Research

Racial differences in Alzheimer’s disease unveiled

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis •
A new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis finds disparities between African-Americans and Caucasians in a key biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease – suggesting that tools to diagnose the disease in Caucasian populations may not work as well in African-Americans.
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African-Americans may be twice as likely as Caucasian Americans to develop Alzheimer’s disease, but nobody knows why because studies investigating the underlying causes of illness have historically drawn from a nearly all-white pool of research participants. Consequently, little is known about how the neurodegenerative disease arises and progresses in people of non-Caucasian backgrounds.