爱尔兰研究人员11月28日表示，在给胖人打针时必须使用更长的针头，因为通常所用的那种针头往往无法穿过这些人厚厚的脂肪组织。

　　据路透社11月29日报道，都柏林阿德莱德与米斯医院的研究人员是在北美放射线学学会的年会上宣布上述结论的。研究对象涉及50名年龄在21岁到87岁之间的患者，其中男女各占一半。

　　研究过程中，当25名女性接受完某种药物的肌肉注射后，研究人员对她们进行了检查，发现那种标准尺寸的针头并未到达其中23人的臀部肌肉组织。按照他们的说法，在这些被测者中，有三分之二的人在接受注射后其身体并未吸收到足量的药物，因为它们中的相当一部分滞留在了臀部脂肪组织里。研究人员之一的维多利亚·陈（音译）表示，对于这些病人来说，除了所接受的药量不足这一点外，残存于脂肪中的药物还可以使其身体出现感染或发炎的症状。

　　对此，维多利亚·陈表示：“毫无疑问，引发此种现象的根本原因是肥胖。我们的研究表明，这种新问题至少在一定程度上与这些病人日渐增加的臀部脂肪有关。”“覆盖在他们臀部肌肉上的脂肪组织的厚度超过了通常用于此类注射的针头的长度。”臀部是进行肌肉注射的理想“场所”，因为经过那里的重要血管、神经及骨骼相对较少，所以针头不会对它们造成什么伤害。同时，存在于臀部肌肉里为数众多的较小的血管可以将注射进体内的药物传送到身体的各个角落，而在脂肪组织内则没有多少血管。

　　报道说，如果以体重指数（BMI，即将体重（kg）除以身高（m）的平方所得的数值）高于30做为肥胖标准的话，那么目前全世界肥胖者的数量已经超过了3亿人。据估计，65％的美国成年人正处于体重超标或肥胖的状态下。

　　Fatter rear ends are causing many drug injections to miss their mark, requiring longer needles to reach buttock muscle, researchers said on Monday.

　　Standard-sized needles failed to reach the buttock muscle in 23 out of 25 women whose rears were examined after what was supposed to be an intramuscular injection of a drug.

　　Two-thirds of the 50 patients in the study did not receive the full dosage of the drug, which instead lodged in the fat tissue of their buttocks, researchers from The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin said in a presentation to the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

　　Besides patients receiving less than the correct drug dosage, medications that remain lodged in fat can cause infection or irritation, researchers Victoria Chan said.

　　"There is no question that obesity is the underlying cause. We have identified a new problem related, in part, to the increasing amount of fat in patients' buttocks," Chan said.

　　"The amount of fat tissue overlying the muscles exceeds the length of the needles commonly used for these injections," she said.

　　The 25 men and 25 women studied at the Irish hospital ranged in age from 21 to 87.

　　The buttocks are a good place for intramuscular injections because there are relatively few major blood vessels, nerves and bones that can be damaged by a needle. Plentiful smaller blood vessels found in muscle carry the drug to the rest of the body, while fat tissue contains relatively few blood vessels.

　　Obesity affects more than 300 million people worldwide and is based on a measure of height versus weight that produces a body mass index above 30. An estimated 65 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese.