Cholesterol Confusion

Todays News high cholesterol will lead to later dementia the reports indicate. While we don't suffer from the issue of cholesterol any and all dementia reports hit close to home. Aunt Mamie and probably one of our uncles is a victim (we think) of the early signs of dementia so the subject is one near and dear to our hearts. This is not the story we thought we'd be writing today. We hoped we'd be updating you about the H1N1 (swine flu) virus and the other mutant strains that are now entering into epidemic stages throughout the world.

The New York Times, WebMD, Reuters and the BBC all report that high cholesterol in the "younger than us" can lead to vascular disease (Vad) and or Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the "older than us."

We thought we'd read the research and maybe explain or answer questions left unanswered by the report and their reporting. Then something very curious occurred - we saw the following numbers.

Race/ethnic group	No dementia	AD	VaD
(self-reported)	(n = 9,248)	(n = 469)	(n = 127)
Asian	598 (6.5)	17 (3.6)	5 (3.9)
Black	1,387 (15)	109 (23.2)	35 (27.6)
White	6,863 (74,2)	325 (69.3)	85 (66.9)
Other	400 (4.3)	18 (3.8)	2 (1.6)

The new study found this in the discussion of their summary. The entire summary is available online from the New York Times article: "Testing of interaction terms by race/ethnic group and sex showed that effects were not statistically different for men and women or by race/ethnic group." According to the numbers above Blacks are almost double at risk than other ethnic groups. Since Pearlie Leach, a black woman, and her twin sister Mamie who recently succumbed to the effect of dementia we are sensitive to numbers like these.

Are the numbers startling or new - NO! That the numbers are considered NOT statistically different by race/ethnic group is the secondary story and the need for this site. What the report appears to indicate is that a history of bad behavior does significant and long term damage to your health and your mental future. A late term conversion will appear to do little to prevent a lifetime of physical abuse.