We now khow to prevent many forms of cancer, but apathy gets the better of us. We all love to feign in-souciance about cancer, or to tell apocryphal stories about its apparently random nature—of some haggard two-pack-a-day smoker who lived to be 96, versus the exquisite gamine who never smoked, always used sun-screen and did yoga, but went in for a routine checkup and was told she wouldn't see her 25th birthday. But while it used to be difficult to know who would and who would not be its victims, cancer is easier to predict these days.
我們知道如何預防多種癌症，但我們總是漠不關心。我們都愛裝作不在乎癌症，或杜撰一些癌症顯然隨機發生的故事。例如，某菸槍每天抽兩包菸，形容枯槁憔悴，仍活到96歲；相反的，近乎完美的少女，菸酒不沾，永遠不忘擦防晒膏，不但做瑜伽，還定期健康檢查，但噩耗傳來，她恐怕活不到25歲。過去雖然很難預知誰會被癌症奪走生命，但最近預測癌症已簡單多了。
Its causes are actually very well un-derstood, and many types of the dis-ease are preventable—which helps to explain why braggadocio isn't heard in the oncology ward. Picture yourself lying in one as your dumbstruck spouse and children hover over the bed. Are you really going to tell them you're glad that you ate the wrong foods, never set foot on a treadmill and never stopped smoking That it was all worth it for a curtailed lifetime of artificial flavorings, binge drinking and postponed health screening.
罹癌原因其實眾所皆知，而且很多種癌症是可以預防的。這也有助於說明，為什麼腫瘤病房從未聞有人大放厥詞。想像你躺在一張病床上，震驚莫名的配偶和子女圍繞在病床邊。你真的忍心告訴他們，你很慶幸自己一直在吃不健康的食物，從來不踩健身踏步機，或菸酒不斷？或者，雖然因攝食人工甘味劑、酗酒及延誤健檢，而使壽命縮短但很值得。
Of course not. But are you willing, in the meantime, to modify your be-havior Well, I wonder.
當然不是，但同時你願意修正自己的行為嗎？坦白說，我很懷疑。
Late last month, the World Cancer Research Fund released a report—Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective—that unambiguously spelled out the things we can do to substantially reduce the risk of getting the disease. Based on an analysis of 7,000 previous studies, the report was billed as the most sweeping examina-tion ever conducted of the relation-ship between cancer and the way we live. It advises us, inter alia, to be as slim as is healthily possible; limit red meat consumption and avoid pro-cessed meats completely; exercise ev-ery day; drink with scrupulous mod-eration; and forgo the gratuitous calories in things like soft drinks and fruit juice.
上月底，世界癌症基金會發布一份報告：「食物、營養、體能活動與癌症預防的全球展望」，報告中詳細明確地說明我們可以做哪些事來大幅降低罹癌風險。這項根據之前7,000份研究所作的分析，據了解是所曾做過最全面檢視癌症與我們生活方式關係的報告。它尤其勸我們儘可能減重以維持健康；節制攝食紅肉；並完全不碰加工肉品；每天運動；嚴格限制喝酒；對冷飲及果汁中沒必要的卡路里也敬謝不敏。
We have all been impatient for the time when the vagueness that sur-rounds public discussion of cancer prevention (Is red wine O.K. or not Is it cool to order extra bacon with that double cheeseburger) would be finally dispersed. The report should therefore have been greeted by a global outburst of thanks, with copies duplicated and shoved in every let-terbox. Instead, it has been met with either irritated silence or trite com-plaints. The feckless comments made to a discussion thread on the BBC news website were typical: “So the choice is, eat boring food, drink no alcohol and spend all my spare time in a gym in exchange for 10 extra years in an old people's home,” read one.“If we listened to these scientists we would all be like supermodels eating a lettuce leaf for dinner,” scoffed an-other wit.
有關防癌的公共討論一直曖昧不明（紅酒可以喝嗎？雙層起司堡加點培根行嗎？），這些疑點何時可以澄清，我們甚感不耐，如今總算撥雲見日。這份報告因此應該贏得舉世感激，更應影印分送塞到每個信箱裡。相反的，結果是一片令人不快的死寂或老掉牙的抱怨。出現在英國廣播公司新聞網站討論區的一些不負責任的言論最具代表性：「所以我們的選擇是吃無聊的食物，滴酒不沾，所有休閑時間都要耗在健身房裡，來換取在老人療養院繼續苟延殘喘十年，」其中一則說。「照這些科學家講的，我們都要像超級名模，晚餐只吃一兩片生菜充饑，」另一位幽默地嘲諷說。
Whenever I read remarks like those, I am reminded of the fact that only 4% of our DNA sequences are differ-ent from those of chimpanzees, and that like our fellow primates we are but dumb mammals, powerless in the presence of cheap stimulants (Salt! Sugar! Fats!).
每當我看到這類言論，就想起一個事實：我們的ＤＮＡ排序只有百分之四和黑猩猩不同，而一如和我們同屬靈長類的動物，我們只是愚昧的哺乳類，面對廉價的刺激物像鹽、糖、脂肪，就無力抗拒。
The arguments we use to justify our dependence on them are callow and banal—-why, for example, is eating healthily equated with being "boring", when nothing would be more boring than being dead Why do we obses-sively focus on the one-in-a-million 90-year-olds who survive against all odds, and ignore the countless multi-tudes who have had their lives radi-cally foreshortened because of cancer related to drinking, smoking or obe-sity Why do we utter banalities like "life is for living," even as we pay good money for foods and substances that are little better than poisons
我們過去為依賴這些刺激物義正辭嚴，實則這些論點都是不成熟的陳腔濫調。例如，為什麼吃出健康等於「無聊乏味」，而人生有什麼比死亡更乏味無聊的？為什麼我們著魔似地把焦點鎖定那些只占百萬分之一儘管面對所有不利的條件仍倖存的90歲老翁，而忽視不計其數因菸酒肥胖而大幅折壽的廣大群眾？為什麼我們老是舊調重彈，說什麼「生命就是要活得精采」，甚至還付大筆錢買那些比劇毒好不到哪裡去的食品？（取材自「時代雜誌」Liam Fitzpatrick專欄）