Environmental pollution may contribute to racial disparities in Alzheimer’s patients

iStock Photo/acilo by Hazel Trice Edney For New Pittsburgh Courier The cause of racial disparities between Black and White Alzheimer’s dementia patients has been a long-standing mystery for medical scientists. Now, there appears to be a breakthrough that could lead to the answer as to why older Black people are currently living with and dying from dementia at twice the rate of Whites. A study, published three years ago, in the Journals of Gerontology reports that environmental pollution, also disparate in Black communities, may be contributing to the racial disparities in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, especially in Black women, the population that carries the overwhelming burden of Alzheimer’s in the U. S. “For decades, research has shown the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease in the United States is dramatically higher among African American populations than in non-Hispanic white populations. Scientists have suspected a variety of contributing factors, but the underlying reasons have remained unclear,” states a news release from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC). “Now, a new study in The Journals of Gerontology, conducted in collaboration with researchers across the country, points to environmental neurotoxins – specifically, ambient fine particles in the...