【卫报】人工增甜剂导致痴呆症丨第85期

They were supposed to be the healthy alternative to their sugar-rich siblings. But now lovers of diet colas and other low-calorie drinks have been hit by news that will radically undermine those credentials: a counterintuitive study suggesting a link to stroke and dementia .

人工增甜剂被认为是健康的替代糖的兄弟姐妹，但是现在，节食可乐和其他低热量饮料的爱好者受到了一则颠覆他们既有认知的新闻的震惊，这些新闻彻底颠覆了他们的既有凭证抨击爱好者们被新闻所抨击，而这将会彻底破坏这些凭证：新闻揭示即一项反直觉的研究表明人工增甜剂与中风和痴呆是有联系的。

• Stroke:中风

• Dementia:【医学】痴呆

The study in the journal Stroke may cause a rethink among those worried about obesity, diabetes or a possible early heart attack from sugar-rich drinks who have been considering making a change. It comes to the alarming conclusion that people polishing off one can a day of artificially sweetened drink are nearly three times as likely to have a stroke or develop dementia.

这项研究刊登在《中风》杂志上，它可能引起那些担心肥胖、糖尿病以及极易患有因高糖饮料而引起的心脏病的人群的重新思考，而该人群一直在考虑做出改变。或者是那些已经考虑做出改变的高糖饮料引起的早期心脏病发作令人担忧的结论是，人们在一天喝掉一罐人工加糖饮料，几乎有三倍几率患上中风或患痴呆症的几率会提高三倍。

It's a shocking conclusion. But the first reason to pause is that the study found no such risk in people who drank standard sugary lemonades and colas.

这是一个颇为震惊的结论，但是可以松口气中止的第一个原因就是，有研究发现，喝标准的含糖柠檬水和可乐的人没有这种风险。

There is little previous evidence with regard to dementia, which is why the researchers were looking at it, but the link between sugar and stroke is very well known. Too much sugar raises the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and stroke. It's altogether a bad thing, which is why the World Health Organisation is telling us all to cut down. So what was going on in this study?

几乎没有关于痴呆症的先前证据，这就是为什么研究人员正在研究的原因。但是，糖和中风之间的联系是众所周知的。多量的糖会增加肥胖、糖尿病、心脏病及中风的风险。它完全是一件坏事，这也是为什么世界卫生组织正在告诫我们要削减糖量的原因。所以这项研究内容是什么应该如何进行？

The evidence it analyses is pulled from the well-respected Framingham Heart Study - a cohort of more than 5,000 people in Massachusetts, US, whose diets and lifestyles have been monitored for nearly 50 years, with the main objective of finding out more about heart disease. Along the way, researchers have looked at other health outcomes.

它分析的证据来自于受人尊敬的弗雷明汉心脏研究小组——一个在马萨诸塞州有5000多人的研究群体人群，他们的饮食和生活方式已经被监控了近50年，这样做的主要目的是为了找出更多关于心脏病的信息。通过这种方式，研究人员还看到了其他的健康结果。

What they are up against is people's capacity for forgetfulness and lies. This is the case with every study into the food we eat - except for those rare ones, almost impossible to do today, which have in effect imprisoned their subjects and controlled every sip and mouthful they took. Researchers understand this and try to take account of it, but it is difficult.

他们遭遇到了人的健忘和撒谎问题。这是所有关于饮食的研究都会面临的情况——除了那些极端的研究所有关于饮食的研究——除了罕见的食物——如今都几乎无法进行，因为这些种研究方法相当于把研究对象关起来，控制他们的一饮一食，所以他们如今难以实现。研究人员明白这一点，并尝试把这个问题考虑进来，但做起来很困难。

There are several possible other reasons why an increased stroke risk was associated with diet drinks and not sugary drinks. One is what is called "reverse causality". People who come to realise that they are ill and have a high risk of a stroke then switch their behaviour by choosing diet drinks long after sugary drinks have helped cause the problem.

中风几率升高与无糖饮料而非含糖饮料有关联，还有很多其他可能原因，原因之一是“反向因果关系”：人们意识到自己生病了并且有高度中风风险，于是改喝无糖饮料之前，含糖饮料早已经导致了那些健康问题。

When it came to dementia, the link with diet drinks that researchers saw disappeared once they took some elements of the health of the people in the study into account. "When the researchers accounted for other risk factors for Alzheimer's, such as risk genes, diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol levels and weight, this significant association was lost, suggesting that these drinks are not the whole story," said Dr Rosa Sancho, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK.

当讨论到痴呆症时，研究人员发现，考虑到研究对象的健康因素后，他们看到的发病与无糖饮料间的关联消失了。“当研究人员考虑到阿尔兹海默症的其他诱因（如易感基因、糖尿病、心脏疾病、胆固醇水平和体重）时，这种显著关联消失了，这说明无糖饮料并非全部的答案，”罗莎·桑乔博士说道，她是英国阿尔兹海默症研究所所长。

The researchers point to it themselves: "We are unable to determine whether artificially sweetened soft drink intake increased the risk of incident dementia through diabetes mellitus or whether people with diabetes mellitus were simply more likely to consume diet beverages," they write. But they call for more research and others will support them in that.

研究人员在报告中写道：“我们没能判定摄入含人工增甜剂的软饮料是否会提高患糖尿病并发的痴呆症风险，也没能判定原因是否是糖尿病患者恰恰更倾向于喝无糖饮料。”但研究人员称这个问题需进一步研究，其他人也会对此提供支持。

Artificial sweeteners have been viewed with suspicion by a lot of consumers for many years and not entirely deservedly. They are not natural, in the way that sugar is natural, being grown from beet or cane. Some of the hostility comes from those who worry about ingesting man-made chemicals. But while some artificial flavourings have been shown to carry health risks, studies have failed to find similar problems with artificial sweeteners.

长久以来，许多顾客都用怀疑的目光审视人工增甜剂，但这并非空穴来风。与由甜菜或甘蔗加工而成的蔗糖不同，人工增甜剂并不是天然食品。对甜味剂抱有敌意，大多是因为担心摄入人工合成的化学物质。然而，虽然一些人工合成香料已被发现带有健康风险，但目前暂未任何研究表明人工增甜剂有类似的问题。

• Artificial sweeteners：人工增甜剂

• Ingest：vt. 摄取

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