An old joke observes（说） that everyone wants to live forever, but no one wants to be old. The idea behind the observation is that if you do happen to live for a long time, you want to be fit and in good health.
一个古老的笑话说每个人都想要长生，但每个人都不想变老。这个笑话表明了如果你的确活了很长时间，你想要的是健康。
What is not in question is that people are living longer. John Martin Fischer, a University of California Riverside professor, is leading the immortality（不朽） Project, which is exploring what it would be like to live forever.
无可置疑的是人们的的确确活得更长了。约翰·马丁·费舍尔是一名加州大学河滨分校的教授，研究者一个关于如果我们永生会如何的不朽的项目。
On the science side, we're living at a time where we've increased our life expectancy（期望） dramatically ... At the turn of the twentieth century in developed countries the average was about forty-seven years, and at the turn of the twenty-first century it was seventy-six years, and now it's about eighty years. The trajectory（轨道）, he says, is "radically upward"(Moxley, 2014, para.16).
以科学的角度说，我们生活在一个寿命大幅增长的年代……在二十世纪人类的寿命只有43岁，在二十一世纪是76岁，现在是80岁。对于这个轨迹，他表示为“迅速增长”。（2014年Moxley第16段）
There is likely a range of considerations that are extending the average lifespan. Britain's Royal Geographical Society(n.d.（未注明出版日期的）) suggests the increase can be attributed to a number of factors including "improvements in public health, nutrition, and medicine. Vaccinations and antibiotics greatly reduced deaths in childhood, health and safety in manual（用手的） workplaces improved, and fewer people smoked"(para.1).
平均寿命的延长可能需要一系列的考虑。英国皇家地理协会（未注明出版日期的）认为这个增长是由很多因素引起的，像“公众卫生的提高、营养和药。接种疫苗和抗生素大幅减少了儿童的死亡率，手工行业的健康和安全提高了，更少的人吸烟”。（第1段）
On the individual level, those who are living longer probably have an awareness of both their diets and their need of fitness. However, many people's eating habits and choice of exercise reject（拒绝） modern insights.
在个人层面，活得时间更长的人很可能意识到他们的饮食习惯和他们需要锻炼。但是，很多人的吃饭习惯和锻炼习惯拒绝了现代的观点。
One problem area related to diet has to do with fads（时尚） that are promoted by food companies and others with little or no scientific support. A recent trend has been to identify certain food items as superfoods; among others（除了别的以外）, the list includes blueberries, chocolate, oily fish（油性鱼类）, green tea, and wheatgrass（芽草）. The trouble is that scientific studies, if they are done at all, often focus on concentrations that might not be consumed（消耗） on a daily basis（基础） by most people. For example, consuming（消耗） raw garlic（大蒜） is encouraged because it contains a nutrient that is believed to help reduce cholesterol（胆固醇） and blood pressure. However, "you'd have to eat up to twenty-eight cloves（丁香） a day to match the doses（服药） used in the lab - something no researcher has yet been brave enough to try"(NHS（英国国民健康保险制度） Choices, 2013, para.7)
与饮食有关的一个问题领域与食品公司和其他几乎没有或几乎没有科学支持的公司宣传的时尚有关。一个最近的追踪调查超级食物的识别：除了别的以外，列表上列出了蓝莓、巧克力、油性鱼类、绿茶和芽草。问题在于科学的研究，如果它们全部完成了，通常关注于大众关注的每天的每天都需要消耗的很基础的东西。举例来说，人们鼓励吃生大蒜，因为大蒜富含一种可以降低胆固醇和血压的营养。但是，“如果你必须每天要吃掉二十八颗丁香以替代服用实验室里使用的药——没有一个研究者有勇气尝试它”。（英国国民健康保障制度选择，2013年第7段）
Part of the problem is that most people are reluctant（不情愿的） to make changes to their diets and instead consider superfoods like magic pills that will undo（取消） the effects of the rest of（其余的） their bad eating habits. "While the miracle food remains a fantasy, it's pretty well established（确定的） that obesity and alcohol are the two most common causes of major long-term illness and an increased risk of premature（早产的） death"(NHS Choices, 2013, para.11)
问题有一些是绝大部分人不情愿去改变他们的饮食习惯以及和看待药片一样看待超级食物以及戒掉其他的不好的饮食习惯。“尽管这些神奇的食物看上去就和幻想出来的一样，确定的是肥胖和嗜酒是两种导致慢性病的最主要的因素，并且提高了早死的几率”。（英国国民健康保障制度选择，2013年第11段）
On the other hand, superstitious（迷信的） criticisms（评论） of certain foods, particularly genetically modified organisms（转基因生物）(GAOs), have largely proven to be unfounded. One op-ed（专栏版） author writes about the retraction（撤回，违背） of a biased article published in an important French journal that claimed GMOs caused cancerous tumours（肿瘤）.
另一方面，关于确定的食物的迷信的评论，特别是转基因生物，在很大程度上被证明是没有根据的。一个专栏作家撤回了一个出版在一个重要的法国期刊上的一篇带有偏见的文章，这篇文章说转基因生物会导致癌的肿瘤。
Many scientists criticized（批评） Seralini's evidence（证据） and methods and called for the record to be set straight. One of the major flaws in the study is that Seralini used rats that are high susceptible（容易受……的影响） to tumours, with or without GMOs in their diets, they said.("Widely Discredited Study," 2013, para.8)
许多科学家批评塞拉利尼的实验的证据和方法以及记录的内容不准确。这些科学家说除去食用转基因食物，实验的一个主要问题是塞拉利尼用的老鼠本来就容易得上癌症。（《受到广泛质疑研究》，2013年第8段）
Similarly, it terms of exercise, Palmer (2014) notes that yoga is one of the latest athletic（运动的） pastimes（消遣） that is being promoted for health benefits fat beyond those common to most forms of exercise.
相似的，它与运动有关，帕尔默（2014）声称瑜伽是一种运动的消遣，并且对保持身材有好处，而且瑜伽的效果超过了其他大多数运动。
Today, people want to believe that yoga will solve their problems. More than two hundred studies were published about the health benefits of yoga last year. Yoga is supposed to cure everything from low back pain（腰痛） to short attention span to several forms of mental illness.(paras.2-3)
现在，人们愿意去相信瑜伽可以解决他们的问题。去年有更多超过两百个研究声明了瑜伽对健康的益处。瑜伽被认为可以治疗各种各样的疾病，从腰痛到注意力不集中，再到各种精神疾病。（第2-3段）
Yoga has some benefits, but many others are exaggerated（夸大） or completely false. Most of the two hundred studies featured（特征） poor methodologies and weak evidence.
瑜伽有一些益处，但其他益处则是被夸大或者完全错误的。这两百个研究绝大多数缺乏科学的调查方法和确凿的证据。
Despite criticism of flawed scientific studies of diet and exercise, people seem to only retain what they want to hear, particularly if it concerns promises of quick fixes and easy exercise routines. People want to live forever. They do not want to be old. But they will not follow common sense and thoughtful approaches that will give them both health and happiness.
尽管对饮食和锻炼的科学研究存在缺陷，人们看上去好像仅仅保留了他们希望听到的东西，特别是那些看上去可以保证能很快改变人们身材和锻炼方式简单的东西。人们想要长生，但不想变老。但人们不想遵循既能给他们带来健康和幸福的常识的已经成熟的方法。