心脏病治疗的最新前沿消息

Scientists from two landmark heart-disease studies are joining forces to wield the power of genetics in battling the leading cause of death in the U.S.
参加过两项具有里程碑意义的心脏病研究项目的科学家现在正通力合作，运用遗传学的力量来对抗这种在美国导致死亡的主要疾病。

Cardiologists have struggled in recent years to score major advances against heart disease and stroke. Although death rates have been dropping steadily since the 1960s, progress combating the twin diseases has plateaued by other measures.
心脏病医生近年来付出了很大努力，争取在治疗心脏病和中风方面获得重大进展。虽然死亡率从1960年代以来就一直在稳步下降，但是从其它标准来看，与这对兄弟疾病的斗争没有再取得更多的进步。

Genetics has had a profound impact on cancer treatment in recent years. Now, heart-disease specialists hope genetics will reveal fresh insight into the interaction between a person's biology, living habits and medications that can better predict who is at risk of a heart attack or stroke.
遗传学近年来对癌症的治疗产生了深远的影响。如今，心脏病专家希望遗传学可以揭开新的奥秘，让人深入了解一个人的生命机理、生活习惯和药物治疗之间的相互作用，以此更好地预测谁有心脏病发作或中风的危险。

'There's a promise of new treatments with this research,' said Daniel Jones, chancellor of the University of Mississippi and former principal investigator of the 15-year-old Jackson Heart study, a co-collaborator in the new genetics initiative.
美国密西西比大学(the University of Mississippi)校长丹尼尔・琼斯(Daniel Jones)说：“这项研究可望找到新的治疗方法。”他是历时15年的杰克逊心脏研究项目(Jackson Heart study)的前首席研究员，也是新的遗传学研究项目的共同合作伙伴。

Prevention efforts also could improve with the help of genetics research, Dr. Jones said. For example, an estimated 75 million Americans currently have high blood pressure, or hypertension, but only about half of those are able to control it with medication. It can take months of trial-and-error for a doctor to get the right dose or combination of pills for a patient. Researchers hope genetic and other information might enable doctors to identify subgroups of hypertension that respond to specific treatments and target patients with an appropriate therapy.
琼斯说，在遗传学研究的帮助下，预防工作也可以得到提升。比如，目前估计有7,500万美国人患有高血压，但是只有大约一半人能够使用药物进行控制。医生为病人确定恰当的用药剂量或者药物组合可能需要好几个月的反复尝试。研究人员希望遗传学及其它信息可以帮助医生找到对特定治疗方法产生疗效反应的高血压亚组，对病人实行对症下药。

Also collaborating on the genetics project is the 65-year-old Framingham Heart study. Its breakthrough findings decades ago linked heart disease to such factors as smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Framingham findings have been a foundation of cardiovascular disease prevention policy for a half-century.
参与遗传学项目合作的还有历时65年的弗雷明汉心脏研究 (Framingham Heart study)团队。该研究在几十年前取得的突破性发现将心脏病与吸烟、高血压和高胆固醇等因素联系起来。弗雷明汉的研究发现半个世纪以来一直是心血管疾病预防政策的基本根据。

More than 15,000 people have participated in the Framingham study. The Jackson study, with more than 5,000 participants, was launched in 1998 to better understand risk factors in African-Americans, who were underrepresented in Framingham and who bear a higher burden of cardiovascular disease than the rest of the population. Both studies are funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
超过15,000人参与了弗雷明汉研究。参加人数达5,000多人的杰克逊研究是1998年启动的，目的是为了更好地弄清楚非洲裔美国人面临的危险因素，这个群体在弗雷明汉研究中代表人数不足，而且他们承受的心血管疾病负担高于其它人群。上述两项研究都是由美国国家卫生研究院(the National Institutes of Health)所属的国家心脏、肺和血液研究所(the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute,简称NHLBI)提供的资金支持。

Exactly how the collaboration, announced last week, will proceed hasn't been determined. One promising area is the 'biobank,' the collection of more than one million blood and other biological samples gathered during biennial checkups of Framingham study participants going back more than a half century.
上周公布的这项合作计划如何具体地进行还没有决定。很有希望的一个领域是“生物样本库”(biobank)，一个拥有超过100万个血液及其它生物样本的数据库。这些生物样本是在对过去半个多世纪中参与弗雷明汉研究的人员进行两年一度的体检时采集来的。

The samples are stored in freezers in an underground earthquake-proof facility in Massachusetts, said Vasan Ramachandran, a Boston University scientist who takes over at the beginning of next year as principal investigator of the Framingham Heart study. Another 40,000 samples from the Jackson study are kept in freezers in Vermont. By subjecting samples to DNA sequencing and other tests, researchers say they may be able to identify variations linked to progression of cardiovascular disease -- or protection from it.
波士顿大学(Boston University)科学家瓦桑・拉马钱德兰(Vasan Ramachandran)说，这些样本储存在马萨诸塞州(Massachusetts)一个抗震的地下设施内的冷藏库中，拉马钱德兰即将于明年年初接任弗雷明汉心脏研究的首席研究员。杰克逊研究中的另外40,000个样本保存在佛蒙特州(Vermont)的冷库中。研究人员说，通过对样本进行DNA测序和其它测试，他们或许能够确认心血管疾病发展过程中出现的各种变体──或者预防心血管疾病的因素。

Each study is likely to enroll new participants as part of the collaboration to allow tracking of risk factors and diet and exercise habits, for instance, in real time instead of only during infrequent checkups.
作为合作项目的一部分，每一项研究都很可能要招募新的参与者，对他们的危险因素、饮食习惯和锻炼习惯进行跟踪，跟踪采取实时的形式，而不是仅在并非经常进行的体检时才进行。

Heart disease is linked to about 800,000 deaths a year in the U.S. In 2010, some 200,000 of those deaths could have been avoided, including more than 112,300 deaths among people younger than 65, according to a recent analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But those avoidable deaths reflected a 3.8% per year decline in mortality rates during the previous 10 years.
在美国，一年大约有80万例死亡病例与心脏病有关。根据美国疾病控制与预防中心(the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)最近的一份分析资料，2010年，那些死亡病例中大约有20万例本来是可以避免的，其中超过112,300例的死亡病人年龄低于65岁。不过那些可以避免的死亡病例在过去十年中让死亡率每年下降了3.8%。

Now, widespread prevalence of obesity and diabetes threatens to undermine such gains. And a large gap remains between how white patients and minorities -- especially African-Americans -- benefit from effective strategies.
现在，普遍存在的肥胖和糖尿病对取得的这些成绩构成了威胁，而且白人患者和少数民族──尤其是非洲裔美国人──在从有效的治疗策略中获益的程度上存在很大的差异。