Title: Why 7 Deadly Diseases Strike Blacks Most
Headings: Why 7 Deadly Diseases Strike Blacks Most
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Why 7 Deadly Diseases Strike Blacks Most
Health care disparities heighten disease differences between African-Americans and white Americans.

Content: A similar situation exists for heart failure. A promising treatment for heart failure didn't seem to be working -- until researchers noticed that it worked much better for black patients than for white patients. A study of black patients confirmed this finding -- and provided tantalizing evidence that the drug will help patients of all races with certain disease characteristics. "The way this discussion of race differences has been helpful for the whole field of cardiology, is it is exposing new treatment options for all people with heart failure, African-American and Caucasian," Yancy says. Black Americans and Diabetes
Black Americans -- and Mexican-Americans -- have twice the risk of diabetes as white Americans. In addition, blacks with diabetes have more serious complications -- such as loss of vision, loss of limbs, and kidney failure -- than whites, notes Maudene Nelson, RD, certified diabetes educator at Naomi Barry Diabetes Center at Columbia University. "The theory is that maybe it is access to health care, or maybe a cultural fatalism -- thinking, 'It is God's will,' or, 'My family had it so I have it' -- not a sense of something I can have an impact on so it won't hurt me," Nelson tells WebMD. " But more and more there is thinking it is something that makes blacks genetically more susceptible. It is hard to tell how much of it is what." The Forgotten Killer
There is, indeed, evidence that African-Americans may have a genetic susceptibility to diabetes.