VOA慢速英语2012--Health Report - New Findings on Sleep in Children, Older Adults

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道。

"Sleep-disordered breathing" is a term for a group of conditions that can interfere¹ with normal breathing while people sleep. These include snoring, mouth-breathing and sleep apnea. Sleep-disordered breathing can do more than just leave people feeling tired the next day. It can also affect people's health. In children the effects can include behavioral and emotional problems.

“睡眠呼吸紊乱”是一个术语，描述了一组干扰人们睡觉时正常呼吸的状况。其中包括打鼾、用嘴呼吸和睡眠呼吸暂停。睡眠呼吸紊乱不仅仅会导致人们第二天感觉疲倦，还会影响人们的健康。对儿童的影响还包括行为和情绪问题。

In a new study, researchers asked parents about their children's breathing from when they were babies up to about age six. The parents also answered questions about behavior at ages four and seven. The study involved about eleven thousand children.

在一项新研究中，研究人员就孩子从婴儿到六岁的呼吸情况询问家长。家长们还回答了有关孩子四到七岁的行为。这项研究涉及了1.1万名儿童。

Karen Bonuck at the Einstein College of Medicine in New York led the study.

纽约爱因斯坦医学院的卡伦·波诺克领导了这项研究。

KAREN BONUCK: "The central finding overall is that sleep-disordered breathing is associated with a fifty percent increase in adverse² neurobehavioral outcomes."

波诺克：“整体上的重要发现是，睡眠呼吸紊乱和不利的神经行为后果50%的增量有关。”

Those problems include hyperactivity, aggressiveness and problems relating to other children.

这些问题包括多动症、攻击性以及跟其他儿童相关的问题。

Ms. Bonuck says the more serious the breathing problems, the more serious the behavioral issues were likely to be. Other studies have linked sleep with children's behavior, but this study was extensive enough to reject other possible causes.

波诺克女士说，呼吸问题越严重，行为问题也可能越严重。其它研究已经将睡眠和儿童行为联系到一起，但这项研究已经广泛到足以排除其它可能的原因。

A mother and her baby play. 

The study appears in the journal Pediatrics. An estimated one child in ten snores regularly. A smaller number suffer from other sleep-disordered breathing.

这项研究发表在儿科杂志上。据估计，1/10的孩子定期打鼾。患有其它睡眠呼吸紊乱的比例更小。

How well do you sleep? A popular belief is that sleep gets worse with age. But, in another new study, those who reported the fewest problems with the quality of their sleep were people in their eighties.

你睡得有多好？一种流行的理念是，睡眠会随着年龄变差。但在另一项研究中，报告睡眠质量问题最少的是八十来岁的人们。

Researchers did a telephone survey of more than one hundred fifty thousand American adults. Michael Grandner at the University of Pennsylvania medical school says the original goal was to confirm that aging is connected with increased sleep problems.

研究人员对超过15万美国成年人进行了一次电话调查。宾夕法尼亚大学医学院的迈克尔·格兰德纳（Michael Grandner）表示，最初的目标是进一步证实不断增加的睡眠问题和衰老有关。

The survey did find an increase during middle age, worse in women than men. But except for that, people reported that their sleep quality improved as they got older. At least they felt it did.

调查发现在中年人中确实如此，且女性比男性更为糟糕。但除此之外，人们表示随着年龄增长睡眠质量改善了。至少他们觉得是这样。

Mr. Grandner says, "Even if sleep among older Americans is actually worse than in younger adults, feelings about it still improve with age."

格兰德纳先生说，“即使老年美国人的睡眠实际上比青壮年差，但他们对此的感觉仍然是随着年龄增长而改善。”

The findings appear in the journal Sleep. In the study, health problems and depression were linked with poor sleep. Also, women reported more sleep disturbances³ and tiredness than men.

这一研究发现刊登在《睡眠》期刊上。在这项研究中，健康问题和抑郁症都和睡眠不佳有关。此外，女性比男性更多地报告了睡眠障碍和疲劳。

But, based on the study, Mr. Grandner says older people who are not sick or depressed⁴ should be reporting better sleep. "If they're not, they need to talk to their doctor. They shouldn't just ignore it," he says. Nor should their doctor ignore it. He says health care providers generally dismiss sleep complaints from older adults as a normal part of aging.

但是，基于这项研究，格兰纳德先生表示，未生病、未患抑郁症的老年人应当报告更好的睡眠。“如果情况并非如此，他们必须告诉他们的医生，不应该忽略它。”医生也不应当忽视它。他说，医疗保健人员通常对老年人的睡眠抱怨当作衰老的正常部分不予理睬。

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. I'm Jim Tedder⁵.

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Contributing: Avi Arditti and Art Chimes

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