Sørensen T I, Borch-Johnsen K
Institut for sygdomsforebyggelse, Kommunehospitalet, København.
Ugeskr Laeger. 1992 Oct 12;154(42):2879-83.
The epidemiological aging research has the descriptive task of characterizing the phenomena of aging and their consequences: illness, disability, handicap, and death--in defined population groups and comparing these groups. The other closely related task is analytical epidemiology, which searches for predictive or causal factors: traits, events or conditions of the aging phenomena. Special problems for this research are created by the facts that exposure to the causal factors often may be assumed to have taken place long time before the aging process becomes apparent, that the causal factors may act on cumulative basis over long time, that the effects may be irreversible, and that the factors may no longer play a role at advanced age. The possible role of genetic factors, acting alone or in combination with environmental factors, must be considered and elucidated by special epidemiological methods. The rapid advances in molecular biology raise expectations about epidemiological utilization providing much more precise assessment of the genetic contribution to the aging phenomena, which also will improve the outlook of identification of environmental factors, particularly when there is a gene-environment interaction. The results of these studies will contribute to prevention and treatment of the health problems related to aging.
流行病学衰老研究有一项描述性任务，即刻画衰老现象及其后果（疾病、残疾、障碍和死亡）在特定人群中的特征，并对这些人群进行比较。另一项与之密切相关的任务是分析性流行病学，它探寻预测性或因果性因素，即衰老现象的特征、事件或状况。这项研究面临一些特殊问题，原因在于接触因果性因素的情况往往被认为发生在衰老过程显现之前很久，因果性因素可能长期累积作用，其影响可能不可逆转，而且这些因素在高龄时可能不再起作用。必须通过特殊的流行病学方法来考虑并阐明单独或与环境因素共同作用的遗传因素的可能作用。分子生物学的迅速发展引发了对流行病学应用的期望，即能更精确地评估遗传因素对衰老现象的影响，这也将改善识别环境因素的前景，尤其是在存在基因 - 环境相互作用的情况下。这些研究结果将有助于预防和治疗与衰老相关的健康问题。
