2017年12月四级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 1 原文翻译及答案解析

Aging happens to all of us, and is generally thought of as a natural part of life. It would seem silly to call such a thing a "disease."

衰老发生在我们每个人身上，通常被视为生命的自然组成部分。将这样一种现象称为“疾病”似乎有些荒谬。

On the other hand, scientists are increasingly learning that aging and biological age are two different things, and that the former is a key risk factor for conditions such as heart disease, cancer and many more. In that light, aging itself might be seen as something treatable, the way you would treat high blood pressure or a vitamin deficiency.

另一方面，科学家们正日益认识到衰老和生物年龄是两个不同的概念，而前者是心脏病、癌症等多种疾病的关键风险因素。由此看来，衰老本身可能被视为一种可以治疗的事物，就像治疗高血压或维生素缺乏症那样。

Biophysicist Alex Zhavoronkov believes that aging should be considered a disease. He said that describing aging as a disease creates incentives to develop treatments.

生物物理学家亚历克斯·扎沃龙科夫认为，衰老应被视为一种疾病。他表示，将衰老描述为一种疾病能激励人们开发治疗方法。

"It unties the hands of the pharmaceutical (制药的) industry so that they can begin treating the disease and not just the side effects," he said.

“这解放了制药行业的手脚，使他们能够开始治疗疾病本身，而不仅仅是治疗其副作用，”他说。

"Right now, people think of aging as natural and something you can't control," he said. "In academic circles, people take aging research as just an interest area where they can try to develop interventions. The medical community also takes aging for granted, and can do nothing about it except keep people within a certain health range."

“目前，人们认为衰老是自然的且不可控的，”他说。“在学术界，人们将衰老研究仅仅视为一个可以尝试开发干预措施的兴趣领域。医学界也将衰老视为理所当然，除了将人们的健康维持在一定范围内外，对其无能为力。”

But if aging were recognized as a disease, he said, "It would attract funding and change the way we do health care. What matters is understanding that aging is curable."

但他表示，如果衰老被承认为一种疾病，“它将吸引资金，并改变我们进行医疗保健的方式。关键在于认识到衰老是可以治愈的。”

"It was always known that the body accumulates damage," he added. "The only way to cure aging is to find ways to repair that damage. I think of it as preventive medicine for age-related conditions."

“人们一直知道身体会积累损伤，”他补充道。“治愈衰老的唯一方法是找到修复这些损伤的方法。我认为这是针对年龄相关疾病的预防性医学。”

Leonard Hayflick, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said the idea that aging can be cured implies the human lifespan can be increased, which some researchers suggest is possible. Hayflick is not among them.

加利福尼亚大学旧金山分校教授伦纳德·海弗里克表示，认为衰老可以治愈的观点意味着人类寿命可以延长，一些研究人员认为这是可能的。海弗里克并不认同这一观点。

"There're many people who recover from cancer, stroke, or heart disease. But they continue to age, because aging is separate from their disease," Hayflick said. "Even if those causes of death were eliminated, life expectancy would still not go much beyond 92 years."

“许多人从癌症、中风或心脏病中康复，但他们仍在继续衰老，因为衰老与他们的疾病是分开的，”海弗里克说。“即使消除了这些死亡原因，预期寿命也不会大幅超过92岁。”