In the United States alone,more than 20 million people have diabetes. That’s according to Paul Robertson, president of Medicine & Science at the American Diabetes Association.

　　据美国糖尿病协会医学科学主席保罗·罗伯逊说，仅在美国就有超过2000 万人患有糖尿病。

[page]

　

       Paul Robertson: With all diabetes, the diagnosis is made because blood glucose, or blood sugar levels, rises above normal. He said that diabetes is so devastating because it’s a progressive illness that does lots of organ damage, and the disease gets worse with time.

　　保罗·罗伯逊：对所有糖尿病病例来说，我们都以血液中的葡萄糖水平——即所谓的血糖——高于标准作为确诊依据。他说， 糖尿病非常具有破坏性，因为这种逐步恶化的疾病会造成许多器官损伤，症状也会随时间加重。

[page]

        Robertson: The longer that the blood glucose levels stays elevated, the more damage it does to very important tissues in the body. And actually it damages the pancreas itself, after a while.

　　罗伯逊：血糖水平过高的时间越长，它对身体非常重要的器官造成的伤害就越大。事实上，一段时间之后它对胰腺本身也会产生伤害。

[page]

       The pancreas is the organ that helps the body regulate blood sugar. So it’s a vicious cycle,Robertson said, and the cause is still unknown. Robertson is investigating the possibility that diabetes might be triggered, in part, by an accumulation of toxic molecules in the body – what’s called oxidative stress.

　　胰腺是帮助身体调整血糖水平的器官，因此，罗伯逊说，这是一个恶性循环，但糖尿病的病因我们仍不清楚。罗伯逊在对糖尿病在某种程度上可能会被体内一种毒性分子的堆积触发的问题进行研究，这种毒性分子的堆积被称为氧化应激。

[page]

        Robertson: Oxidative stress is an accumulation of molecules that comes about because of chemical reactions, or stuff we ingest, things that get in our body. These can get inside the cells and really wreak havoc.

　　Dr. Robertson is researching a molecule called antioxidants which might protect cells against damage from oxidative stress.

　　罗伯逊：氧化应激是一种由化学反应或我们摄取的东西——即被我们身体吸收的物质——造成的毒性分子堆积。这些毒性分子会进入细胞内并造成严重破坏。

　　罗伯逊医生正在研究一种被称为抗氧化剂的分子，这种分子可能会保护细胞不受氧化应激的破坏。