In this study, authors recruited 19 white volunteers (mean age 31.9 ± 1.8) and 28 black volunteers (mean age 40.4 ± 2.4) and with no adjustments for age or any other relevant factors (e.g. diet, obesity, co-morbidity, physical activity, prescriptions, socioeconomic status, etc) concluded that
"[o]ur study is the first to demonstrate that the Gq pathway is differentially regulated by race." (abstract).
Despite the small numbers, the authors also further restricted by factors that could similarly be affected by age, diet, comorbidity or other unmeasured characteristics distributed differentially by race:
"To determine whether potential differences exist in the kinetics of platelet activation, the time to 50% aggregation was measured, which encompasses both the lag time (the time from agonist addition until the start of aggregation) as well as the rate of aggregation. Because not all donors aggregated in response to threshold doses of PAR4-AP, platelets from subjects who failed to reach 50% aggregation were eliminated from the analysis. For the donors who did not reach 50% aggregation, 6 of 13 white donors at 35 μmol/L of PAR4-AP and 3 of 12 white donors at 50 μmol/L of PAR4-AP were excluded from the analysis. Even with the absence of several white subjects because of lack of platelet aggregation, platelets from white donors were slower to 50% aggregation compared with platelets from black donors at low concentrations of PAR4-AP (35–50 μmol/L; Figure 1H). These data suggest that the racial difference in PAR4-mediated platelet activation is intrinsic to the platelet." (p. 2646)
The journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, is an American Heart Association journal that is considered pretty reputable, or so I thought.
"[o]ur study is the first to demonstrate that the Gq pathway is differentially regulated by race." (abstract).
Despite the small numbers, the authors also further restricted by factors that could similarly be affected by age, diet, comorbidity or other unmeasured characteristics distributed differentially by race:
"To determine whether potential differences exist in the kinetics of platelet activation, the time to 50% aggregation was measured, which encompasses both the lag time (the time from agonist addition until the start of aggregation) as well as the rate of aggregation. Because not all donors aggregated in response to threshold doses of PAR4-AP, platelets from subjects who failed to reach 50% aggregation were eliminated from the analysis. For the donors who did not reach 50% aggregation, 6 of 13 white donors at 35 μmol/L of PAR4-AP and 3 of 12 white donors at 50 μmol/L of PAR4-AP were excluded from the analysis. Even with the absence of several white subjects because of lack of platelet aggregation, platelets from white donors were slower to 50% aggregation compared with platelets from black donors at low concentrations of PAR4-AP (35–50 μmol/L; Figure 1H). These data suggest that the racial difference in PAR4-mediated platelet activation is intrinsic to the platelet." (p. 2646)
The journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, is an American Heart Association journal that is considered pretty reputable, or so I thought.
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