诹访彩花:有关性和运动的真相

一开始，先让我们来澄清一下事实。剧烈的性活动根本不可能导致你的心脏停止跳动，慢跑也一样。你可能会说，相信一则报道上说的，这两种活动都有致命的后果，这篇重要的文章发表在美国医药协会的杂志上。

One gleefully unrestrained British tabloid reported that the study showed that “dirty weekends” would ruin your heart, while another newspaper headlined an article “Adulterers Beware!”

英国的一份八卦花边新闻小报曾经报道：研究表明“风流的周末”会危及你的心脏；同时另一家报纸刊登一则大标题为“通奸者们，注意了！”的文章。

“There were a lot of misconceptions,” said Dr. Issa J. Dahabreh, a research associate at the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts University and lead author of the report.

毅萨.J.大铪布雷博士说，“这里面有很多的误解”。他是塔夫斯大学研究所的一名副研究员，从事临床调查和健康政策研究，也是这篇报道的主要作者。

For the review, scientists at Tufts amassed and analyzed almost 20 years’ worth of studies about why people suffer heart attacks. In particular, they were looking for studies that examined whether physical and sexual activity trigger cardiac “events.”

回顾一下，TUFTS大学的科学家收集和分析了近20年来有价值的研究，它是有关人们为什么会患心脏病的研究，他们特别在研究测试锻炼和性生活是否会触发心脏病。

It’s well established that, looked at over the long haul, certain activities and events do increase someone’s risk of experiencing a heart attack. Christmas, for instance, has been identified as a heart attack trigger, as have overeating, waking in the early morning, Mondays, job strain, air pollution, using cocaine and living through an earthquake.

看看他们长期的研究建立了良好的基础。某些锻炼和活动确实会增加一些人患心脏病的危险。例如，圣诞节已经被证实会触发心脏病，还有诸如以下的因素：饮食过量，清晨早起，第一天上班，工作压力，空气污染，服用可卡因或者经历过地震。

Physical and sexual activity belong on that list as well, but the role that such exertions play in heart health and heart attacks is layered and complicated. In study after study, the Tufts researchers found, regular physical activity significantly decreased an individual’s overall risk of suffering a heart attack. But at the same time, any single bout of activity, including sexual activity, could for a brief period — during and afterward — increase someone’s risk.

身体锻炼和性生活也在列，但是锻炼对于心脏的健康和心脏病的发作所起的作用是很复杂的，要分层来看，。塔夫斯大学的研究人员经过反复研究后发现，有规律的身体锻炼可以大大减少心脏病发作的综合风险。但同时，包括性生活在内的任何一次活动，可能是在很短暂的一段时间内或这段时间后，对于一些人来说，发作的危险都会增加。

In other words, a distance runner is less likely to suffer a cardiac event at any time in his life than someone who is inactive. But if, for whatever reason, that runner should be stricken, he is slightly more likely to experience the attack in the hours after a run than on days when he gets no exercise (unless, perhaps, that day is Christmas).

换句话说，不论任何时候，长跑者比那些不爱好运动的人患心脏病的风险要低。但是不管怎么说，他们在长跑后的几个小时内，心脏病发作的机率比没有运动时要高(除非，也有可能，那天是圣诞节)。

Or, as the review soberly concluded, “Acute cardiac events were significantly associated with episodic physical and sexual activity; this association was attenuated among persons with high levels of habitual physical activity.”

或者回顾研究结果，可以冷静地得出这样的结论：“急性心脏病与偶尔的锻炼和性生活有很大关系，但对于常常锻炼的人来说，这种关系削弱了。”

Specifically, the authors found that in the studies they analyzed, a single bout of moderate activity could triple a person’s risk of experiencing a heart attack afterward, compared with not engaging in activity. But if that same person was regularly active, his overall risk of an attack fell by about 45 percent, and his risk of dying, should he be afflicted, fell by 30 percent.

具体来说，作者在他们分析的研究中发现，一次短暂的适度锻炼，与没有运动的情况相比，心脏病发作的风险可能提高三倍。但是如果同样的人经常锻炼，心脏病发作的风险将降低45%，死亡的风险降低30%。

The studies mainly involved middle-aged men, and the physical exertion in question was generally equivalent to jogging. Some studies found that sex could trigger a cardiac event, although, for the most part, sex is not considered strenuous. A recent study by researchers in Brazil, unrelated to the Tufts review, reported that the energy demands of sex “resemble a relaxed walk for a few blocks, interspersed by ascending one or two flights of stairs at moderate” pace, with, as the researchers pointed out, individual variations.

研究的对象主要针对中年男性，身体锻炼只是等同于漫跑。虽然性生活的多数时候不是那么剧烈，但一些研究发现性生活可能触发心脏病的发作。在巴西，研究者们在进行一项最新的研究，与塔夫斯大学的研究内容不同，他们的报告显示：性生活所需要的能量相似于漫步于几个街区期间，以适度的步伐，穿插登一两层阶梯的运动。但研究人员指出，个体存在差异性。

Why activity, of whatever kind, can temporarily increase a person’s risk of a heart attack was not addressed by the Tufts authors, but obviously that is relevant. “When you exercise, your levels of adrenaline go up,” said Dr. Gary Balady, the director of preventive cardiology at Boston University and co-author of a 2007 scientific statement by the American Heart Association on the subject of exercise and coronary events. The adrenaline surge can, together with other physiological effects, cause an irregular heartbeat in susceptible people and a subsequent heart attack, he said. Regular exercise “allows the heart to adapt” to such surges. The Tufts findings, he said, “make perfect physiological sense.”

为什么不管什么类型的活动都会暂时增加心脏病复发的危险？这虽然不是TUFS研究者们提出的论点，但显然相关联。盖里.巴拉蒂博士说：“当你在运动时，肾上腺素增加，”他是波士顿大学预防心脏病研究的主任，由美国心脏协会发起的有关锻炼和心脏病主题“2007年度科学声明”的合作坐者。肾上腺素增加也会引起其它生理反应，导致易患病者心率不齐和随后的心脏病。他说，“有规律的锻炼使心脏适应肾上腺素增高，完善生理机能。”这也是塔夫斯大学的发现。

But some people did manage to twist their meaning. The findings “did not suggest that people should avoid exercise” in hopes of preventing an attack, said Jessica Paulus, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts and a study co-author. Nor did they prove, despite some reporters’ obvious hopes, that engaging in lots of sex now would prevent a heart attack during sex later. There is no data about the protective effects — if any — of sex, she said. “Sex is not a proxy” for more strenuous activity, she said, although “some people seem to want it to be.”

杰斯卡.保路斯说，“有些人试图歪曲他们的意思，这个发现并不意味着避免锻炼就可以防止心脏病发作。”她是塔夫斯大学的药学教授助理，这个研究的合作作者。很显然，尽管有些记者希望，从事大量性生活后可以预防心脏病，他们也没有证实这一点。没有数据表明预防心脏病的效果，如果有，性也不能代表那些更为剧烈的运动来做这个数据测试。她表示“尽管一些人似乎希望可以”。

“What we can say,” Dr. Dahabreh concluded, “is that for a brief period of time” after you exercise, you have a “transiently increased risk” of something going wrong with your heart. But the risk is smaller if you work out regularly.

大铪布雷博士总结道：“我们能说明的是，在你运动完后的一小段时间里，发作的风险会短暂性地增加，似乎心脏有什么地方不正常。但是只要你经常锻炼，这个风险就会降低”。

“Put in the right perspective, this study is quite encouraging,” said Dr. Balady, who was not involved with the research. “It shows that each of us is empowered to reduce our risk of an adverse event.” All you need to do, he said, is exercise. Dirty weekends, spent mountain biking or gardening, easily qualify.

“全面客观地来看，这个研究相当鼓舞人心” 巴拉蒂博士说道，他没有参加这次研究。“我们每个人都有能力降低自己患病的风险，你需要做的，就是锻炼，周末风流，山地自行车运动或者种种花草，这些活动都很合适”。