NPR (1/7, Hamilton) reports in its “Shots” blog and on its “All Things Considered” program that in a study involving 1,255 people, researchers “found that cerebrospinal fluid from African-Americans tended to contain lower levels of a substance associated with Alzheimer’s” disease, but “these low levels did not seem to protect black participants from the disease.” One of the study’s authors, said the findings, which were published online Jan. 7 in JAMA Neurology, suggest that “that the biological mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease may be very different in [different] racial groups.” The author of an accompanying editorial wrote that the study failed to take into account other risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and only obtained spinal fluid samples from half of a small number of black participants. (SOURCE: APA Headlines)