研究：又高又瘦的女性更长寿

想在晚上大快朵颐，然后做一名称职的沙发土豆的你，先来看看下面这项研究。荷兰一所大学的研究显示，人的身形，包括身高和体重，以及每天锻炼的时长，都与寿命有关。

A woman’s height and weight appear to play a greater part in her chance of enjoying a long life than a man’s, according to a study investigating a person's likelihood of reaching the age of 90.

一项有关人活到90岁概率的调查研究显示，相较于男性，女性的身高和体重似乎在长寿方面发挥了更大的作用。

Women who are taller than average, standing at 5ft 9 inches or above, were 31 percent more likely to enter their ninth decade compared with those standing at 5ft 3 inches or less, the study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health suggested. The same result wasn’t found in men.

一项新的研究显示，身高高于平均水平（即身高在175厘米以上）的女性活到90岁的概率比身高在160厘米以下的女性高31%。同样的结果在男性身上没有发现。研究结果发表在《流行病学和社区卫生》期刊上。

The researchers at Maastricht University wanted to answer why the spike in life expectancies in Western countries has plateaued in recent decades. In the US, that figure currently stands at 78.6. Existing work indicates the obesity epidemic could be one culprit, as well as low levels of exercise.

荷兰马斯特里赫特大学的研究人员想要找出西方国家预期寿命增长近几十年来进入停滞期的原因。美国当前的人口预期寿命停留在78.6岁。目前的研究显示，普遍肥胖和缺乏运动可能是其中的两个原因。

plateau ['plætəʊ]：vi.进入停滞期；达到稳定时期

Most past studies into longevity featured only men, or a combination of men and women. This work, therefore, offers a new perspective by looking into how BMI (an individual’s weight divided by height squared) and exercise levels might affect the lifespan of men and women separately. Women tend to live longer than men due to factors including differing lifestyles on average, as well as genetics and hormones, the authors wrote.

过去大多数对寿命的研究主要针对男性，或者将男性和女性两个群体一起研究。然而，这项研究通过分析身高体重指数（BMI，体重除以身高的平方）和运动水平分别对男性和女性的寿命产生何种影响，提供了一个新的视角。研究报告称，由于生活方式的普遍差异、基因及荷尔蒙等原因，女性的寿命往往比男性长。

A woman has a light meal at a restaurant in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province. [Photo by Zheng Kaifu/For China Daily]

To investigate, the team used data from the Netherlands Cohort study, which was started in 1986, and collected information on over 120,000 men and women aged between 55 to 69 years old living in 204 Dutch municipalities.

为进行调查，研究小组使用了1986年启动的荷兰人群健康研究项目的数据，并收集了居住在204个荷兰市镇、年龄在55岁至69岁之间的12万多名男女的信息。

From this pool, the researchers assessed data from on 3,646 male and 4,161 female respondents born between 1916 and 1917.

研究人员对在1916年至1917年出生的3646名男性受访者和4161名女性受访者的数据进行了评估。

At the start of the study, the respondents answered questions about their lives (like how much they smoked, drank alcohol and spent walking per day), and detailed variables such as their weight, height, and their weight when they were 20 years old. Participants were categorized into three groups: those who exercised for less than 30 minutes; between 30 to 60 minutes; and for 1.5 hours or more.

在研究开始时，参与者回答了一些关于生活的问题，比如每天抽几支烟、喝几杯酒、走多少路等等，以及体重、身高和20岁时的体重等变量。参与者被分为三组——每天锻炼时间在30分钟以下的；30-60分钟的；1.5小时以上的。

In women aged between 68 to 70, their height, current BMI and their weight gain since the age of 20 were associated with reaching the age of 90.

在68岁至70岁的女性中，她们的身高、目前的BMI及20岁以来的体重增加情况都与其能否活到90岁有关。

And while exercising was found to boost the lifespan, working out for one hour a day was best suited to women before the effects plateaued. In men, there was no such cap.

尽管研究人员发现，锻炼也能延长寿命，但对女性来说每天锻炼1小时最佳，之后的锻炼作用就到顶了。对男性来说，不存在这个时间上限。

Men who worked out for more than 90 minutes per day were 39 percent more likely to see their 90th birthday than those who exercised for 30 minutes or less. In women, those who engaged in physical activity for 30 to 60 minutes were a fifth more likely to hit the age of 90, compared with those who engaged in half an hour of physical activity.

较之每天锻炼半小时及以下的男性来说，每天锻炼超过1.5小时的男性活到90岁的几率要高出39%。而与每天锻炼不到半小时的女性相比，每天锻炼半小时到1小时的女性更可能活到90岁。

However, in men who had never smoked (10 percent of the cohort) a high BMI appeared to lower the chance of reaching 90 years of age. study author Lloyd Brandts, of the Maastricht University Department of Epidemiology, told Newsweek: “But the number of never-smoking individuals was too small to conclude anything about this.”

然而，对那些从不吸烟的男性来说（占10%），BMI指数较高会降低活到90岁的几率。研究报告作者、马斯特里赫特大学流行病学系的劳埃德-布兰茨告诉《资讯周刊》说：“但从不吸烟的人非常少，可能证据也不是很充分。”

“These finding indicate that both body size and physical activity are related to lifespan, but that these associations seem to differ between men and women. We advise the readers to adapt a healthy weight and at least 60 min of physical activity a day,” he said.

他说：“这些研究显示，身高和体重以及体力活动和寿命有关。但这些联系在男性和女性身上有不同的表现。我们建议读者保持健康的体重，每天最少锻炼1小时。”