Few Cherokees Get Alzheimer’s, Study Suggests
Cherokee genetics seems to protect full-blood tribal members against Alzheimer’s disease, according to preliminary research.
Researchers went to Tahlequah in northeastern Oklahoma to find 26 Cherokees who have Alzheimer’s and 26 who don’t.
“We need to find out how they are protected and why they are protected,” said Dr. Ralph Richter, coauthor of the study and director of the Alzheimer’s Research Unit at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa.
Dr. Roger N. Rosenberg, lead author and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, said the study started two years ago with a grant from the National Institute on Aging.
The findings appear in the October issue of Archives of Neurology.
The study indicates that full-blooded Cherokees are less likely than mixed-heritage Cherokees to get Alzheimer’s.
Findings showed that the rate of Alzheimer’s in people with more than 50% Cherokee ancestry was 34.6%. People with less than 50% Cherokee ancestry had a 65.3% rate of the disease.
Dr. Creighton Phelps, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers program for the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md., said the results were surprising and suggestive but not definite. More people need to be studied, he said.
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