美国国家公共电台 NPR Stress And Poverty May Explain High Rates Of Dementia In African-Americans

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Staying with health care, we turn now to a new report on Alzheimer's disease. African-Americans are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia compared to those who are white. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on new research that's helping¹ to explain the disparity.

JON HAMILTON, BYLINE²: Scientists have struggled to understand why African-Americans have such a high risk of dementia. As a group, they are more likely to have conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes³, which can affect the brain. And there is some evidence that genetic⁴ factors play a role. But Rachel Whitmer of Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Northern California says her own research shows that those explanations are incomplete.

RACHEL WHITMER: These risk factors were taken into account, and we still saw these differences. So there is still something there that we are trying to get at.

HAMILTON: So Whitmer and other researchers have been looking at less obvious risk factors like stress and poverty. She says it's already clear that children who grow up in a harsh environment are more likely to have health problems like diabetes and heart disease.

WHITMER: We're starting to sort of understand how early life stress and early life deprivation⁵ can increase your risk of a number of health outcomes in later life. And I think the latest thing now is understanding how and why that might affect the brain.

HAMILTON: Whitmer was part of a team that studied more than 6,000 Kaiser Permanente health plan members in their 80s and 90s. The team wanted to know whether people who'd grown up in harsher conditions were more likely to develop dementia, so they looked at people who'd been born in states with high infant mortality rates, an indicator⁶ of social problems like poverty. They present their results today at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London. The study found that white people's risk of dementia wasn't affected⁷ by their place of birth, but Whitmer says black people were 40 percent more likely to develop dementia if they'd been born in a state with high infant mortality.

WHITMER: These people left the state and subsequently moved to Northern California, yet there still was this very robust⁸ association between being born in a state with high infant mortality and an increased risk of dementia.

HAMILTON: A separate study looked at the link between stressful life events and mental function in middle age. Megan Zuelsdorff from the University of Wisconsin in Madison says participants answered questions like...

MEGAN ZUELSDORFF: When you were a child, did a parent drink so much that it caused problems? Did your parents divorce? Did you have trouble in school?

HAMILTON: Zuelsdorff says participants also reported stressful experiences they had as adults, things like a serious illness or the death of a child. And African-Americans reported 60 percent more stressful events than white Americans, Zuelsdorff says that was only part of the difference.

ZUELSDORFF: The impact of these stressful events was stronger in African-Americans than it was in non-Hispanic white participants. Each stressful event is more detrimental⁹.

HAMILTON: The researchers tested the brain speed and flexibility¹⁰, things that normally decline with age. The test showed that in white participants, each stressful event added about a year and a half to normal brain ageing. In African-Americans, each event added about four years. Zuelsdorff says this all may sound discouraging, but it also means there's a possible solution.

ZUELSDORFF: The increased risk seems to be a matter of experience, rather than ancestry¹¹. And this is something we can change.

HAMILTON: In other words, by improving the early lives of African-Americans, it may be possible to reduce the risk of dementia later on. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

4 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

5 deprivation   

n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困

参考例句：

• Many studies make it clear that sleep deprivation is dangerous.多实验都证实了睡眠被剥夺是危险的。
• Missing the holiday was a great deprivation.错过假日是极大的损失。

6 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

7 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

8 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。

9 detrimental   

adj.损害的，造成伤害的

参考例句：

• We know that heat treatment is detrimental to milk.我们知道加热对牛奶是不利的。
• He wouldn't accept that smoking was detrimental to health.他不相信吸烟有害健康。

10 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。

11 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。