Hispanic people are more likely to develop peripheral neuropathy than white people, and it’s not clear why, a new study has found.

Hispanic folks were 32% more likely than white people to have this nerve disorder even after accounting for known health, lifestyle and social risk factors, researchers reported July 16 in the journal Neurology.

“It is likely that unknown social risk factors exist for this population,” lead researcher Evan Lee Reynolds, an assistant professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing, said in a news release. “Identifying additional risk factors for Hispanic people should be the focus of future studies.”

Peripheral neuropathy occurs when nerves located outside the brain and spinal cord are damaged, according to the Mayo Clinic. People often feel weakness, numbness and pain, usually in the hands and feet.

“In the United States, there is a higher prevalence of peripheral neuropathy among Hispanic and Black people than white people, and the underlying factors driving these differences are not well defined,” Reynolds said.

For the study, researchers analyzed health records for more than 8,000 people, of whom 55% were white, 24% Hispanic and 18% Black. They had an average age of 61, and 13% had peripheral neuropathy.

The research team considered an array of risk factors for neuropathy, including:

In general, more people with neuropathy had diabetes, high blood pressure, larger waist circumference and lower income, results showed. They were also less active.

After adjusting only for age and sex, researchers found that both Hispanic and Black people had higher odds of peripheral neuropathy compared to white people.

Black people wound up with odds similar to those of white people after researchers accounted for all of the other risk factors.

But Hispanic people continued to have increased odds of peripheral neuropathy, even after all the other risks were included, the study found.

“We looked at a wide range of known risk factors, including health, lifestyle and social factors, and found that Hispanic people still had a higher risk of neuropathy even after those risk factors were considered,” Reynolds said.

Social factors weighed heavily in the known risks for peripheral neuropathy among Hispanic people, researchers said. For example, being uninsured increased their risk by 56%, and having food insecurity by 48%.

“Given the increasing percentage of Hispanic individuals in the United States, identifying the unmeasured risk factors of peripheral neuropathy among Hispanic individuals should be the focus of future observational studies,” researchers concluded.

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