Study seeks African-American volunteers to test drug that slows signs of Alzheimer’s disease

By Frederick H. Lowe
Contributing Writer

(Special from NorthStarNews Today) — A study partly funded by the National Institute on Aging is seeking African-American volunteers to participate in clinical trials to test an investigational drug designed to slow the development of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.

The National Institute of Aging, a federal agency, and Eli Lilly & Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer based in Indianapolis, Ind., and several unnamed philanthropic organizations, want Afri­can-American volunteers as well as volunteers of other races to participate in the Anti-Amyloid in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s or A4 study, which has a goal of delaying Alzheimer’s disease-related memory loss before overt signs of the disease develop.

The study takes a new approach by testing for an elevated level of a protein in the brain known as “amyloid.” Scientists believe that elevated amyloid in the brain may play an important role in the eventual development of the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s.

The Alzheimer’s Association has reported that African Americans are at higher risk for the disease and that they develop late-onset Alzheimer’s at twice the rates of whites. In addition, African Ameri­cans are less likely to have their condition correctly diagnosed. Too often in the African-American community, Alz­heim­er’s victims and their relatives mistakenly believe memory loss is a sign of normal aging.

Some of the warning signs of memory loss are: disruption of daily life, confusion about time and place, problems speaking or writing, misplacing belongings and losing the ability to retrace steps and poor judgment.

“It is extremely important that African Americans get involved with this study,” said Reisa Speril­ing, MD, principal investigator of the A4Study. Dr. Sperling also is director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treat­ment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also a professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. “We need to know why African Americans develop Alz­heim­er’s in such high numbers, and the A4 study offers new hope that we can give people a way to fight back.”

Dr. Sperling noted that the A4 study will also determine specifically how the research affects African Americans.

“For too long, medicines have been developed without substantial research on how they work specifically in African Ameri­cans,” Dr. Sperling said. “Medica­tions that are used by the entire community must be developed and tested on the entire community and that’s why it is critical to volunteer for this study.”

Researchers must screen 10,000 healthy participants in order to identify 1,000 healthy participants between the ages of 65 and 85. The participants must have changes in their brain associated with the disease but don’t yet have any symptoms. Participants would enroll at various sites across the country.

Potential volunteers can learn more about the study and enroll by visiting the A4 study website at www.A4Study.org, by calling (844) 247-8839 or by e-mailing BrainLink@ucsd.edu.

This article originally published in the March 9, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.