Top Five Diseases that are often Misdiagnosed in African Americans

http://www.inlandvalleynews.com/2012/05/30/top-5-diseases-that-are-misdiagnosed-in-african-americans/Top 5 Diseases That Are Misdiagnosed In African Americans
May 30, 2012
Filed under: Health
Posted by: Admin

Millions of Americans spend years suffering from unexplained health problems. Sometimes even the best doctors miss the mark: About 40 percent of all mistakes that doctors make are misdiagnoses, says the National Patient Safety Foundation.

That’s because many ailments have similar symptoms or can be detected only with tests that your physician might consider unnecessary if he’s confident in his verdict.
If you’re in the know about often-confused conditions, though, you can ask the right questions to prevent or fix an error, and even save your life.

The following are some of the diseases most often missed:

Lupus. Lupus is two to three times more common among African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asians, it is a disparity that remains unexplained. Specifically, lupus is three times more common in black women than in white women. This autoimmune disease, found mainly in women, can cause common symptoms such as fatigue, achy or swollen joints and fevers. More than half say they suffered for at least four years and saw three or more doctors before getting a diagnosis. Black and Hispanic/Latina women tend to develop symptoms at an earlier age than other women. African Americans have more severe organ problems, especially with their kidneys. Between 1979 and 1998, death rates from lupus increased nearly 70% among black women between the ages of 45 and 64 years.

SARCOIDOSIS. Doctors have misdiagnosed this disease as asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis and COPD and other diseases because there is not a lot known about it. Most people and doctors too don’t even know what this disease is. They are not sure what causes it and they don’t have a cure as of yet. In the United States, sarcoidosis frequently occurs more often and more severely among African Americans than among Caucasians. Most studies suggest a higher disease rate for women.

COPD. COPD which covers chronic bronchitis and emphysema is the fourth highest cause of death in the United States. COPD is often misdiagnosed and under treated as asthma. Studies show that African American adults with COPD, asthma, or coexisting asthma and COPD use fewer medical services and account for lower medical costs than Caucasians because of non-diagnosis.

Hepatitis C. It’s the leading cause of liver transplants and the most common cause of liver-related deaths in this country, but as many as 70 percent of those infected are unaware they carry the virus. African-Americans face a “triple whammy” when it comes to the hepatitis C virus. Two aspects of this triple threat are well known: the high prevalence of the virus in the African-American community and the lower response to therapy of infected individuals. But there’s a third threat: African-Americans don’t spontaneously clear the virus as often as other racial and ethnic groups.

Hypothyroidism. About half of the nearly 27 million people with an underactive thyroid are undiagnosed. Symptoms such as fatigue, weight gain, hair loss and poor memory are often dismissed as normal signs of aging. According to new research, African Americans are diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a significantly lower rate than white Americans. According to the study authors, more aggressive detection efforts in African Americans could uncover more incidence of thyroid cancer, to the extent that the African American and white populations may be experiencing similar rates of increase.

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Study Reveals Sarcoidosis related mortality rates among black women...may 22, 2012

Study reveals sarcoidosis related mortality rates among black women ...may 22, 2012

ATS 2012, SAN FRANCISCO – A new study conducted by researchers from Boston University has found that sarcoidosis accounts for 25 percent of all deaths among women in the Black Women Health Study who have the disease...This study is the largest epidemiologic study to date to specificall address mortality in black females with Sarcoidois...more (click the link below)

Note: Although Sarcoidosis can be found in all races of people worldwide including children..African American women remain the highest group diagnosed with the disease. There are many speculations as to why, but Research still points ...to this group as having the highest number of cases diagnosed. As you know Sarcoidosis does mimic so many other diseases, and some doctors are still clueless to the symptoms. This is not stated to miminize the cases of other ethnic groups, just the recent research findings...Please read the entire article for more information...

http://www.sciencecodex.com/study_reveals_sarcoidosisrelated_mor

Sarcoidosis 15 min Documentary Project.mov

Published on May 7, 2012 by mayotaylor
To all my viewer's, this documentary was a school project for one of my film classes. Our professor instructed us to pick a subject that we were passionate about or a subject that we wanted people to know about that has not been talked about in the media often. This assignment, I feel was given specificaly for me. I'm passionate about helping to bring awareness to sarcoidosis and help in funding research to find a cure, plus this topic is difinitley something that has NOT had a lot of media attention, so when the professor told us the assignment, I felt the spirit of my mother telling me this is it, this is what you were meant to do......So in honor of my mother, I produced this 15 minute mini documentary about sarcoidosis.....


Please join my family in the 1st Annual Deloris D. Mayo Walk for Sarcoidosis walk-a-thon on July 14, 2012 at Mt. Trashmore Lake Park in Va. Beach, Va. This event is in honor of my mother, Deloris D. Mayo who lost the battle of he life to an incurable diesase called Sarcoidosis. Many may have never heard of this or some may have heard of it because this is the same disease that Bernie Mac had suffered with.

Currently there is no cure and little public information about Sarcoidosis. It is my dream to help others get educated so they could seek proper medical care, sadly enough a lot of doctors don't really know what sarcoidosis is and it's often misdiagonoised. (This is such an unfortunate true fact) I want to help raise funds to aid in the research of better treatment and hopefully soon a cure.

Friends and family that live in the VA, DC, MD, & NC area please come out and support me in my efforts to make this event successful. Since the death of my mother, this has been something that has been placed in my heart to do, and I'm going to do my very best to make this happen. It took me a while to get things to come together but everything is lining up accordingly.

Please visit my website to become a sponsor, donate an offer, register individually or in teams, volunteer, donate a charitable contribution that we may use the day of the event, such as snacks, water, specific services, or just if you want to get more information about sarcoidosis. Our website is www.delorisdmayowalk4sarcoidosis.org

I look forward to seeing you on July 14, 2012.

God Bless!

Sarcoidosis 15 min Documentary Project.mov

Published on May 7, 2012 by mayotaylor
To all my viewer's, this documentary was a school project for one of my film classes. Our professor instructed us to pick a subject that we were passionate about or a subject that we wanted people to know about that has not been talked about in the media often. This assignment, I feel was given specificaly for me. I'm passionate about helping to bring awareness to sarcoidosis and help in funding research to find a cure, plus this topic is difinitley something that has NOT had a lot of media attention, so when the professor told us the assignment, I felt the spirit of my mother telling me this is it, this is what you were meant to do......So in honor of my mother, I produced this 15 minute mini documentary about sarcoidosis.....


Please join my family in the 1st Annual Deloris D. Mayo Walk for Sarcoidosis walk-a-thon on July 14, 2012 at Mt. Trashmore Lake Park in Va. Beach, Va. This event is in honor of my mother, Deloris D. Mayo who lost the battle of he life to an incurable diesase called Sarcoidosis. Many may have never heard of this or some may have heard of it because this is the same disease that Bernie Mac had suffered with.

Currently there is no cure and little public information about Sarcoidosis. It is my dream to help others get educated so they could seek proper medical care, sadly enough a lot of doctors don't really know what sarcoidosis is and it's often misdiagonoised. (This is such an unfortunate true fact) I want to help raise funds to aid in the research of better treatment and hopefully soon a cure.

Friends and family that live in the VA, DC, MD, & NC area please come out and support me in my efforts to make this event successful. Since the death of my mother, this has been something that has been placed in my heart to do, and I'm going to do my very best to make this happen. It took me a while to get things to come together but everything is lining up accordingly.

Please visit my website to become a sponsor, donate an offer, register individually or in teams, volunteer, donate a charitable contribution that we may use the day of the event, such as snacks, water, specific services, or just if you want to get more information about sarcoidosis. Our website is www.delorisdmayowalk4sarcoidosis.org

I look forward to seeing you on July 14, 2012.

God Bless!