Megan Zuelsdorff, PhD, was a guest on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) where she discussed recent developments in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research. Zuelsdorff is assistant professor in the UW School of Nursing and an Alzheimer's disease researcher.
MPR host Kerri Miller featured developments in Alzheimer’s disease research in the interview, including a potential blood test to help detect Alzheimer’s disease, factors like sleep in cognitive health, and the devastating, larger impact of Alzheimer’s disease on Black Americans. Zuelsdorff described a study she coauthored that found African Americans experience a higher rate of stressful life events, and that this can drastically increase likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia in later life. African Americans face almost double the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia than white people. LatinX people are also more likely to face risk of Alzheimer’s disease. These disparities are unfortunately not well understood, potentially because people of color have not been well represented in research studies, Zuelsdorff said. Researchers have not recruited enough people of color for studies, and visits for Alzheimer’s disease studies can require multiple visits and brain scans which can take several hours, factors that may prohibit more participation in research, she added.
The interview also covered recent news about a blood test that can potentially diagnose levels of amyloid and tau in a person’s blood stream, which are indicators of Alzheimer’s disease. The blood test could be an important tool for researchers and could help expand participation of people of color in more Alzheimer’s disease studies, Zuelsdorff said.
“This is an area where the blood biomarker research is really exciting, and that’s because of the social conditions … and there are much more barriers to participating in biomarker studies at a population level for communities of color. But we know from current participants that they’re happy to give blood, they’re very interested in what’s going on in the brain, so in some ways we could learn a lot more about important mechanisms of dementia,” she said.
"New Research into Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia" aired on December 3, 2020, on MPR.
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