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“For studying aging, Italy is just incredible,” said Dr. Valter Longo, a youthful 56, at the lab he runs at a cancer institute in Milan, where he will speak at an aging conference this month.
“对于研究衰老，意大利是一个绝佳的地方，”现年56岁而且看起来很年轻的瓦尔特·隆戈博士在由他管理的实验室里说，这个实验室位于米兰的一个癌症研究所，他将于本月在米兰的一场衰老研究会议上发表讲话。
Italy has one of the world’s oldest populations, including multiple pockets of centenarians who tantalize researchers for the fountain of youth.
意大利有世界上年龄最大的人口之一，其中包括许多个百岁老人群体，他们吸引了寻找青春之泉的研究人员。
Dr. Longo, who is also a professor of gerontology and director of the U.S.C. Longevity Institute in California, has long advocated longer and better living through eating Lite Italian, one of a global explosion of Road to Perpetual Wellville theories about how to stay young in a field that is itself still in its adolescence.
隆戈博士是南加州大学的老年学教授和寿命研究中心的主任，他一直主张通过吃低热量意大利食物来延长寿命和促进健康，这是在全球范围内突然涌现的关于如何永葆青春的类似《窈窕疯人院》的理论之一，但这个领域的研究本身都尚且处于青春期。
In addition to identifying genes that regulate aging, he has created a plant- and nut-based diet with supplements and kale crackers that mimics fasting to, he argues, allow cells to shed harmful baggage and rejuvenate, without the downside of actually starving.
除了识别调节衰老的基因外，隆戈还创造了一种以植物和坚果为基础，再加上补充剂和羽衣甘蓝饼干的饮食，这种饮食可以模拟断食，他认为这样就能让细胞摆脱有害的包袱并重焕活力，而且不会有真正挨饿带来的危害。
His private foundation, also based in Milan, tailors diets for cancer patients, but also consults for Italian companies and schools, promoting a Mediterranean diet that is actually foreign to most Italians today.
他的私人基金会也设在米兰，为癌症患者量身定制饮食，但也为意大利公司和学校提供咨询服务，推广地中海饮食，其实如今的大多数意大利人对这种饮食并不熟悉。
He added that many Italian children, especially in the country’s south, are obese, bloated on what he calls the poisonous five Ps — pizza, pasta, protein, potatoes and pane (or bread).
他补充说，许多意大利儿童，特别是南部的儿童，都患有肥胖症，因为吃他所说的有毒五P（披萨、意大利面、蛋白质、土豆和面包）而身材发胖。
In recent years, wellness articles have conquered newspaper home pages and Fountains-of-Youth workout and diet ads featuring insanely fit middle-aged people teem on the social media feeds of not insanely fit middle-aged people.
近年来，关于保健的文章已经占领了报纸主页，青春之泉健身广告和饮食广告上都是一些看起来超级健康的中年人，这种广告充满了那些不是超级健康的中年人的社交媒体推送。
But even as concepts like longevity, intermittent fasting and biological age — you’re only as old as your cells feel! — have gained momentum, governments like Italy’s are fretting over a creakier future in which booming populations of old people drain resources from the dwindling young.
但虽然长寿、轻断食和生理年龄（细胞的年龄才是你的年龄）之类的概念日益流行，意大利等国政府也依然在为老龄化更严重的未来而担忧，将来越来越多的老年人口会从越来越少的年轻人那里耗尽资源。
And yet many scientists, nutritionists and longevity fanatics the world over continue to stare longingly toward Italy, seeking in its deep pockets of centenarians a secret ingredient to long life.
然而，世界各地的许多科学家、营养学家和长寿狂热分子仍在充满渴望地注视着意大利，希望从该国百岁老人群体里寻找长寿的秘诀。
Dr. Longo wonders whether Italy’s centenarians had been protected from later disease by a starvation period and old-fashioned Mediterranean diet early in life, during rural Italy’s abject war-era poverty.
隆戈在想，意大利的百岁老人在晚年没有生病，是不是因为在意大利战争时期农村非常穷苦，这些老人当时经常饿肚子、吃老式地中海饮食。
Then a boost of proteins and fats and modern medicine after Italy’s postwar economic miracle protected them from frailty as they got older and kept them alive. It could, he said, be a “historical coincidence that you’ll never see again.”
然后，在意大利战后发生了经济奇迹，蛋白质、脂肪和现代医学的发展保护了他们，使他们不会随着年龄的增长而变得虚弱，并使他们的寿命延长。他说，这可能是“你再也见不到的历史巧合”。
