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Stories for Reprint
African Americans and Lupus:
Men Have More Difficult Problems
By Ferdous Al-Faruque, MARRTC Staff
A recent lupus study by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta has found stark differences in the disease between African American men and women. Though the disease is far more common in African American women, the study found African American men had more severe symptoms and were more prone to have heart and kidney complications of lupus.
Previous research has found that Lupus affects two to three times as many African Americans as Caucasians. Sam Lim, an assistant professor at Emory and principal investigator of the study, says there is a big picture in understanding how lupus affects different groups of people. "The differences in the disease may be clues as to how lupus works and what makes people susceptible," he said.
Lupus has been called the "great imitator" because there are so many symptoms associated with the disease that it is often misdiagnosed. Lim says people who suspect they may have the disease need to educate themselves about it--especially if they belong to a high-risk group--and discuss their symptoms with their physicians. He cautions many of the symptoms of lupus are seen in other conditions and careful evaluation is needed. In short, people who are concerned that they may have lupus should discuss their concerns with a physician, such as a rheumatologist, who is knowledgeable about the diagnosis.
Lim goes on to say the conclusions of their study are especially important for primary care physicians. "They are on the frontlines of identifying people with lupus," he said. For people who don't have direct access to a rheumatologist, primary care physicians are the ones who determine if their patients have lupus and need referral to a specialist.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease, which means the body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue and organs, often with serious consequences. According to the Lupus Foundation of America, 1.5 million Americans have some form of the disease.
This is the second story of a three part series on the Georgia Lupus Registry conducted by Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Records of over 1400 African American lupus patients from Fulton, DeKalb and Richmond counties in Georgia are currently being collected and analyzed.
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