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Longevity: Is It in Your Genes? 长寿与否，基因决定？

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Scientists are in the process of discovering the keys to long life

They may not have discovered the fountain of youth, but scientists are beginning to unravel some of the mysteries of living past 100 – specifically, that it’s in your genes.

科学家或许还没发现青春之泉，但是他们已开始解开百岁人瑞的部分秘密了。具体来说，关键就在人的基因。

The study, led by Paola Sebastiani and Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston University and published online in the journal Science, analyzed the DNA of over 1,000 centenarians and found a set of small DNA variations called genetic markers that can be used to predict “exceptional longevity” with 77 percent accuracy.

这份研究报告刊登在网络版《科学》期刊上，波士顿大学的葆拉．赛巴提妮与托马斯．裴尔博士所领导的团队，分析了一千多位百岁人瑞的DNA，发现了一批称为基因标记的DNA轻微变异，可用以预估能否长命百岁，准确率高达七成七。

But the story’s not a simple one: There’s no single “longevity gene.” For most of the golden agers, long life appeared to result from the cumulative effect of many of the 150 markers, and different markers showed up in different people.

但情况并非如此简单：事实上并没有单一的「长寿基因」。对大多数高龄人士来说，长寿似乎是一百五十种标记其中多种标记的累积效应所导致的结果，不同的人有不同的标记。

“The study shows that there are different paths to becoming a centenarian,” said co-author Nadia Solovieff. “People age in different ways.”

研究的共同作者娜迪雅．索洛维夫指出，「我们的研究显示，要成为百岁人瑞有各种不同的途径，人们老化的方式各不相同。」

Health insurance premiums at stake?   健康保险费用会是个问题？

These markers may have some predictive power down the road for people who want to know if they’re destined for long life, researchers said. But genes alone are far from the whole story: For the vast majority of people, environment and lifestyle are also known to play important roles in aging. Only upon reaching these extremely old ages – which most people never see – do genes take center stage.

研究人员表示，对于想知道自己能否活得久长的人来说，这些标记未来可能具有预测的能力。但光是基因并不能代表一切：因为对绝大多数的人来说，环境与生活方式已知也在老化上扮演了重要角色。只有到了非常老、大多数人都活不到的年纪时，基因才会是重点所在。

There are social reasons to avoid the game of prediction as well, including concerns about how it might affect health insurance premiums and whether people are equipped with guidelines to respond appropriately to the results, Perls said.

裴尔表示，避免这种预测游戏也有其社会因素的理由，包括认为这可能影响健康保险费用及人们是否已有准备妥善因应预测结果等疑虑。

Researchers said the task now is to characterize the genes and biochemical pathways identified in the study. Down the line, such information could potentially be used to develop drugs for age-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, which occur at much lower rates in centenarians.

研究人员指出，眼前的工作是找出研究中所辨识的基因及生化路径的特征，未来这类信息有可能被用来研发与年龄相关疾病的药物，例如心脏病、糖尿病和阿兹海默症，因为这些疾病在百岁人瑞身上出现的比率低了很多。

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fountain of youth 青春之泉 a legendary spring that makes anyone who drinks from it young again

centenarian [͵sɛntəˋnɛrɪən] n. 百岁的人 someone who is a hundred years old or more

golden ager 六十五岁以上的退休人员，年长的人 an elderly person; one who is advanced in age

cumulative [ˋkjʊmjʊ͵letɪv] adj. 积累的; 渐增的

at stake 濒于险境; 处于成败关头; 在危急关头

destine [ˋdɛstɪn] v. 命定，注定

guideline  [ˋgaɪd͵laɪn] n. （常用复）指导方针

down the line 将来 in the future

diabetes [͵daɪəˋbitiz] n. 糖尿病

Alzheimer’s disease 阿兹海默症 a disease that results in the gradual loss of memory, speech, movement and the ability to think clearly, and that is especially common among older people 

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Future medical inventions   未来医学发明

“This really opens the door to future research,” Perls said.

裴尔表示，「这真的开启了通往未来研究之门。」

Though many potential genes were identified in the study, aging researchers were actually encouraged that the number wasn’t higher.

研究中辨识出的潜在基因数目不少，但是这数字不如预期那么高，不过仍让老化研究人员相当受到鼓舞。

“If you had asked people before this paper, ‘How many genes do you need to ensure exceptional longevity?’ they would have said that there should be thousands,” said Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. That just 150 markers were sufficient for accurate prediction suggests an optimistic future for treatment, he said: “This is a number you can work with.”

爱因斯坦医学院的老化研究中心主任尼尔．巴奇莱表示，「如果在这篇报告发表之前问大家，『要判定超级长寿与否，需要几个基因？』大家可能会说应该需要好几千个。」仅一百五十个标记就足以准确预估，意味着治疗方面的前景相当乐观，他说，「这是个可以着手进行的数目。」

The genes may hold the secrets for treating or preventing many age-related diseases, since it appears that centenarians have something special that goes beyond simply dodging genes associated with individual diseases. A particularly surprising – and promising – finding from the study was that the centenarians had just as many markers that raise risk for age-related diseases as did a control group of almost 1,000 average-aged people.

这些基因可能掌握了治疗或预防许多年龄相关疾病的秘密，因为百岁人瑞似乎还有某种特别的因素，而不是因为他们没有个别疾病相关基因。尤其让人在惊讶之余也充满希望的是，研究发现，就会使年龄相关疾病风险增高的标记而言，百岁人瑞和控制组近千位一般年龄人士拥有的数目相同。

This suggests that genes associate with exceptional longevity somehow trump the negative effects normally caused by the disease genes, Perls and Sebastiani said.

裴尔与塞巴提妮指出，这意味着，超级长寿相关基因似乎能打败疾病基因造成的负面效果。

The mechanism, however, is completely unknown.

然而其中机制如何运作，则完全不得而知。

The French centenarians  法国百岁人瑞

Though scientists are intrigued by these new genetic results, it has long been known that old age runs in families. Consider Jeanne Calment, who reached the ripe old age of 122 before she died in 1997 and has the longest confirmed human life span ever recorded.

虽然这些基因研究新成果让科学家极感兴趣，不过长寿会遗传早已人尽皆知。举珍妮．卡曼特来说，她在一九九七年以一百二十二岁高龄过世，是有纪录以来确知最长寿的人。

Calment’s parents were also extremely long-lived. Her father died at 94 and her mother at 86, which would be considered healthy lives now but were remarkable for the time when they lived. Overall, 24 percent for her immediate relatives lived at least into their 80s, compared with 2 percent of the general population.

卡曼特的父母也非常长寿，她的父亲享年九十四岁、母亲享年八十六岁，这样的寿命现在看起来也许很平常，但在他们当时的年代来说却相当不得了。整体而言，卡曼特的近亲有两成四至少活到八十多岁，总人口中却只有百分之二可以活到八十多岁。

−by Rachel Bernstein

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dodge [dɑdʒ] v. 闪开，躲开

run [rʌn] v. 蔓延；传播 to pass; to spread

long-lived [ˋlɔŋˋlɪvd] adj. 长命的

单词发音

Vocabulary Focus

longevity [lɑnˋdʒɛvətɪ] n. 长命，长寿 living for a long time

unravel [ʌnˋræv!] v. 阐明；弄清；解决 to make known or understood

premium [ˋprimɪəm] n. 保险费 an amount of money paid to get insurance

down the road 今后 in the future

take center stage 重点所在 to be the focus of interest

trump [trʌmp] v. 胜过，赢 to beat someone or something by doing or producing something better

mechanism [ˋmɛkə͵nɪzəm] n. 机制 a way by which something comes into existence

intrigue [ɪnˋtrig] v. 激起……的好奇心（或兴趣）to interest someone a lot, especially by being strange, unusual or mysterious

Jeanne Calment

Translation :

- Did you meet Van Gogh?

- Yes

- How?

- I met him at the end of his life. He was ugly. He was alcoholic.

- Where did you meet him?

- He came at the store (in Arles). He still painted a little bit. He came to buy some canvas. My husband sold canvas, to paint.