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Metabolic syndrome ties together a host of disorders that the medical community typically thought of as unrelated, or at least having separate and distinct causes – including obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and inflammation – as products of insulin resistance and high circulating insulin levels. Regulatory systems throughout the body begin to misbehave, with slow, chronic, pathological consequences everywhere.
代谢综合症将一系列的疾病联系在一起，而医疗界通常认为这些疾病之间是无关联的，或者至少是有独立的、明确的致因的——包括肥胖、高血压、高血糖和炎症——是胰岛素抵抗和高循环胰岛素水平的产物。全身的调节系统开始失调，慢慢地出现了一些难以根治的病症。
Once we have observed the symptoms of consuming too much sugar, the assumption is that we can dial it back a little and be fine – drink one or two sugary beverages a day instead of three; or, if we're parenting, allow our children ice cream on weekends only, say, rather than as a daily treat. But if it takes years or decades, or even generations, for us to get to the point where we display symptoms of metabolic syndrome, it's quite possible that even these apparently moderate amounts of sugar will turn out to be too much for us to be able to reverse the situation and return us to health. And if the symptom that manifests first is something other than getting fatter – cancer, for instance – we're truly out of luck.
一旦我们发现自己因摄入太多糖出现了一些症状，那么我们就可以少喝一点，每天喝一到两杯含糖饮料，别喝三杯，这样就好了。或者，如果我们为人父母，那么我们就只允许孩子在周末吃冰淇淋，而不是每天都吃。但是如果我们需要几年、几十年，甚至几代人的时间才会出现代谢综合症的症状，那么很有可能的情况是，即便是看似适量的糖对我们来说也会过量，而且无法扭转局面恢复健康。如果首先出现的症状不是变胖而是其它什么——比如癌症——那我们就真的没那么走运了。
The authorities who argue for moderation in our eating habits tend to be individuals who are relatively lean and healthy; they define moderation as what works for them. This assumes that the same approach and amount will have the same beneficial effect on all of us. If it doesn't, of course, if we fail to remain lean and healthy or our children fail to do so, the assumption is that we've failed – we ate too much sugar, or our children did.
主张饮食适度的权威人士往往是比较苗条、比较健康的人，他们把适度定义为对他们有用的东西。假设同样的方法和相同的数量对所有人都有同样的好处。如果没有，就是说，如果我们没有保持苗条和健康，或者我们的孩子没有保持苗条和健康，那么假设就是我们失败了——我们吃的糖太多了，或者我们的孩子吃的糖太多了。
If it takes 20 years of consuming sugar for the consequences to appear, how can we know whether we've consumed too much before it's too late? Isn't it more reasonable to decide early in life (or early in parenting) that not too much is as little as possible?
如果摄入糖20年后才会产生后果，那么为了避免为时已晚，我们怎样才能知道自己是否摄入了过多的糖？在人生的早期(或养育孩子的早期)就决定“少而不多”不是更合理吗？
Any discussion of how little sugar is too much also has to account for the possibility that sugar is a drug and perhaps addictive. Trying to consume sugar in moderation, however it's defined, in a world in which substantial sugar consumption is the norm and virtually unavoidable, is likely to be no more successful for some of us than trying to smoke cigarettes in moderation – just a few a day, rather than a whole pack. Even if we can avoid any meaningful chronic effects by cutting down, we may not be capable of managing our habits, or managing our habits might become the dominant theme in our lives. Some of us certainly find it easier to consume no sugar than to consume a little – no dessert at all, rather than a spoonful or two before pushing the plate to the side.
任何关于糖少即是多的讨论都必须考虑到糖是一种药物的可能性，而且可能会上瘾。无论如何定义，在一个大量摄入糖是常态且几乎不可避免的世界里，吃糖要尽量适量，对我们很多人来说，尝试摄入适量的糖可能和尝试吸适量的烟(一天几根，而不是一天一包)一样艰难。即便我们可以通过减少摄糖量来避免一些有害的慢性影响，可是我们也可能无法管理我们的习惯，或者管理习惯可能会成为我们生活中的一个重要的主题。有人肯定会发现，不吃糖比吃一点糖更容易——完全不吃甜点，而不是在把盘子拿走之前吃个一勺两勺的。
