Confused about the link with poverty and stress. A linked article states: "Several teams presented evidence that poverty, disadvantage and stressful life events are strongly associated with cognitive problems in middle age and dementia later in life among African-Americans.
The findings could help explain why African-Americans are twice as likely as white Americans to develop dementia. And the research suggests genetic factors are not a major contributor."
Since there are more poor whites than African Americans, I don't understand why being poor explains African Americans being twice as likely to develop dementia?
> Among racial and ethnic groups, African Americans had the highest poverty rate, 27.4 percent, followed by Hispanics at 26.6 percent and whites at 9.9 percent. [0]
Well, this study didn't take into account hypertension, diabetes or obesity, so I'd wager no on the diet either.
> For example, it could not fully account for the effects of some other known Alzheimer's risk factors — including hypertension, diabetes and obesity — or some suspected risk factors, including stress and poverty. Also, the study included just 173 African-Americans and was able to obtain spinal fluid samples from only half of them.
While diet may play a role in dementia, it has no role in this study. It's showing that there is a innate difference in the amount of a molecular biomarker in different races that should be considered when testing for dementia. A further study could test if diet causes a difference in the biomarker, but there's no reason for them to mention it here.
That was a bit unsatisfying, it seems no real answers, but I suppose that's to be expected considering the research is only in it's very preliminary stages. Considering the costs involved - getting volunteers and spinal fluids, it seems like we're not going to get meaningful answers in the near future.
