研究指出 關節痛和是否下雨沒有關係大綱

Are you one of those people who can tell when a storm is approaching based on your achy knees? Well, you may think you are.

你是那種可以根據自己的膝蓋來判斷暴風雨即將來臨的人嗎？你認爲你是這樣的。

But a new study of more than 1.5 million seniors finds no relationship between rainfall and doctor visits for pain.

但一項針對超過150萬老年人的新研究發現，降雨天氣和醫生就診之間並沒有關係。

The idea that our bodies are barometers for all sorts of weather-related phenomena -- including changes in temperature, pressure and precipitation -- is not a new one.

我們的身體是各種天氣相關的現象（包括溫度，壓力和降水的變化）的晴雨表，這個觀點並不是一個新觀點。

"Hippocrates himself actually postulated this idea in nearly 400 B.C." said Anupam Jena, a physician at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the study.

哈佛醫學院和麻省總醫院的醫生、負責這項研究的安努帕姆·耶拿表示：“希波克拉底實際上在公元前400年就提出了這個論點。”

"If you talk to people, I'd say millions and millions of people probably believe that things like rainfall influence symptoms of joint pain and stiffness. But if you look at the studies, there's actually been surprisingly little evidence to suggest that is true. Most of the studies have been quite small. And we were interested in thinking about whether we could approach this question in a 'big data' sort of way."

“如果你和人們交談，我想數以百萬計的人可能會相信像降雨這樣的事情會影響關節疼痛和僵硬的症狀。但是，如果你看看這些研究，實際上並沒有什麼證據表明這是事實。大部分研究的規模都比較小。我們感興趣的是，是否可以用“大數據”的方式來解決這個問題。”

He and his colleagues looked at information collected in more than 11 million visits that older Americans made to their primary care physicians.

他和他的同事們查看了超過1100萬份信息，這些信心都是在美國老年人對初級護理醫師的訪問中收集到的。

They compared these records with data on daily rainfall. And they asked: do more people report sore backs or swollen joints when the weather is inclement?

他們將這些信息與每日的降雨量數據進行了比較分析。之後他們發問：在天氣惡劣的時候，會有更多的人報告疼痛的背部或腫脹的關節嗎？

"And what we found is if you look at days where it rained versus days where it didn't rain, there is no difference in the proportion of visits to a doctor that involved a complaint of joint pain or back pain."

“我們發現，下雨與沒下雨相比較時，因關節痛或腰痛而就診的比例並沒什麼不同。”

They saw no "rain effect" even when it poured for seven days straight. And if you're thinking, well, what if people couldn't get an appointment until the skies cleared up…

即使連續下了7天大雨，他們也沒有看到“降雨效應”現象的發生。如果你在想，好吧，會不會是因爲直到雨過天晴，病人們都沒能成功預約就診呢？

"And if you look the week after a period of heavy rainfall, you still see no relationship. And that doesn't mean that factors like rainfall or temperature or humidity don't affect joint pain and symptoms of joint achiness and stiffness. But in this sort of big data approach, we didn't find any evidence for it."

“那麼，假如你查看在大量降雨後一個星期的數據，仍然看不出有什麼關聯。這並不意味着像降雨或者溫度溼度這樣的因素不會影響關節疼痛、關節粘連和僵硬的症狀，但是在這樣的大數據分析中，我們仍未能找到證據。”