Research Finds Ethnoracial Differences in Alzheimer's Disease

A Mayo Clinic study published recently in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association found Hispanic-Americans with Alzheimer's tend to live much longer than other ethnoracial groups, reports Medical Xpress . From the examination of 1,625 brain tissue samples, the researchers determined Hispanic-Americans live an average of 12 years with the disease from the time of symptom onset versus nine years for non-Hispanic whites and eight years for African-Americans. The team compared the presence, site, and composition of Alzheimer's-related protein clumps in tissue samples from the Florida Autopsied Multi-Ethnic cohort. The researchers unearthed subtle differences among the ethnoracial groups in terms of clump severity, but no differences in brain weight. Hispanic-Americans were slightly less likely to exhibit the APOE E4 gene variant thought to increase Alzheimer's risk. The team also discovered distinctions in the distribution throughout the brain of specific Alzheimer's proteins, and the presence of concurrent neurodegenerative processes. In addition, compared with non-Hispanic whites, Hispanic-Americans and African-Americans had fewer years of education, which is coincident with other Alzheimer's risk factors like lower socioeconomic advantage and more incidence of cardiovascular disease.