IN THE SPACE of less than a decade, medicine acquired a means of doing what millennia(数千年) of diets and exhortation(劝告，规劝) could not. A new class of drugs, GLP-1 receptor agonist(激动剂)s, can strip a fifth or more from(减去五分之一或更多) a patient’s body weight. This week Britain became the second large market, after America, to make one such treatment, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, available in tablet form as an alternative to injecting it.
在不到十年的时间里，医学获得了一种方法，实现了数千年饮食和规劝所不能做到的事情。一类新药——GLP-1受体激动剂——能将患者体重减轻五分之一甚至更多。本周，英国成为继美国之后的第二大市场，允许诺和诺德公司的Wegovy以片剂形式作为注射的替代方案。
This pharmacological(药理学的) leap(飞跃，重大进展) builds on the proven safety and durability of metabolic surgery, expanding a therapeutic arsenal(武器库，宝库) that can now reach millions. And yet, as it deploys these extraordinary tools, medicine cannot answer a more fundamental question: what, exactly, is it treating?(然而，在部署这些强大工具的同时，医学却无法回答一个更基本的问题：它究竟在治疗什么？) Astonishingly, obesity still lacks a universally(普遍地) accepted clinical definition.
这一药理学飞跃建立在代谢手术已获证实的安全性和持久性之上，扩大了如今可惠及数百万人的治疗库。然而，在部署这些强大工具的同时，医学却无法回答一个更基本的问题：它究竟在治疗什么？令人惊讶的是，肥胖仍然缺乏一个普遍接受的临床定义。
A growing view is that obesity should be defined as a chronic(慢性的), progressive, relapsing(复发的) disease. But not all of the one billion people living with obesity are ill, and distinguishing those who are sick because of obesity from those who are not is precisely what medicine’s definitions and diagnoses are meant to do.(但并非所有十亿肥胖者都患病，而区分哪些人因肥胖而生病、哪些人不是，恰恰是医学定义和诊断的本职工作。)
一种日益流行的观点认为，肥胖应被定义为一种慢性、进行性、复发性疾病。但并非所有十亿肥胖者都患病，而区分哪些人因肥胖而生病、哪些人不是，恰恰是医学定义和诊断的本职工作。