美国国家公共电台 NPR--The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders with diabetes keeps going up

The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders with diabetes¹ keeps going up

Transcript²

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are at risk for developing diabetes at lower weights and younger ages than others. Doctors are working from the inside the community to make people healthier.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are prone³ to getting diabetes at younger ages and at lower weights than the general population. NPR's Pien Huang spoke⁴ with doctors and researchers from these communities who are working to figure out why that is and what to do about it.

PIEN HUANG, BYLINE⁵: In the mid-1990s, when Maria Rosario Araneta came to UC San Diego as an epidemiologist, she noticed how many men at a nearby Veterans Administration hospital had kidney damage from diabetes.

MARIA ROSARIO ARANETA: Most of the patients in the dialysis unit are thin Filipino men. They're not overweight. They have access to care. They're in the Navy. They have to exercise.

HUANG: It hit home for Araneta, a Filipina whose father and grandmother both got diabetes while slim and seemingly healthy.

ARANETA: And I thought, I am definitely at risk. My community is at risk.

HUANG: It set her on a decadeslong path looking into why Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders tend to get diabetes when they're slimmer and younger than the general population. Dr. Alka Kanaya, a diabetes researcher at UC San Francisco, says one of the main culprits is that Asian bodies store fat in all the wrong places.

ALKA KANAYA: Like in the liver, around the abdominal⁶ organs, in the muscle, around the heart. For some reason that's most likely genetically⁷ determined⁸, more fat gets stored in these other adverse⁹ places.

HUANG: This can lead to being skinny fat - when someone looks thin on the outside, but stores a lot of fat in and around their organs. And this hidden fat can be more damaging than the fat you can see. Researchers say it's not clear why Asian bodies store more fat this way, and it's not clear how to lose that hidden fat. Dr. George King, out of the Joslin Diabetes Center's Asian American Initiative, says it's been hard to get funding to study the problem. Still, he says...

GEORGE KING: So it's not that we have to wait for the research. There's plenty we can do ourselves.

HUANG: King, Araneta, Kanaya and others are among a group of Asian American health workers that successfully lobbied for changes to screening guidelines. In 2015, the American Diabetes Association recommended Asian Americans get tested for diabetes at a body mass index of 23, lower than other groups. And they've worked from the inside to make their communities healthier. Dr. Namratha Kandula at Northwestern University started a diabetes prevention program for South Asians living near Chicago.

NAMRATHA KANDULA: And so what that means is in addition to talking about diet and exercise. We specifically address the stress that comes from being an ethnic¹⁰ minority in this country.

HUANG: Many participants immigrated¹¹ from India and Bangladesh, and they spoke about losing family structure and friends in the move to a different country. Shaheen Amir, a 32-year-old homemaker and mother of two, came from Pakistan a few years ago. She went through the four-month program, and she says it changed her life.

SHAHEEN AMIR: Before the program, I wasn't exercise at all - like, at all. Now, the first thing in the morning is I do exercise, even a little bit. But that's a part of my routine now.

HUANG: Amir says back in Pakistan, she ate whatever delicious, often deep-fried foods her mother made. Now, as the main cook at home, she's serving brown rice with veggies and trading the deep fryer for an air fryer. She's learned to manage her weight and now has more energy to play with her kids.

AMIR: I used to tell them, OK, you guys can play. I'm tired. Mom wants to sit. But now I'm literally¹² playing with them - like, you know, hide and seek and tag and everything, just like a kid. So I feel a lot of changes in me.

HUANG: Advocacy and prevention programs are helping¹³ some, but overall, the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders with diabetes keeps going up. The researchers say their work is laid out for years to come.

Pien Huang, NPR News.

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1 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 abdominal   

adj.腹（部）的，下腹的；n.腹肌

参考例句：

• The abdominal aorta is normally smaller than the thoracic aorta.腹主动脉一般比胸主动脉小。
• Abdominal tissues sometimes adhere after an operation.手术之后腹部有时会出现粘连。

7 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物

8 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

9 adverse   

adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的

参考例句：

• He is adverse to going abroad.他反对出国。
• The improper use of medicine could lead to severe adverse reactions.用药不当会产生严重的不良反应。

10 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

11 immigrated   

v.移入( immigrate的过去式和过去分词 )；移民

参考例句：

• He immigrated from Ulster in 1848. 他1848年从阿尔斯特移民到这里。 来自辞典例句
• Many Pakistanis have immigrated to Britain. 许多巴基斯坦人移居到了英国。 来自辞典例句

12 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。