正文
有些科学家希望有一天能够同时治疗所有这些疾病
——通过针对衰老本身。
Humans aren’t built to last forever. T
he oldest person on record was Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. In 2040, the average life span for people in Spain, projected to pass Japan as the country with the longest-lived citizens, will reach about 86 years.
人类不是永生的。
有史以来最长寿的人是法国女性让娜
·卡尔芒(Jeanne Calment)，她于1997年去世，享年122岁。2040年，西班牙人的平均寿命预计将超过日本，成为拥有最长寿公民的国家，人均寿命将达到约86岁。
There is considerable dispute, however, over how long humans might live under optimal circumstances. In 2016, a team of scientists declared the upper limit to be 115 years.
But in June, researchers reviewing death rates among elderly Italians suggested that there may be no limit at all.
然而，人类能在最理想的环境下活多久的问题有相当大的争议。
2016年，一组科学家宣布上限应为115岁。但
在
6月，查看意大利老年人死亡率的研究人员表明，人类寿命可能根本没有任何限制。
In animal studies over the last few decades, scientists have begun to understand the specific cellular and molecular processes that cause the deteriorations of old age.
在过去几十年的动物研究中，科学家已经开始了解导致老年人身体退化的特定细胞和分子过程。
In an essay in the journal JAMA last month, Tamara Tchkonia and Dr. James L. Kirkland of the Mayo Clinic categorized these processes into four broad groups: chronic inflammation; cell dysfunction; changes in stem cells that make them fail to regenerate tissue; and cellular senescence, the accumulation in tissue of aging cells that accompanies disease.
上个月在《美国医学会杂志》
(JAMA)上发表的一篇论文中，梅奥医院(Mayo Clinic)的塔玛拉·奇科尼亚(Tamara Tchkonia)和詹姆斯·L·柯克兰(James L. Kirkland)博士将这些过程分为四大类：慢性炎症；细胞功能障碍；干细胞变化使它们无法再生组织；细胞衰老，及与疾病相伴的衰老细胞在组织中积累。
Old cells, researchers have found, secrete proteins, lipids and other substances that increase inflammation and tissue destruction. In one study in mice, researchers showed that transplanting these cells to the knee joints of healthy animals causes disease that looks very much like human osteoarthritis.
研究人员发现，衰老细胞分泌蛋白质、脂质和其他增加炎症和组织破坏的物质。在一项针对小鼠的研究中，研究人员显示，将这些细胞移植到健康动物的膝关节会导致看起来非常像人类骨关节炎的疾病。
Healthy young people have few of these aging cells, but after age 60, they begin to accumulate, and their increasing quantity correlates with disabilities of old age.
健康的年轻人很少有这样的细胞，但是在
60岁以后，它们开始累积，并且其数量增加与老年失能相关。
