研究發(fā)現：高血壓會增加癡呆風險

Two studies released this week link higher blood pressure in middle-aged people to a greater risk of neurological damage, including dementia.

本周公布的兩項研究結果表明，中年人血壓較高與包括癡呆在內的神經損傷高風險有一定的關聯。

People with higher blood pressure, including those below guidelines for hypertension, have an increased risk for dementia, according to researchers in Europe. Researchers in Italy were able to show neurological damage due to higher blood pressure in MRI scans, and may be the first to do so.

歐洲的研究人員稱，血壓較高的人(包括低于高血壓標準的人)患癡呆的風險會增加。意大利的研究人員在磁共振成像(MRI)掃描中成功證明了血壓較高對神經的損傷，這可能尚屬首次。

Previous research has linked high blood pressure as a chronic condition that causes progressive organ damage. And other studies have found most Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia aren’t linked to genetics, but instead chronic exposure to vascular risk factors.

先前的研究已經認定高血壓是能導致漸進性器官損傷的慢性疾病。另有研究發(fā)現，大多數阿爾茨海默病和相關癡呆與遺傳無關，而與長期受血管病風險因素影響有關。

But dementia diagnoses usually occur only after symptoms are quite evident -- too late to reverse the neurodegenerative process.

但癡呆通常只有在癥狀相當明顯時才能確診——那時就太晚了，已無法逆轉神經退行過程。

In an analysis of data from the Whitehall II study, published Tuesday in the European Heart Journal, researchers looked at data from 8,639 civil servants collected in 1985, 1991, 1997 and 2003.

在上周二(6月12日)發(fā)表在英國《歐洲心臟病學雜志》雙月刊上的、來自白廳二號的一篇報告中，研究人員分析了有關方面在1985年、1991年、1997年和2003年收集的8639名公務員的數據。

The researchers found that 50-year-olds who had a systolic blood pressure of 130 mmHg or more had a 45 percent greater risk of developing dementia than those with a lower blood pressure at the same age. This is despite no other heart or blood vessel-related problems, they say. The association between high blood pressure and dementia didn’t appear in people between 60 and 70.

研究人員發(fā)現，50歲的人若收縮壓在130毫米汞柱以上，那么患癡呆的風險就會比血壓較低的同齡人高45%。他們說，這一點不受其他心臟或血管相關問題的影響。60歲至70歲人群中沒有顯現出高血壓與癡呆之間的關聯。

"Previous research has not been able to test the link between raised blood pressure and dementia directly by examining the timing in sufficient detail," Dr. Jessica Abell, a post-doctoral research fellow at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris and a research associate in dementia and epidemiology at University College London, said in a press release. "In our paper we were able to examine the association at age 50, 60 and 70, and we found different patterns of association. This will have important implications for policy guidelines, which currently only use the generic term ’midlife.’"

巴黎的法國國家健康與醫(yī)療研究所博士后研究員、同時也是倫敦大學癡呆和流行病學研究助理的杰西卡?阿貝爾博士在一份報告上表示： “通過觀察一定時間內的充足細節(jié)，先前的研究無法直接測試出高血壓和癡呆之間的聯系。在我們的論文中，我們研究了50歲、60歲和70歲人之間的關聯，發(fā)現了不同的關聯模式。這將對目前只使用‘中年’這個通用術語的指導方針產生重要影響。”

Lembo led a separate study of MRI scans from people aged 40 to 65 admitted at the Regional Excellence Hypertension Center of the Italian Society of Hypertension. The findings were published Monday in the journal Cardiovascular Research.

倫博博士還牽頭研究了意大利高血壓協(xié)會高血壓地區(qū)研究中心收治的40歲至65歲人群的MRI掃描數據。研究結果載于周一出版的英國《心血管研究》雙月刊。

Researchers wanted to find any specific signature of brain changes in white matter microstructure of hypertensive patients, which is associated with an impairment of the related cognitive functions.

研究人員希望發(fā)現高血壓患者大腦白質微結構變化的一切具體特征，那些變化與相關認知功能受損有關。

They found hypertensive patients showed significant alterations in three specific white matter fiber-tracts. In addition, hypertensive patients also performed significantly worse in cognitive tests, including domains processing speed, memory and related learning tasks.

他們發(fā)現，高血壓患者的三個特定白質纖維束上有顯著變化。此外，高血壓患者在認知測試中的表現也明顯較差，包括域處理速度、記憶和相關學習任務。

Overall, MRI’s detected white matter fiber-tracking as an early sign of damage in hypertensive patients when otherwise undetectable by conventional neuroimaging.

總的來說，MRI檢測到的白質纖維束痕跡是高血壓患者神經損傷的早期跡象，那是常規(guī)神經成像技術無法檢測到的。

來源：美國合眾國際社