科学美国人60秒 SSS 感官迟钝与患痴呆症的风险有关（在线收听）

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。

Memory loss and forgetfulness are common warning signs for dementia.

失忆和健忘是痴呆症常见的警告信号。

But a dulling of the senses also appears to be associated with the disease.

但感官迟钝似乎也与痴呆症有关。

"Smell is definitely the strongest one we found, but it does seem like it's not just smell."

“嗅觉绝对是我们发现的最强的感觉，但似乎不仅仅是嗅觉。”

Willa Brenowitz, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

旧金山加利福尼亚大学的流行病学家威拉·布雷诺维茨说到。

Her team studied cognitive decline in 1,800 adults from the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study—

她的团队对“健康、衰老和身体组织研究”中1800名成年人的认识能力减退情况进行了研究，

which tracked the health and mental function of older adults over a 17-year period.

上述研究对老年人的健康和心智功能进行了长达17年的追踪。

During the study, the subjects completed sensory tests—including hearing, smell, touch and vision.

在研究过程中，研究对象完成了听觉、嗅觉、触觉和视觉等感官测试。

Brenowitz's team tooked the results of those tests and then compared the adults' overall sensory abilities to their mental function. And the results?

布雷诺维茨的团队拿到了这些测试的结果，之后将这些受试成年人的整体感知能力与心智功能进行了对比。结果如何？

"Those with better function had a lower risk of dementia. And with worse multiple sensory function, they had higher risk of dementia."

“功能较好的人患痴呆症的风险较低。而各种感知功能越差，患痴呆症的风险就越高。”

A decline in smell, in particular, had the strongest link to dementia.

尤其是，嗅觉的衰退与痴呆症的关系最为密切。

The results are in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association: Alzheimer's & Dementia.

这项研究结果发表在《阿尔茨海默症协会期刊：阿尔茨海默症与痴呆症》上。

The scientists were just studying correlations here.

科学家只研究了相关性。

But Brenowitz says if they can figure out how well multisensory decline predicts dementia risk,

但布雷诺维茨表示，如果他们能够弄清楚多感官下降对痴呆风险的预测程度，

it might give doctors another tool to screen for the disease.

可能会为医生提供另一种筛查该疾病的工具。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。