In recent medical research, it has been discovered that African Americans are 14 to 100 percent more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. AD is a neurological disorder, that progresses and causes atrophy to the neurons. In the process of disease progression, it destroys memory, and causes further complications thinking, and in some cases it affects a persons behavior and causes the inability to complete simple tasks. In these cases, its mainly the family that is affected by the patients diagnosis. While there are multiple risk factors for AD or dementia, being genetics, and environment, age related changes such as inflammation in the blood vessels, and of course life style risk factors. Like cardiovascular ailments which can be prevented through life style. These cardiovascular issues include, type 2 diabetes or adult on set diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity and being a victim of a cerebrovascular accident. We don’t have enough focus on AD, and the African American Population. Which is what Dr Barnes, really touched on in her talk. Dr. Barnes, talked about the clinical need to include African American patients into AD research, as we see a increase in diagnosis amongst this race. With a higher mortality rate. Dr. Barnes, discussed some physiological factors that may have a role, in the higher rates of AD in African Americans. Which was, the loci located in the common pathways for AD. Examples of this include, immunity lipid processing, and intracellular trafficking. And through the risk attribute to loci. She also discussed the social risk factors, that more often than not play a significant role behind a patient’s diagnosis with a AD. The social risk factors include, complex interaction of socially patterned environmental exposures. That is biological factors, that accumulate throughout the life force. African-Americans are constantly at a disadvantage medically, despite the numbers of higher African-American patient populations with Alzheimer’s disease and cardiovascular disease. There isn’t enough attention, toward preventative care for African American individuals. Studies have been conducted, and the results are as followed. The numbers, have proved the higher numbers of cardiovascular issues amongst African Americans. Sixty-five percent of African-American beneficiaries had hypertension, a much higher rate than for Caucasian beneficiaries (51 percent) beneficiaries (56 percent). The difference is even larger when looking at the aged population only. African-American, beneficiaries also had higher rates of diabetes than Caucasian beneficiaries. A significant interaction among total serum cholesterol (TC), APOE genotype, and AD risk was found in a population-based study of elderly African- Americans. Increasing TC was associated with increased AD risk in the group with no e4 alleles, whereas TC was not associated with increased AD risk in the group with one or more e4 alleles. Further study of the relationship between cholesterol and APOE genotype is needed to confirm this association, but the results suggest that cholesterol may be a potentially modifiable environmental risk factor for AD.While High cholesterol can be genetic, The main cause is lifestyle. Many African-Americans that lived in underprivileged neighborhoods in any city. Face many disadvantages when it comes to resources that can be helpful. In preventing health issues, such as a proper diet like many Americans food that tends to be unhealthy and high In cholesterol is more affordable than healthy food that is low in cholesterol. Being around pollution, constantly also have been proved to have a direct impact on these issues. In conclusion, these studies have shown the higher number of risk factors in African Americans which directly relates to the high concentrations of diagnosis in the patient population. Being that cardiovascular issues, is one of the main causes aside from genetics and deformities caused in the pathways.
Resources
African Americans Silent Epidemic - Alzheimer's Association. https://alz.org/media/Documents/african-americans-silent-epidemic-r.pdf.
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