limitations of the study that only involved a small sample. Washington Post reports that there may have been a selection bias because Lewy bodies produce more noticeable symptoms; hence, African-Americans with this condition are likelier to seek professional aid.

The report adds that cultural factors may have a hand in the study since African-Americans with Alzheimer's symptoms do not go to the doctor thinking that memory loss and other Alzheimer's symptoms are part of growing old.

Barnes concluded that their research is important in developing other treatment options that will account for racial differences.

"Indeed, current Alzheimer's drugs primarily target specific Alzheimer pathologies in the brain," Barnes said in a report by Medical Xpress. "Given the mixed pattern of disease that we see in African American brains, it will be important to develop new treatments that target these other common pathologies, particularly for African-Americans."