科学家们称，一项新发现可以解释肥胖者更容易患癌症的原因。来自都柏林圣三一学院的研究团队发现，人体用来破坏癌变组织的一种细胞会被过多的脂肪阻塞，从而停止工作。英国癌症研究院（Cancer Research UK）称，在英国，肥胖是仅次于吸烟的最大的、可预防性的致癌因素。

 

Obesity¹ is the biggest preventable cause of cancer in the UK after smoking. More than one in 20 cancer cases are caused by excess body weight, according to Cancer Research UK. Experts already suspect that fat sends signals to the body that can cause growth and damage to cells, resulting in cancer.

在英国，肥胖是仅次于吸烟的可预防的最大致癌因素。据英国癌症研究院统计，每二十个癌症病例中就有超过一例是因体重超标而导致的。专家们已经怀疑，由于脂肪会给人体发出可造成细胞增大和损坏的信号，所以才引发了癌症。

 

Now the team at Trinity have found another pathway that could explain the obesity-cancer link. Too much fat in the body can clog² some of the body’s cancer-fighting cells, according to the new work published in Nature Immunology journal.

现在，这支来自圣三一学院的研究团队发现了另一种可以解释肥胖与癌症之间联系的方法。他们在《自然免疫学》期刊上发表的新研究称，体内过多的脂肪可能会阻塞体内的抗癌细胞。

 

By doing tests on these ‘natural killer³’ cells in their lab, the researchers were able to pinpoint⁴ the steps that led to the clogging⁵. Armed with this knowledge, they hope to be able to find drug treatments that could restore the cancer-fighting abilities of natural killer cells.

通过在实验室中对这类 “自然杀伤” 细胞进行测试，研究人员得以准确指出造成细胞堵塞的每一个阶段。认识到了这一点以后，他们希望能找到可恢复这类自然杀伤细胞抗癌能力的药物疗法。

点击收听单词发音