健康提醒：早吃早睡
Certain routines are less healthy to abide by than others. Drink coffee too late, and you’ll have trouble getting to bed. Stay up too late, and you’re more likely to develop health complications down the road. On the contrary, you might have a better time finishing that latest biggest creative project if you don’t stay awake till the wee hours of the night.
某些習(xí)慣不健康，還有一些就更要命了。喝咖啡時間太晚了，想睡覺時就不容易;熬夜更有可能在未來發(fā)展成健康問題。相反，如果你沒有熬夜直到凌晨，你可能會有更好的時間完成手頭的大項目。
And now, it might be time to start scheduling an earlier dinner if you want to live longer and healthier. A new study published today in the International Journal of Cancer suggests that the later you eat dinner, the more likely you are to develop breast and prostate cancer. That’s quite a staggering claim, especially when you consider that breast cancer is the most common type of cancer, and that prostate cancer afflicts about one in every nine men.
如果你想要更長壽、更健康，那現(xiàn)在可能是時候開始安排早餐時間了。發(fā)表在《國際癌癥雜志》上的一項新研究表明，吃晚餐越晚，患乳腺癌和前列腺癌的可能性越大。這是一個非常令人震驚的說法，因為乳腺癌是最常見的癌癥類型，并且每九個人中就有一個有前列腺癌。
The new study, run by a large group of researchers in Spain, surveyed 621 individuals with prostate cancer and 1,205 individuals with breast cancer (plus 872 and 1,321 healthy males and females, respectively), collecting data relating to preferred times for dinner and sleep.
這項由西班牙大量研究人員開展的新研究調(diào)查了621名前列腺癌患者和1205名乳腺癌患者(分別為872名和1321名健康男性和女性)，收集了有關(guān)晚餐和睡眠首選時間的數(shù)據(jù)。
After adjusting for factors such as family of cancer, socioeconomic status, and environmental carcinogenic influencers, the research team found that individuals who eat dinner before 9:00 p.m. or wait at least two hours after finishing dinner before going to bed have about a 26 percent lower risk of developing prostate cancer and a 16 percent lower risk for breast cancer, versus those who eat after 10:00 p.m. or go to bed soon after finishing their last meal of the day.
在調(diào)整了癌癥的家族、社會經(jīng)濟狀況和環(huán)境致癌影響因素等因素后，研究小組發(fā)現(xiàn)那些在晚上9點之前吃晚餐的人，或者在晚餐前吃完后至少兩個小時才睡覺的人，患前列腺癌的風(fēng)險低26%，患乳腺癌的風(fēng)險低16%，而晚上10點以后吃飯的人則相反。 或者在吃完當(dāng)天的最后一餐后很快就上床睡覺的人也是如此。
How exactly do we get to a study like this? The genesis of such an investigation is perhaps not as unusual as you might think. According to Manolis Kogevinas, a research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the lead investigator of the new paper, the impetus for this investigation is essentially a lack of current data.
那么他們究竟是如何進(jìn)行這樣的研究的呢?這種調(diào)查的起源可能并不像你想象的那么罕見。根據(jù)巴塞羅那全球衛(wèi)生研究所的研究教授和新論文的第一作者 Manolis Kogevinas 的說法，這次調(diào)查的動力基本上是缺乏現(xiàn)有數(shù)據(jù)。
“Breast and prostate cancer are the two cancers most closely related to night shift work and circadian disruption,” says Kogevinas. Disturbances in circadian rhythms, the biological processes that regulate sleep, energy levels, hormones and body temperatures over the 24-hour day, are already known to cause problems in the immune system, which can leave people more susceptible to tumor development. Kogevinas says light is the most important factor affecting circadian rhythms, followed by diet.
“乳腺癌和前列腺癌是與夜班工作和晝夜節(jié)律中斷最密切相關(guān)的兩種癌癥，”Kogevinas 說。我們已知晝夜節(jié)律的紊亂的話，調(diào)節(jié)睡眠、能量水平、激素和24小時體溫等的生物過程會受到影響，將導(dǎo)致免疫系統(tǒng)出現(xiàn)問題，這會使人們更容易受到腫瘤的影響。Kogevinas 說，光線是影響晝夜節(jié)律的最重要因素，其次是飲食。
While there are animal studies, plus a small number of human studies, that illustrate how the timing of diet can impact human health, Kogevinas says most of this research is limited to understanding how mealtimes affect obesity (and by extension obesity-related complications like diabetes and heart disease). There’s nothing that specifically tracks how meal times might affect cancer rates.
雖然有動物研究加上少數(shù)人類研究，說明飲食的時間如何影響人類健康，但這項研究的大部分內(nèi)容僅限于了解進(jìn)餐時間如何影響肥胖(以及延伸與糖尿病相關(guān)的并發(fā)癥如心臟病)。沒有什么能專門跟蹤用餐時間對癌癥發(fā)病率的影響的方法。
There have been quite a few studies that have explored what dietary patterns have to do with cancer, but according to Kogevinas, “this evidence focuses on type of diet and quantity, not on timing. We have practically nothing on timing of diet on big studies in humans and that is why we tested this hypothesis.”
已有不少研究探討了飲食模式與癌癥的關(guān)系，但根據(jù) Kogevinas 的說法，“這一證據(jù)關(guān)注的是飲食和食量，而不是時間。我們幾乎沒有關(guān)于人類的飲食時間的大型研究，這就是我們測試這個假設(shè)的原因。“
There are, of course, a few major problems in this line of thinking. For one, no two individuals possess the exact same natural framework for when their bodies are best optimized to eat and sleep. One person’s 9:00 p.m. dinnertime is another’s snack time before a midnight meal, and another’s outright bed time. For all these individuals, their optimal dinner times differ drastically. A better predictor for cancer risk would be to track whether an individual’s own meal times deviate significantly from the times suggested by their specific chronotype (preferred sleep time and duration).
當(dāng)然，這一思路中存在一些主要問題。例如，沒有兩個人擁有完全相同的自然狀態(tài)，讓他們的身體最適合進(jìn)食和睡眠。一個人晚上9點吃晚餐，半夜還來一點夜宵，另一個人是早睡早起好寶寶。對于所有這些人來說，他們的最佳晚餐時間差別很大。對癌癥風(fēng)險更好的預(yù)測因素是跟蹤個體自己的進(jìn)餐時間是否與其生物鐘(優(yōu)選的睡眠時間和持續(xù)時長)所暗示的時間的顯著偏離。
It’s also not totally clear why mealtime would affect cancer occurrence. How can eating later or going to sleep soon after bed cause health problems that lead to tumorigenesis? Kogevinas admits, “the mechanisms are not well understood and could involve several pathways.” Without understanding exactly how the timing of a meal might give rise to health problems that ultimately lead to cancer, the authors of the study have merely highlighted potential correlation, not causation.
我們也不完全清楚為什么進(jìn)餐時間會影響癌癥的發(fā)生。為何很晚才吃晚餐或者睡得晚會導(dǎo)致腫瘤等健康問題?Kogevinas 承認(rèn)，“這些機制尚未得到很好的理解，可能涉及多種因素。” 我們沒有得出明確的結(jié)論，該研究的作者僅僅強調(diào)了潛在的相關(guān)性，而不是因果關(guān)系。
Corrine Joshu, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who was not involved with the study, also notes that “the authors report that meal time was associated with a decreased risk among participants who adhere to major cancer prevention recommendations.” Individuals who waited even longer than two hours between dinner and sleep were 35 percent less likely to develop either cancer—but they happened to also be more likely to adhere to prevention recommendations set for by the World Cancer Research Fund or the American Institute for Cancer Research. This suggests that that individuals who ate earlier may simply be more attuned to living healthier in other ways that are more impactful to cancer prevention.
約翰霍普金斯大學(xué)彭博公共衛(wèi)生學(xué)院的流行病學(xué)家 Corrine Joshu 沒有參與這項研究，他還指出，“作者報告說，用餐時間與遵守重大癌癥預(yù)防建議的參與者的風(fēng)險降低有關(guān)。” 在晚餐和睡眠之間等待超過兩小時的人患癌癥的可能性降低了35% - 但他們也更有可能遵守世界癌癥研究基金會或美國癌癥研究所制定的預(yù)防建議。這表明，那些早吃晚飯的人可能會更加適應(yīng)更健康的其他生活方式，這些方式對預(yù)防癌癥更有影響。
There are also plenty of factors that complicate things. Since the researchers were in Spain, they had entirely Spanish participants, who tend to eat later than many other countries. It’s not quite as late as Americans might think—according to researchers, a 9:00 p.m. supper in Spain is considered as late as an 8:00 p.m. supper in London—but they are just one population. Average mealtimes and sleep times can differ greatly from country to country and continent to continent in ways that might influence the outcome if this study had been done in another location.
還有很多因素使事情復(fù)雜化。由于研究人員在西班牙，他們研究的完全是西班牙人，西班牙人往往比許多其他國家的人吃得晚。據(jù)研究人員稱，但這不像美國人想象的那么晚。比如晚上9點的西班牙晚餐可以對應(yīng)晚上8點的倫敦晚餐 - 但這也只是一部分人口。如果這項研究是在另一個地方完成的話，平均進(jìn)餐時間和睡眠時間可能因國家、大洲和大陸而有很大不同，因而可能影響結(jié)果。
The sheer size of this study also forced the research team to rely solely on self-report of meal times. “In smaller studies of a few tens or a few hundreds of subjects we use actigraphs, sensors and other ways of recording daily patterns,” says Kogevinas. “In this case, it was impossible. We are aware that we certainly have errors in our assessment of timing,” although he emphasizes that “most probably we are underestimating the effect of timing [on cancer] rather than overestimating.”
這項研究的龐大規(guī)模也迫使研究團隊完全依賴參與者用餐時間的自我報告。“在幾十或幾百個類目的小型研究中，我們使用活動記錄儀、傳感器和其他記錄日常模式的方法，”Kogevinas 說。“在這種情況下，這是不可能的。我們意識到我們對時間的評估確實存在錯誤，“盡管他強調(diào)說”很可能我們低估了時間[對癌癥]的影響而不是高估。“
Still, none of that is to say there’s no value in the study or that it should be dismissed. On the contrary, such a large population study focused on meal timings makes this investigation “one of, if not the first, of its kind,” says Joshu.. “Understanding the association between meal time and cancer risk is particularly relevant in current life, in which mistimed eating may be more common than in the past.”
盡管如此，這一點并不是說研究沒有任何價值或者它應(yīng)該被駁回。相反，如此大規(guī)模的人口研究主要集中在用餐時間上，這使得這項研究成為“同類中的第一項研究”，Joshu 說道。“了解用餐時間與癌癥風(fēng)險之間的關(guān)系在當(dāng)前生活中尤為重要。其中不合時宜的飲食可能比過去更常見。“
Still, there is a great deal of follow-up that needs to be conducted in order to really validate the findings. Joshu echoes the need to understanding the biological connection between meal times and cancer risk before it’s acceptable to say one influences the other. “In addition,” she says, “prospective studies, in which participants are not asked to recall past eating patterns but report them in real time, would be beneficial and could help identify whether changing meal time patterns can decrease risk of these cancers.”
盡管如此，還是需要進(jìn)行大量的后續(xù)工作才能真正驗證調(diào)查結(jié)果。Joshu 說，理解了用餐時間和癌癥風(fēng)險之間的生物學(xué)聯(lián)系的必要性，然后才能說一方影響另一方。“此外，”她說，“這是前瞻性研究，其中參與者不被要求回憶過去的飲食模式，而是實時報告，這將是有益的，可以幫助確定改變用餐時間模式是否可以降低這些癌癥的風(fēng)險。”
It’s premature to radically alter your lifestyle based on this single study, but if pushing your dinner time up makes your evening less hectic, consider trying it. Stress and lack of sleep both contribute to immune system deficiencies, and that is one of the few known ways that lifestyle choices impact your cancer risk. Planning for an earlier dinner might help you get the rest of your chores done on time and in bed earlier, and that really does improve your health.
根據(jù)這項單項研究徹底改變你的生活方式為時尚早，但如果推遲你的晚餐時間會使你的夜晚不那么忙碌，也可以考慮嘗試一下。壓力和睡眠不足都會導(dǎo)致免疫系統(tǒng)缺陷，這是生活方式選擇影響癌癥風(fēng)險的少數(shù)幾種已知方式之一。早點吃晚餐可能會幫助你早點完成其余的家務(wù)，早點睡覺，這確實可以改善你的健康狀況。
