I read
the article “Blacks Have Same Gene Changes as Whites, Alzheimer Study Finds”,
written by Gina Kolata. This article is based on a research that was able to
prove that African Americans have a higher risk of obtaining Alzheimer than a
European. They tested some older people and found that African Americans with
Alzheimer’s were more likely to have the gene ABCA7 that is actually
thought to cause this disease. Another gene APoE4 also causes the
disease but it is equally found in African Americans as whites. They tell us
more about the experimenting. They say that they used “6,000 African-Americans who were over age 60 and had
participated in studies at 18 medical centers.” They were able to prove that
the gene ABCA7 increased the risk
for African Americans by 80% and for Europeans only 10-20%. Some scientists or
doctors argue that the relationship between these studies is not really
significant. Dr. Hardy explained that there could have been a slight variation
in the gene of African Americans and there is no historical reason as to why
this gene gives them Alzheimer.
I think that this study is important
to humanity and making further conclusions in science. There was another study
that because African Americans were slaves, if an African American and a white
where raised exactly the same, the white would have a better IQ. This led to
the belief that African Americans fell behind on education because of their
slavery. These experiments on a population basis are important to understanding
our world and the effects that different factors can have. Understanding these
genes and how they work will only help in the long run whether a way is find to
fix it so that it doesn’t cause the Alzheimer disease.
I really enjoyed the article. I wish
there was more of an explanation on why African Americans have the effect of
having a higher risk of getting the disease because of the gene but was still
interesting. The author did a good job of explaining the experimentation
process and analyzing it. Many facts were also given about the topic.
posted for Y. Louka
I read Yianni's review on the article "Blacks have Same Gene Changes as Whites, Alzheimer Study Finds." Yianni's review was very well portrayed, and he did an excellent job. First off, Yianni provided a lot of good detail in his review, such as the statistic that the ABCA7 gene increases a the possible of an African American getting the disease by 80%, compared to 20% for a European. Moreover, Yianni related this discovery to another discovery suggesting that if an African American and white person are raises the same way, the white person will have the higher IQ because African Americans fell behind due to slavery. Lastly, Yianni did a good job on his critique of the article. For instance, Yianni stated that the article did not explain why African Americans are more likely to get the disease because of the gene.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Yianni's review was good, there are a few things Yianni could do better for next time. First off, Yianni could provide a quote for the article so the reader could get a feel for how the article is written. Secondly, Yianni could have provided more information of the Alzheimers because I was unsure what exactly causes the disease and what makes the disease appear in older people.
One thing that was extremely interesting about this article is that African Americans have a higher chance of getting Alzheimers than white people. It is really interesting to hear that African Americans are at a disadvantage for a common disease.
I read Yianni’s review on “Blacks Have Same Gene Changes as Whites, Alzheimer Study Finds”. It is a very interesting topic that’s based on science research. Yianni chose a lot of good details to make this review rich in content. His first paragraph has a clear order in which Yianni stated what was proven and then how it was proved. Following up, Yianni described more detailed information about this research. He specified the gene that caused the problem and the research data, such as ABCA7 and APoE4. This gives the readers an even stronger impression of how did the experiment worked. Yianni also included a very important quote: 6,000 African-Americans who were over age 60 and had participated in studies at 18 medical centers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Yianni did a very good job, there are few things that he could add in to the review to make it better. He could give some background information about Alzheimer before he started getting to the article. Like he said, the readers don’t know how these genes related to the disease; so searching and adding some other causes of Alzheimer would give the reader a better understanding of the article. Another thing Yianni could do is expanding the second paragraph. He has a very interesting assumption about the reason why blacks have rate of Alzheimer, but he didn’t finish explaining it, which led the readers unsatisfied.
Overall, I think it’s a very good review. I thought Alzheimer was only influenced by family ancestry and people’s life styles before. It was very interesting to know that there are also genes that cause Alzheimer.