Autopsies of black and white Alzheimer’s patients revealed that blacks were more likely than whites to experience a mix of dementia-related changes, as opposed to the damage usually associated with “pure” Alzheimer’s dementia, according to the study.
“We were surprised that the African Americans were much more likely to have a mixed picture,” said lead author Lisa Barnes, a professor of neurology and behavioral science at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “The underlying brain changes were different, which indicates that they probably had different risk factors.”
The study findings were published online July 15 in advance of print publication in the journal Neurology.
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Dementia isn’t a specific disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Instead, dementia refers to a wide range of symptoms, such as memory loss and communication problems, that are significant enough to interfere with daily life, the association explains.
The study found that among 81 white patients who died, 42 percent only displayed signs of typical Alzheimer’s disease. About 51 percent of them had a mix of brain changes that included infarcts and Lewy bodies, the researchers said.
But among 41 black patients who died, about 20 percent displayed only the usual Alzheimer’s plaques and tangles. Almost all the rest — more than 70 percent — experienced infarcts and Lewy bodies on top of the usual Alzheimer’s brain changes.
Blacks also had more frequent and severe blood vessel disease in their brains, such as hardening of the arteries, the investigators found.
These results could help begin to explain why blacks in the United States are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s than people of European descent, said Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations for the Alzheimer’s Association.
Black people are more likely than whites to suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, all of which increase a person’s risk of infarct-causing strokes, Barnes said.