Sudhakar Jha
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Written By: Sudhakar Jha | Published : August 9, 2018 1:57 PM IST
Stroke is a risk factor for dementia. © Shutterstock
Researchers from the University College London and King's College London conducted an 8 year-long survey of more than 2.5 million people to come to the conclusion that black people were at 28 per cent higher risk of dementia diagnosis that the whites. Wondering why? Read on...
In this one of a kind research, published in the journal Clinical Epidemiology, the researchers compared the incidence of dementia diagnosis by ethnicity. The data included 2,511,681 people, out of whom 66,000 were diagnosed with the mental disorder.
Furthermore, the researchers found that despite high diagnosis rate, black men were less likely to receive a diagnosis compared to the white men. Dr Tra My Pham, one of the authors, said that the matter was very concerning that the black people are more at risk of dementia but still they do not receive a diagnosis.
Though the experts could not find the link as to why only certain ethnic groups face a higher risk, they theorised that different levels of education, wealth, smoking, exercise and mental health, all of while are the risk factor of dementia, can be the reasons. Dr Claudia Cooper, the lead researcher, added that the it can be also due to the fact that black people have less treatment for high blood pressure which again is a strong link to developing dementia.
The research also went on to find out that black women were at 25 per cent higher risk than their white counterparts. And the occurrence of dementia was 18 per cent lower in Asian women and 12 per cent lower in Asian men compared to white women and men. There have been other studies done around the same that South Asians have lower genetic risks and that too may have played a role in this study's findings.
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