Coffee Lovers Might Live Longer, Healthier Lives

咖啡爱好者可能更健康、长寿

Sip¹ away, coffee drinkers. Science has found yet another reason the beverage² can be good for you ― and this time it has to do with fighting age-related disease.

放心喝吧，咖啡爱好者们。科学已找到了咖啡有益于人体的另一个理由——这一次可是与抵抗年龄相关的问题有关哦。

Caffeine might help fight systemic inflammation in older adults, according to research published in the journal Nature Medicine. This could explain why coffee drinkers tend to live longer than non-coffee drinkers, since research suggests inflammation is associated with a range of health issues such as cardiovascular disease.

发表在《自然医学》杂志上的研究表明：咖啡因可能有助于抵抗老年人的全身炎症。因此咖啡爱好者往往会比不喝咖啡者更长寿，因为研究表明炎症是与一系列的健康问题（比如心血管疾病）相关的。

Senior study author David Furman, a consulting associate professor at the Stanford Institute for Immunity³, Transplantation and Infection, and his colleagues discovered that a natural process occurring in the genes⁴ of some older adults leads to higher rates of inflammation. And according to their study, it’s this inflammation that may be the driver of cardiovascular disease.

斯坦福免疫移植和感染学院的咨询副教授及高级研究作者大卫•弗曼和他的同事发现：老年人基因中发生的自然过程导致了更高的炎症率。据他们的研究所述，这种炎症可能会引起心血管疾病。

They examined inflammation levels in the blood samples of 100 younger (ages 20-30) and older (60-89) adults participating in a long-term health survey. The blood samples of the older participants who reported they consumed caffeinated beverages⁵ on a daily basis had lower levels of inflammation, with individuals who drank more than five cups caffeinated beverages a day having extremely low levels of inflammation.

100位年轻人（20至30岁）和老年人（60至89岁）参加了一个长期健康调查，研究员们检查了这些人血液样本的炎症程度。那些说自己每天都会饮用含咖啡因饮料的老年人，他们的血液样本炎症程度更低，那些每天喝5杯以上含咖啡因饮料的人，他们的炎症程度尤为低。

“Our findings show that an underlying⁶ inflammatory process, which is associated with aging, is not only driving cardiovascular disease but is, in turn, driven by molecular⁷ events that we may be able to target and combat,” said co-author Mark Davis, director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, in a statement.

“我们的研究结果表明：与衰老相关的潜在炎症过程不仅会引起心血管疾病，而且反过来，是由我们可以瞄准并抵抗的分子事件引起的，” 斯坦福免疫移植和感染学院的主任兼合著作者马克•戴维斯在一篇声明中写道。

In other words, inflammation is occurring at a cellular⁸ level, and caffeine may be one way of reducing it. That has the potential to make a difference in an individual’s health: The older participants with lower levels of inflammation had fewer stiff arteries⁹ ― an indicator¹⁰ for cardiovascular disease ― and were eight times more likely to be related to someone who lived to the age of 90 and beyond, according to the study.

换言之，炎症是在细胞中发生的，而咖啡因可能是降低炎症的方法之一。据研究表明：这有可能改变一个人的健康状况，炎症程度更低的老年人，他们的僵硬动脉也更少——僵硬动脉是心血管疾病的一个指标——而且活到90岁以上的可能性是其他人的8倍。

“The relationship between caffeine consumption and lower inflammatory state was rather linear, so the more caffeinated drinks the subjects consumed, the lower their inflammatory state,” Furman said.

“咖啡因摄入量与更低的炎症程度之间是呈线性关系的，所以摄入含咖啡因的饮料和食物越多，你的炎症程度就越低，”弗曼说道。