評論
打印
Science and Technolgy
科技
Diagnosing dementia
癡呆癥的診斷
Advance warning
病情惡化預警
How to detect Alzheimer's before symptoms appear-if you are a woman
作為一名女性，如何在癥狀出現前診斷阿爾茨海默氏癥
ALZHEIMER'S disease has no cure.
阿爾茨海默氏癥目前尚無法治愈。
There are, however, five drugs-known and approved-that can slow down the development of its symptoms.
然而，有五種已知并獲批準的藥物能減緩其癥狀的惡化。
The earlier such drugs are administered, the better.
這些藥物越早使用，效果越佳。
Unfortunately, the disease is usually first noticed when people complain to their doctors of memory problems.
遺憾的是，該疾病一般在病人向醫生抱怨自己記憶力出了問題時才第一次被察覺。
That is normally too late for the drugs to do much good.
通常在這種情況下，藥物的最佳治療時機已過。
A simple and reliable test for Alzheimer's that can be administered to everybody over the age of about 65, before memory-loss sets in, would therefore be useful.
因此，只有找到一種能在65歲以上人群記憶力衰退前檢測該病的簡單、可靠的方法，才能真正收到療效。
Theo Luider, of the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, and his colleagues think they have found one-but it works only in women.
荷蘭鹿特丹伊拉斯姆斯大學醫學中心的西奧?路德和同事找到了一種有效的檢測方法，但只對女性有效。
They made their discovery, just reported in the Journal of Proteome Research, by tapping into a long-term, continuing study that started in 1995 with 1,077 non-demented and otherwise healthy people aged between 60 and 90.
該發現刊登在了最新的《蛋白質組學研究雜志》。這是一項始于1995年的長期且仍在持續的研究，共有1077名年齡在60至90歲的精神正常且身體健康的人參與。
At the beginning of the project, and subsequently during the periods 1997-99 and 2002-04, participants were brought in for a battery of neurological and cognitive investigations, physical examinations, brain imaging and blood tests.
研究初期，以及此后的1997-1999和2002-2004兩個時間段內，參與者分別接受了一輪神經和認知系統測試、身體檢查、大腦成像和血液檢查。
During the first ten years of the study, 43 of the volunteers developed Alzheimer's disease.
研究的第一個10年間，43名志愿者患上了阿爾茨海默氏癥。
When Dr Luider compared blood samples from these people with samples from 43 of their fellow volunteers, matched for sex and age, who had remained Alzheimer's-free, he found something startling.
路德醫生將這些人的血液樣本和另外43名性別、年齡匹配但沒有患病的志愿者對比后，有了驚人的發現。
Levels of a substance called pregnancy zone protein had been unusually high, even before their symptoms appeared, in some of those who went on to develop Alzheimer's disease.
某些患上阿爾茨海默氏癥的志愿者，其血液中一種名為妊娠帶蛋白的物質含量非常高，甚至在癥狀出現前也是如此。
Those "some", it turned out, were all women.
這些志愿者，最終都被確認為女性。
On average, levels of pregnancy zone protein in those women who went on to develop Alzheimer's were almost 60% higher than those of women who did not. In men, levels of the protein were the same for both.
通常，女性患者體內的妊娠帶蛋白含量比健康女性高出60%，男性的這一蛋白水平則沒有變化。
The reason for this curious result seems to be that the brain plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease are themselves turning out pregnancy zone protein.
出現這一結果的原因可能是，與阿爾茨海默氏癥相關的大腦斑塊自身分泌這一蛋白。
Certainly, when Dr Luider applied a chemical stain specific to that protein to the plaques of dead Alzheimer's patients he found the protein present in them.
路德醫生將針對該蛋白的特定化學染色劑注入死亡病人的大腦斑塊中，從而證明了這一蛋白的存在。
Confusingly, though, it was there in the plaques of both sexes.
然而，令人不解的是，男女病患的大腦斑塊中都有這一蛋白。
Presumably, female cells (and therefore the plaques of female brains) make more of it than male cells do.
據此推測，女性細胞（包括女性大腦中的斑塊）比男性細胞分泌更多的妊娠帶蛋白。
But that remains to be proved.
不過，這一理論還有待證實。
Whatever the reason, however, this result means that women, at least, may soon be able to tell whether and when they are at risk of Alzheimer's-and thus do something about it before they start losing their minds.
不論是什么原因，這項結果至少意味著女性能更早知曉自己是否有罹患阿爾茨海默氏癥的危險，從而在喪失記憶之前盡快加以治療。
