Anthropometric rather than ethnic factors may explain differences in the incidence of Alzheimer‐type neurodegenerative changes

Suemoto et al. (6) reported differences in neuropathological lesions in the very old and younger individuals from a large Brazilian autopsy study as being possibly related to ethnic factors. In previous work the same authors demonstrated that African ancestry was inversely correlated with neuritic plaques, but not with neurofibrilary tangles, compared to Caucasian ancestry (5), suggesting also that unknown genetic variants or environmental factors associated with African ancestry reduce the accumulation of β-amyloid or increase its clearance.