ST. PAUL, Minn., Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A large-scale analysis of data from nationwide surveys reveals that lower income and racial minority status are "significantly" associated with more risk factors for dementia disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, a study released Wednesday says.
Health data collected from thousands of Americans suggests that both impoverished people and racial subgroups who have been historically underrepresented in clinical research -- such as Black and Hispanic Americans -- are more prone to having many dementia risk factors than their higher-income and White counterparts, the authors found.
Those risk factors include obesity, high levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, traumatic brain injury, untreated hearing loss, untreated hypertension, smoking, depression, diabetes and physical inactivity in midlife years, as well as vision loss and social isolation late in life.
The results, published by the American Academy of Neurology in its flagship medical journal, also demonstrate these groups tend to have more dementia risks that are modifiable -- even in old age -- and thus could greatly benefit from focused prevention efforts, the authors say.
In the study, researchers tapped data collected as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, which have been conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention annually since 1999. Each year, thousands of Americans answer questions about their health, diet, and personal and social economic characteristics in these surveys.
