咖啡爱好者的福音(上)

Today we’re talking about coffee.

今天我们来聊聊咖啡。

We hear a lot of conflicting findings about whether our favorite beverage is good or bad for our health.

关于我们最喜欢的饮料对我们的健康是好还是坏，我们听到了很多相互矛盾的发现。

But recently, an especially rigorous study came out that may finally answer some of our percolating questions.

但最近，一项特别严谨的研究问世，可能会回答一些流传已久的问题。

There’s a good chance that, right now, you’re sipping the very thing we’re talking about--coffee. It is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world.

这是个好机会，现在，你慢酌浅饮的正在我们谈论的东西--咖啡。咖啡是世界饮用最广泛的饮料之一。

It’s true. Here in the U.S., the average person drank almost 89 gallons of coffee in 2016—more than soda, tea and juice combined.

这是事实。在美国，2016年平均每人喝下近89加仑的咖啡——超过了苏打水、茶和果汁的总和。

That’s a lot of java. Or joe, brew, or jitter juice, whatever you like to call it.

咖啡有很多别称，如java、joe、brew和jitter juice，随你怎么叫都可以。

Indeed. Do you drink coffee, Josh?

确实。你喝咖啡吗，乔希?

Actually I guess I’m one of the few people who doesn’t. I used to guzzle it, though—about 4 or 5 cups a day. But I gave it up a few years ago.

事实上，我想我是少数不喝咖啡的人之一。不过，我过去常常狂饮咖啡——一天大约4到5杯。但几年前我戒了。

Why? What happened?

为什么? 发生了什么事?

Honestly, my stomach started getting upset. I figured I could do without so much acid, you know?

老实说，我的胃开始不舒服。我觉得我得减少酸的摄入。

That totally makes sense. But personally, I’m not really functional until I’ve had my morning cup of coffee, and I don’t know if I could give that up.

这完全在理。但就我个人而言，我早上不喝咖啡，我是无法真正工作的，我不知道我是否能戒掉咖啡。

There are times when I catch the aroma from a coffee shop, and it just smells so good!

有时闻到咖啡店的香味，感觉太好闻了!

But listen, I’m still not sure coffee was causing my problems.

但注意，我还是无法确定是否是咖啡引起了我的问题。

It feels like every day there’s a new study telling us coffee is good for us or bad for us, for a whole bunch of different reasons.

感觉每天都有一项新的研究告诉我们，咖啡对我们要么有益要么有害，原因各不相同。

With all these conflicting messages, it can feel like whiplash.

所有这些相互矛盾的信息，感觉像是在互相鞭打。

Well, it turns out it’s actually really hard to study how coffee or any other food or drink affects our health.

嗯，事实证明，研究咖啡或任何其他食物或饮料如何影响我们的健康真的很难。

Most nutrition studies are observational studies, which compare health outcomes in people who happen to drink coffee to those who don’t.

大多数营养学研究都是观察性研究，将碰巧喝咖啡的人与不喝咖啡的人的健康状况进行比较。

But it’s impossible to rule out other variables that could affect what you’re trying to measure.

但是，这不可能排除其他可能影响你试图测量的变量。

Plus, you have to rely on people reporting what they consumed weeks or months after they drank it.

另外，你必须看看人们在喝下咖啡的几周或几个月后他们还喝了什么。

And most of us can’t even remember what we had for breakfast.

我们大多数人甚至不记得早餐吃了什么。

So, what’s the solution? Is there another way to study this?

那么，有什么解决方案呢? 有其他的研究方法吗?

Well, there is a way to be more objective. I talked to…

嗯，有一种更客观的方法。我采访了……

Gregory Marcus, Professor of Medicine and cardiologist at University of California, San Francisco.

格雷戈里·马库斯是加州大学旧金山分校的医学教授与心脏病专家。

Marcus and his colleagues took a different approach than most other coffee studies.

马库斯与同事采用了与大多数其他咖啡研究不同的方法。

Instead of just studying people who drank coffee or didn’t, he set up a randomized trial to study coffee’s impact on your heartbeat.

他没有仅仅研究喝咖啡或不喝咖啡的人，而是进行了一项随机试验研究咖啡对心跳的影响。

They were looking for abnormal heart rhythms called arrhythmias.

他们在寻找异常的心律，也就是心率不齐。