WAKE FOREST - More than 150,000 North Carolinians have Alzheimer's Disease and a disproportionate number of those are African-Americans. Stephanie Monroe, director of African-Americans Against Alzheimer's, says new research will hopefully give doctors insight into why that is.

"Those numbers are only going to continue to get larger as we age as a population," Monroe says. "We don't understand a lot of the reasoning behind why, frankly because many African-Americans haven't participated in research for us to understand it."

Wake Forest University is conducting a study into Alzheimer's and Dr. Reisa Sperling says it will not only try out a new treatment but also try to find why this disease is two to three times more likely to affect black men and women than whites.

"The A4 study will give an investigational treatment to try and help the brain clear amyloid plaque and then we will have a better understanding as to whether African-Americans have an increased risk of having these amyloid plaques when they're over the age of 65," Sperling says. "And importantly, whether we can clear them from the brain."

Sperling says there are other health discrepancies between African-Americans and other populations.

"Unfortunately, African-Americans also have a higher rate of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure," Sperling says. "That may contribute."

While Monroe says African-Americans have largely not participated in Alzheimer's studies, she adds that they\ are more likely to participate if they are asked.

"It's an outreach issue. So that's why we're actually going into communities and raising awareness about the disease and prevalence and showing people through a play what the disease's symptoms look like," Monroe says.