VOA慢速英语2013 Health Report - Study Finds Overweight People Have Lower Risk of Death

Health Report - Study Finds Overweight People Have Lower Risk of Death

健康报道 - 研究发现超重者死亡风险更低

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health Report in Special English.

这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道。

New research shows that overweight or even mildly obese 1 people have a lower risk of early death than people considered to be normal weight.

最新研究表明，超胖或轻度肥胖者比正常体重者早逝风险更低。

Researchers examined the results of 97 studies. Most of the studies were less than 10 years old. They included almost three million adults from around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Taiwan, Brazil, India and Mexico.

研究人员检查了97项研究的成果，其中大多数研究是在10年之内完成的。研究涵盖了来自世界各地的近300万成年人，其中包括美国、加拿大、中国、中国台湾、巴西、印度和墨西哥。

The researchers work at the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

这些研究人员就职于美国疾病控制与预防中心下属的美国卫生统计中心。

They found that people who are considered overweight or slightly obese were five to six percent less likely to die from all causes than people of normal weight. People with higher obesity 2 ratings, however, had almost a 30 percent greater risk of death compared to normal-weight individuals.

他们发现，被认为超重或轻度肥胖者因各种原因死亡的可能性要比正常体重者低5%-6%。然而与正常体重者相比，肥胖等级更高者死亡率要高出近30%。

Katherine Flegal was the lead author of the study. She says she was not surprised that overweight people would not have a higher risk of death.

凯瑟琳·弗莱戈（Katherine Flegal）是该研究的主要作者。她表示自己对超重者死亡风险不会更高并不吃惊。

“Because we’d actually already read a lot of this literature and realized it was likely that [mortality rates for] overweight would be at least not higher than normal weight. I guess I was a little bit surprised that it was definitely lower. And I was also surprised that the lower rates of obesity also didn’t seem to differ from normal weight.”

“因为我们实际上已经读过大量文献，了解到超重者的死亡率至少不会高于体重正常者。我稍微有点惊讶的是它甚至更低。我还很惊讶的是，轻微肥胖者（在死亡率上）似乎与正常体重者并无区别。”

But she says the difference in death rates appears to be small between normal-weight people and those who are overweight or mildly obese.

但她表示，正常体重者与超重或轻度肥胖者在死亡率上的差异似乎很小。

The study has raised new questions about “body mass index,” or BMI. This is a measurement of body fat as a ratio of height to weight. BMI guidelines were used as a basis for the study. In recent years, many public health experts have promoted body mass index as a way to predict the risk of health problems. But a person's BMI can be misleading in some cases.

该研究还就体重指数（BMI）提出了新的问题。BMI指身高与体重的比率，用于衡量身体脂肪。BMI准则被作为这次研究的根据。最近几年，许多公众健康专家都将体重指数作为预测健康风险的手段加以推广。但个体体重指数在某些情况下也会产生误导。

Steven Heymsfield is the executive director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton 3 Rouge 4, Louisiana. He says people can be physically 5 fit and in good health, but might weigh more because they are more muscular.

史蒂文·海姆斯菲尔德（Steven Heymsfield）是位于路易斯安那州巴吞鲁日市的彭宁顿生物医学研究中心的执行主任。他表示，有人可能会身体健康但体重超标，因为他们有更多的肌肉。

“It’s very common in the military, for example, where you have young men and women who are very physically fit -- their BMI can be a little higher. And so the military knows that, and they check people with body fat measurement if they exceed the BMI guideline.”

“这在军队中就很常见，军队中的青年男女都很健康，但他们的体重指数可能会略高。军方知道这一点，如果他们的体重指数超标，就会检查他们的身体脂肪含量。”

Still, Dr. Heymsfield says people should not think gaining extra weight is OK just because of the new findings. He says being at a healthy weight lowers the risk for heart disease and diabetes 6. He and a colleague wrote an editorial that appeared along with the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

不过，海姆斯菲尔德表示，人们不能因为这些新发现就觉得超重正常。他说，保持健康体重能够降低患上心脏病和糖尿病的风险。他和一位同事撰写的一篇社论与这项研究一起发表在《美国医学协会期刊》上。