Hispanics Harder Hit by Alzheimer's

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania July 21, 2004 (Reuters) - Minorities may be harder hit by Alzheimer's disease than whites and researchers said Wednesday they are trying to find out why.

One study presented to a conference on Alzheimer's shows that Hispanics begin to show symptoms of Alzheimer's at younger ages than whites, while another study showed middle-aged blacks are more likely to suffer from the disease than whites of the same age.

"Studies like this should serve as a wake-up call to Congress and the nation," said James Jackson, a member of the Alzheimer's Association Medical & Scientific Advisory Council. "Minorities face disproportionate burdens of many diseases, including some that may contribute to Alzheimer's," Jackson added in a statement.

"As minority populations get older, they will see a dramatic rise in their risk of Alzheimer's disease. This will overwhelm their families and communities unless we take action now."

Several studies presented at the Philadelphia conference show that obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure can all raise the risk of Alzheimer's, which currently affects 4.5 million Americans.

Many minority groups suffer from a higher rate of these cardiovascular risk factors.

This could help explain the early onset in Latinos, said Dr. Christopher Clark of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

"We know that Latinos have high rates of vascular disease, leave school earlier, and are less likely to use medical services or have health insurance than other Americans -- all factors that appear to accelerate or increase the risk of Alzheimer's," Clark said in a statement.

Clark's team studied 119 Latinos and 55 non-Latino white Alzheimer's patients, talking to relatives to find out when symptoms first began.

They found that the first symptoms of Alzheimer's began at 67.6 on average for the Hispanic patients as opposed to 73.1 for the white patients.

In a second study, James Laditka of the University of South Carolina studied 37,000 Alzheimer's patients, part of a statewide registry of the disease. His team found that blacks aged 55 to 64 were more than three times as likely to have Alzheimer's as their white counterparts.

Noting that South Carolina blacks have an especially high rate of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, Laditka said the findings may reflect lifestyle.

"In South Carolina, we may be anticipating what will happen in the rest of the U.S. as the country grows in girth," Laditka said.