Onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms is apparent some 7 years sooner in US mainland Latinos than in their white non-Latino compatriots, a new study shows.

Although Latino people are a geographically and genetically diverse group, some reports suggest that they may differ from whites in respect to several characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease.

To investigate further, researchers evaluated 119 Latino and 55 white non-Latino patients with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

They found that alzheimer’s symptoms began at about 67 years of age in the Latinos compared with 73 years of age in the whites - close to a 7-year difference.

The basis for the difference “remains obscure,” Dr. Christopher M. Clark of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues admit.

Regardless, Clark told Reuters Health, Latino families and health professionals who care for Latinos need to “recognize that symptoms of memory loss and confused thinking in someone in their sixties may represent Alzheimer’s disease.”

The findings, he added, “also demonstrate the need for Latinos to participate in clinical studies in order to help healthcare researchers better understand how dementia affects members of their ethnic group.”

SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, May 2005.