老年人忽然变嗜睡？小心患上痴呆症

Older adults who started sleeping more than nine hours a night — but had not previously slept so much — were at more than double the risk of developing dementia a decade later than those who slept nine hours or less, researchers report.

研究人员公布的研究结果称，每晚睡眠时间开始超过九小时但之前不会睡这么长时间的老年人，十年后患痴呆症的风险是那些睡眠时间不超过九小时的人的两倍多。

The increased risk was not seen in people who had always slept more than nine hours.

在睡眠时间一直在九小时以上的人群中，没有发现风险增加的现象。

“We’re not suggesting you go wake up Grandpa. We think this might be a marker for the risk of dementia, not a cause” of the illness, said Dr. Sudha Seshadri, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study, in Neurology.

“我们并不是建议老爷爷早起。我们觉得这也许是痴呆症风险的一个标志，而不是病因，”波士顿大学医学院(Boston University School of Medicine)神经学教授、发表在《神经学》(Neurology)上的这篇论文的第一作者苏达·塞沙德里(Sudha Seshadri)说。

Using data from 2,457 people, average age 72, who were part of a study in Framingham, Mass., the researchers found that those with a new habit of excessive slumber were at a greater risk of all forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s, which is characterized by a buildup of beta amyloid, a toxic protein fragment that forms plaques in the brain.

曾有2457人参加了马萨诸塞州弗雷明汉的一项研究，他们平均年龄72岁。通过他们的数据，研究人员发现，养成了睡眠时间过长的新习惯的人，患包括阿尔茨海默氏症在内的各种痴呆症的风险更高。阿尔茨海默氏症的特征是β-淀粉样蛋白累积。β-淀粉样蛋白是一种有毒的蛋白质碎片，会在大脑中形成斑块。

“My suspicion is that this is a compensatory mechanism: that at a time when amyloid is building up in the brain, people may be sleeping longer as the body is reacting and trying to remove it from the brain,” Dr. Seshadri added, cautioning that is only a hypothesis.

“我怀疑，这是一种补偿机制：淀粉样蛋白在大脑中积累时，人的睡眠时间可能会变长是因为人体正在做出反应，试图将之从大脑中清理出去，”塞沙德里表示，但又告诫称这只是一种假设。