The Texas County Where ‘Everybody Has Somebody in Their Family’ With Dementia

In Starr County, Texas, near the state’s southern tip along the U.S.-Mexico border, escaping dementia can feel impossible. “Everybody has somebody in their family” with dementia, Gladys Maestre, a neuroepidemiologist who studies aging at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley, told me. In the Rio Grande Valley, people are also outliving their odds. And they don’t necessarily want for themselves what they did for their parents: If his time comes, Manny Saenz wants to go to a nursing facility. The genetic variant most strongly linked to Alzheimer’s disease is less common—and possibly less potent—among people with certain Hispanic backgrounds than among white people.