Melissari M, Balbi T, Gennari M, Olivetti G
Istituto di Anatomia Patologica, Università Degli Studi di Parma.
G Ital Cardiol. 1991 Feb;21(2):119-30.
Structural alterations of the cardiovascular system with aging are difficult to differentiate from superimposed pathologic processes. To determine whether aging "per se" affects the dimension of the heart, the weight of the heart, and the left ventricle and their rations to body weight, left ventricle wall thickness, the number of myocyte nuclei in the ventricle and the myocyte cell volume per nucleus were measured in 67 autopsies of subjects, 45 males and 22 females, who died from causes independent of cardiovascular diseases, from 17 to 90 years old. With aging, total heart weight increased slightly, while left ventricular and interventricular septum weights after dissection of the subepicardial fat decreased significantly (r = 0.44; p less than 0.001). Although left ventricular wall thickness remained constant with time, left ventricular weight to body weight ratio decreased progressively. At the structural level the number of myocyte nuclei within the left ventricle decreased (r = 0.45; p less than 0.001), whereas myocyte cell volume per nucleus increased (r = 0.30; p greater than 0.05) with age. Thus, the aging process of the heart is associated with a reduction in volume of the myocardial mass resulting from myocyte cell loss and reactive hypertrophy of the spared myocytes.
心血管系统随衰老而发生的结构改变很难与叠加的病理过程区分开来。为了确定衰老“本身”是否会影响心脏大小、心脏重量、左心室及其与体重的比值、左心室壁厚度、心室内肌细胞核数量以及每个细胞核的心肌细胞体积，对67例死于与心血管疾病无关原因的受试者进行了尸检，这些受试者年龄在17至90岁之间，其中男性45例，女性22例。随着年龄增长，心脏总重量略有增加，而去除心外膜脂肪后左心室和室间隔重量显著下降（r = 0.44；p < 0.001）。尽管左心室壁厚度随时间保持不变，但左心室重量与体重的比值逐渐下降。在结构层面，左心室内肌细胞核数量减少（r = 0.45；p < 0.001），而每个细胞核的心肌细胞体积随年龄增加（r = 0.30；p > 0.05）。因此，心脏的衰老过程与心肌质量减少有关，这是由于心肌细胞丢失和剩余心肌细胞的反应性肥大所致。
