Cutting 300 Calories a Day Shows Health Benefits
改善健康也许很简单:每天少吃300卡
Scientists have long known a fairly reliable way to extend life span in rodents and other lab animals: Reduce the amount of calories they eat by 10 percent to 40 percent.
科学家们早就知道一种相当可靠的方式,能够延长啮齿类及其他实验室动物的寿命:把他们摄入的卡路里数量减少10%至40%。
This strategy, known as caloric restriction, has been shown to increase the life span of various organisms and reduce their rate of cancer and other age-related ailments. Whether it can do the same in people has been an open question. But an intriguing new study suggests that in young and middle-aged adults, chronically restricting calorie intake can have an impact on their health.
这种被称为卡路里限制的策略已被证实可延长各种生物的寿命,并降低它们患癌症及其他年龄相关疾病的几率。它是否能对人类起到同样的作用尚无定论。但一项饶有趣味的新研究表明,长期限制青壮年人的卡路里摄入可对他们的健康产生影响。
In the new study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and published this month in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, researchers looked at a group of 143 healthy men and women who ranged in age from 21 to 50. They were instructed to practice caloric restriction for two years. They could eat the foods they wanted so long as they cut back on the total amount of food they ate, with the aim of cutting the calories they consumed by 25 percent.
这项新研究由美国国家卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health,简称NIH)出资并发表在本月的《柳叶刀糖尿病与内分泌学》(Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology)期刊上,其中研究人员对一群年龄介乎21岁至50岁的143名健康男性和女性进行了观察。他们按照指示,进行了为期两年的卡路里摄入限制。他们可以食用自己想要的食物,条件是减少摄入食物总量,目标是使他们摄入的热量减少25%。
Many did not achieve that goal. On average, the dieters managed to slash about 12 percent of their total calories, or roughly 300 calories a day, the amount in a large bagel, a few chocolate chip cookies or a small Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino. But the group saw many of their cardiovascular and metabolic health markers improve, even though they were already in the normal range.
很多人没达到这一目标。平均而言,节食者得以将总热量削减了约12%,大致相当于每天300卡路里,这是一个大贝果、几块巧克力曲奇或一小杯星巴克摩卡星冰乐的热量。但这组人中,很多人的心血管和新陈代谢健康指标都得到了改善,尽管他们原本已在正常范围内。
They lost weight and body fat. Their cholesterol levels improved, their blood pressure fell slightly, and they had better blood sugar control and less inflammation. At the same time, a control group of 75 healthy people who did not practice caloric restriction saw no improvements in any of these markers.
他们的体重和体脂均有下降。他们的胆固醇水平有所改善,血压略有下降,血糖控制情况好转,炎症发作也减少。与此同时,未实行卡路里限制的75名对照组健康人士的这些指标没有改善。
Some of the benefits in the calorie restricted group stemmed from the fact that they lost a large amount of weight, on average about 16 pounds over the two years of the study. But the extent to which their metabolic health got better was greater than would have been expected from weight loss alone, suggesting that caloric restriction might have some unique biological effects on disease pathways in the body, said William Kraus, the lead author of the study and a professor of medicine and cardiology at Duke University.
卡路里限制组的受益部分源于他们的体重大幅降低,在研究进行的两年期间平均减少了16磅。但他们代谢健康状况的改善程度大于减重本身的预期,这表明热量限制可能对身体的疾病通道有某种独特的生物作用,该研究第一作者、杜克大学医学和心脏病学教授威廉·克劳斯(William Kraus)表示。
“We weren’t surprised that there were changes,” he said. “But the magnitude was rather astounding. In a disease population, there aren’t five drugs in combination that would cause this aggregate of an improvement.”
“有变化我们并不意外,”他说。“但变化的幅度着实惊人。在疾病人群中,任何的五种药物组合能无法产生这么大的改善。”
Calorie restriction may be a useful tool for better health and weight loss, but it’s unclear whether the changes in the new study will ultimately translate into longevity and reductions in chronic disease, said Frank Hu, the chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was not involved in the research.
热量限制或许是改善健康和减轻体重的有用途径,但尚不清楚这项新研究所揭示的变化最终能否转化为寿命延长和慢性病的减少,未参与该研究的哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院(Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)营养学系主任胡炳长(Frank Hu)称。
He said the modest improvements experienced by the participants would have to be sustained over time to produce long-term benefits. But he questioned whether caloric restriction would be practical for most people given that “we are living in an obesogenic environment with an abundance of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods that are cheap, accessible and heavily marketed.”
他表示,参与者所经历的适度改善必须长时间保持,方能产生长期的益处。但鉴于“我们生活在一个致胖环境中,有大量能量密集但缺乏营养的食物,它们廉价、容易获得还很热销”,热量限制对于大多数人是否实际,他表示质疑。
He added, however, that some people might find calorie restriction feasible if they combined it with other popular dietary strategies like the Mediterranean diet, intermittent fasting or reduced carbohydrate intake.
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