压力过大易得老年痴呆症

爱思英语编者按：医学研究发现，容易感到心理压力的人更容易患上老年痴呆症。当今社会，竞争激烈，导致许多人，心理压力过大。自己又不知道如何减压，或者调节，长时间这样，使得自身身心健康都受影响，很多人也因此患上了老年痴呆。

美国芝加哥拉什大学的研究发现，受忧郁和焦虑等负面情绪打击的人比心胸开阔的人患老年痴呆症的机会高出一倍。这一研究成果发表在《神经病学》杂志上。

Having depression may largely increase the risk of developing dementia later in life, according to a study to be published Tuesday in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, researchers examined research data on 949 people with an average age of 79 from the Framingham Heart Study. At the start of the study, participants were free of dementia and were tested for depressive symptoms based on questions about general depression, sleep complaints, social relationships and other factors. A total of 125 people, or 13 percent, were classified as having depression at the start of the study.

The participants were followed for up to 17 years.

At the end of the study, 164 people had developed dementia with 136 specifically diagnosed with Alzheimer"s disease. Nearly 22 percent of people who were depressed at the start of the study developed dementia compared to about 17 percent of those who were not depressed. The 10-year absolute risk for dementia was 0.21 in people without depressive symptoms and 0.34 in people with depressive symptoms. The results were the same regardless of a person"s age, sex, education and whether they had the APOE gene that increases a person"s risk of Alzheimer"s disease.

"While it"s unclear if depression causes dementia, there are a number of ways depression might impact the risk of dementia," said study author Jane Saczynski, with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

"Inflammation of brain tissue that occurs when a person is depressed might contribute to dementia. Certain proteins found in the brain that increase with depression may also increase the risk of developing dementia. In addition, several lifestyle factors related to long-term depression, such as diet and the amount of exercise and social time a person engages in, could also affect whether they develop dementia."