肥胖… 遗传来的，不是吃来的 May 21, 2007《纽时周报全文精译》 Jules Hirsch, a research physician at Rockefeller University, conducted a simple but groundbreaking experiment on obesity nearly 50 years ago, changing the way scientists think about fat. It’s Who You Are, Not What You Eat 王丽娟译 那年是1959年。纽约洛克斐勒大学临床产品医师朱尔斯‧赫许开始对肥胖 族减重感到好奇。他即将展开一项简单的实验，从此永远颠覆科学家对脂肪的 认知。 It was 1959. Jules Hirsch, a research physician at Rockefeller University in New York, had gotten curious about weight loss in the obese. He was about to start a simple experiment that would change forever the way scientists think about fat. 他知道肥胖族有巨大的肥胖细胞，细胞内充塞油亮的黄脂。他很好奇，减 肥时，这些细胞会有什麽变化。细胞会缩小，还是消失？他决定找出答案，於 是针对小胖子或青少年发胖者进行一项研究。 在他严控实验对象的饮食几个月後，所有人都减轻不少体重。 Obese people, he knew, had huge fat cells, stuffed with glistening yellow fat. What happened to those cells when people lost weight, he wondered. Did they shrink or did they go away? He decided to find out by conducting a study of people who had been fat since childhood or adolescence. He strictly controlled what his subjects ate, and over a period of months, all of them lost substantial amounts of weight. 赫许的原始问题有了答案。实验对象的脂肪细胞缩小，现在变成正常大小。 包括赫许在内的所有人以为，实验对象出院後将永远瘦下去。 Dr. Hirsch answered his original question － the subjects’fat cells had shrunk and were now normal in size. And everyone, including Dr. Hirsch, assumed that the subjects would leave the hospital permanently thinner. 赫许说，结果「所有人都胖回来。」他心想，或许这些人有着某种根深柢 固想胖的心理需求。 Instead, Dr. Hirsch says, “they all regained.” Maybe, he thought, they had some deep-seated psychological need to be fat. 於是赫许和同事，包括目前在纽约哥伦比亚大学任教的鲁道夫‧莱伯博士， 反覆做相同的实验。每次结果都一样。 So Dr. Hirsch and his colleagues, including Dr. Rudolph L. Leibel, who is now at Columbia University in New York, repeated the experiment and repeated it again. Every time the result was the same. 能为研究结果提出的一种解释是：人一旦变胖，人体就跟着调适，造成减肥 无望并阻隔减肥。但另一组研究证实，这项假设也错了。 One way to interpret their studies would be to propose that once a person got fat, the body would adjust, making it hopeless to lose weight and keep it off. But another group of studies showed that that hypothesis, too, was wrong. 这项研究的灵感，来自佛蒙特大学的伊森‧席姆斯。他心想，让从来没有体 重困扰的瘦子刻意变胖，不知情况会如何。 It began with studies that were the inspiration of Dr. Ethan Sims at the University of Vermont, who asked what would happen if thin people who had never had a weight problem deliberately got fat. 他的实验对象是附近一个州立监狱的受刑人，他们志愿增重。费了九牛二虎 之力，他们成功增重20%到25%，但那是实验对象花了4到6个月，每天尽可能大吃 大喝的成果。 His subjects were prisoners at a nearby state prison who volunteered to gain weight. With great difficulty, they succeeded, increasing their weight by 20 percent to 25 percent. But it took them four to six months, eating as much as they could every day. 这些人发胖後，新陈代谢跟着提高50%。每一平方公尺的体表面积，至少需 要2,700卡路里的热量，才能维持肥胖，但如果是维持正常体重，每平方公尺仅 需1,800卡。 Once the men were fat, their metabolisms increased by 50 percent. They needed more than 2,700 calories per square meter of their body surface to stay fat but needed just 1,800 calories per square meter to maintain their normal weight. 研究结束时，受刑人并无减重困扰。几个月後，个个体重恢复正常，而且 轻松维持。 When the study ended, the prisoners had no trouble losing weight. Within months, they were back to normal and effortlessly stayed there. 人体的新陈代谢会加速或减缓，将体重保持在一定范围内。增重时，新陈 代谢速度可能快到加倍；减重时，速度可能减为原来的一半。 The body’s metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as much as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its original speed. 体重是天生？或者，肥胖只是对这个社会又便宜、又丰富、又诱人的食物， 一种几乎不经意、无意识的反应？ Is body weight inherited, or is obesity more of an inadvertent, almost unconscious response to a society where food is cheap, abundant and tempting? 这个问题的假设是，环境会决定体重，但宾州大学的艾伯特‧史坦卡德博士 怀疑，情况果真如此，影响程度会有多大。他研究被领养子女，并在1986年发 现，他们和亲生父母一样胖，而他们多胖和领养父母胖瘦无关。 The assumption was that environment determined weight, but Dr. Albert Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania wondered if that was true and, if so, to what extent. He studied adoptees and in 1986 found they were as fat as their biological parents, and how fat they were had no relation to how fat their adoptive parents were. 科学家在报告里总结说：「这项研究的两大发现是，亲生父母的身体质量 指数与被领养者的体重分级有关，说明遗传影响是体脂的重要决定因素；养父 母的身体质量指数与被领养者的体重无关，显示儿时家庭环境因素影响有限或 根本毫无影响。」 The scientists summarized it in their paper: “The two major findings of this study were that there was a clear relation between the body-mass index of biologic parents and the weight class of adoptees, suggesting that genetic influences are important determinants of body fatness; and that there was no relation between the body-mass index of adoptive parents and the weight class of adoptees, suggesting that childhood family environment alone has little or no effect.” 换句话说，肥胖是遗传使然。 In other words, being fat was an inherited condition. By GINA KOLATA 原文参照 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/08/healthscience/snfat.php 【2007-05-21/联合报/B6版/UNITED DAILY NEWS】 -- 大弦嘈嘈如急雨，小弦切切如私语。 嘈嘈切切错杂弹，大珠小珠落玉盘。 间关莺语花底滑，幽咽泉流水下滩。 水泉冷涩弦凝绝，凝绝不通声渐歇。 别有幽愁暗恨生，此时无声胜有声。 银瓶乍破水浆迸，铁骑突出刀枪鸣。 曲终收拨当心画，四弦一声如裂帛。 东船西舫悄无言，唯见江心秋月白。 --

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