individuals who have recent sub-Saharan African ancestry. Approximately 5 million African Americans carry APOL1 risk variants; however, not all persons with such variants develop kidney disease.
Per the study:
To get a better sense of how APOL1 genetic risk variants affect kidney disease and other aspects of health over the long term, Morgan Grams, MD Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University) and her colleagues evaluated the prognosis and APOL1 status of participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study.
Among 15,140 ARIC participants followed from 1987-1989 to 2011-2013, 75.3% were white, 21.5% were black/APOL1 low-risk, and 3.2% were black/APOL1 high-risk. “Our study is a population-based cohort following participants over 25 years and thus well suited at assessing a fairly comprehensive set of outcomes among people with the high-risk genotype,” said Dr. Grams.
In analyses that adjusted for differences in demographics, blacks had a higher risk for all assessed adverse health events: acute kidney injury, kidney failure, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hospitalization, and