A new discovery could explain why obese¹ people are more likely to develop cancer, scientists say. A type of cell the body uses to destroy cancerous tissue gets clogged² by fat and stops working, the team, from Trinity College Dublin, found.

科学家们表示，现在有一项新研究可能可以解释为什么肥胖的人更可能得癌症。一个来自都柏林三一学院的团队发现，我们身体用来破坏癌变组织的一种细胞会被脂肪堵塞并停止工作。

Obesity³ is the biggest preventable cause of cancer in the UK after smoking, Cancer Research UK says. And more than one in 20 cancer cases - about 22,800 cases each year in the UK - are caused by excess body weight.

据英国的癌症研究学会说，肥胖在英国是仅次于吸烟的可预防型癌症原因。而且有超过1/20的癌症案例都是由超重引起的，这在英国每年就有差不错22800例。

Experts already suspected fat sent signals to the body that could both damage cells, leading to cancer, and increase the number of them. Now, the Trinity scientists have been able to show, in Nature Immunology journal, how the body's cancer-fighting cells get clogged by fat.

专家们以前就在怀疑脂肪给身体传递的一些信号会损害我们的细胞、引发癌症并增加癌变细胞的数量。而跟根这次据三一学院的科学家在《自然免疫学》期刊上发表的研究，他们已经能够展示出脂肪是如何堵塞那些抗癌细胞的了。

And they hope to be able to find drug treatments that could restore these "natural killer" cells' fighting abilities.

他们希望能找出一种药物疗法来帮这些“天生的癌症杀手细胞”恢复战斗能力。

Prof Lydia Lynch said: "A compound that can block the fat uptake by natural killer cells might help. We tried it in the lab and found it allowed them to kill again. But arguably a better way would be to lose some weight - because that is healthier for you anyway."

Lydia Lynch教授说：“有一种化合物可以防止这些癌症杀手细胞吸收脂肪，我们可能可以用它。我们已经在实验室里试过这种物质了，发现它让癌症杀手细胞得以重新开始击杀。不过更好的办法应该还是减肥，毕竟那能让你更健康。”

Dr Leo Carlin, from the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, said: "Although we know that obesity increases the risk of 13 different types of cancer, we still don't fully understand the mechanisms⁴ underlying⁵ the link.

来自英国癌症研究学会比斯顿研究所的Leo Carlin博士说：“虽然我们知道肥胖能够提升13种不同癌症的发病率，但我们还没有完全明白具体的机制。”

"This study reveals how fat molecules⁶ prevent immune cells from properly positioning their tumour-killing machinery⁷, and provides new avenues to investigate treatments. A lot of research focuses on how tumours⁸ grow in order to find metabolic⁹ targets to stop them, so this is a reminder¹⁰ that we should consider the metabolism¹¹ of immune cells too."

“而这次的研究让我们明白了脂肪分子是如何阻碍免疫细胞的抗癌机制的，也为我们寻找相关治疗方法指明了新方向。已经有很多研究着眼于肿瘤的生长，以希望能找到从新陈代谢角度阻止他们的方法；而我们这次研究则提醒我们或许也应该研究一下免疫细胞的新陈代谢机制。”