经济学人116:孤独会对你的健康不利的原因

 　　Science and Technology Healthy living Mind and body

　　科技 健康生活 身与心

　　The reason loneliness could be bad for your health

　　孤独会对你的健康不利的原因

　　SCIENCE has many uses, but it doesn't often produce handy pick-up lines. Recent work on the genetics of disease, however, suggest a way of opening a conversation with that solitary² attractive stranger in a bar: loneliness can make you ill.

　　科学有很多用处，但是它通常不会给你顺口的搭讪理由。然而，近来对疾病遗传学的研究却给了我们一个在酒吧里跟某个孤单的吸引你的陌生人搭讪的理由：孤独会让你生病。

　　Lonely people, it seems, are at greater risk than the gregarious³ of developing illnesses associated with chronic⁴ inflammation, such as heart disease and certain cancers. According to a paper published last year in the Public Library of Science, Medicine, the effect on mortality of loneliness is comparable with that of smoking and drinking. It examined, and combined the results of, 148 previous studies that followed some 300,000 individuals for an average period of 7.5 years each, and controlled for factors such as age and pre-existing illness. It concluded that, over such a period, a gregarious person has a 50% better chance of surviving than a lonely one.

　　孤独的人跟爱交际的人相比，似乎患跟慢性炎症相关的疾病——如心脏病和某些癌症——的风险更大。据去年发表在《科学公共图书馆——医学》杂志上的一篇论文称，孤独对死亡率的影响跟抽烟和酗酒相当。文章仔细检查了148个先前的研究（这些研究跟踪观察了大约30万人，每人平均跟踪观察7年半），并综合其结果，还控制了诸如年龄和已患疾病此类因素，最后下结论：超过这样一段时间，一个爱交际的人比一个孤独的人的生存率高50%。

　　Steven Cole of the University of California, Los Angeles, thinks he may know why this is so. He told the AAAS meeting in Washington, DC, about his work studying the expression of genes⁵ in lonely people. Dr Cole harvested samples of white blood cells from both lonely and gregarious people. He then analysed the activity of their genes, as measured by the production of a substance called messenger RNA. This molecule⁶ carries instructions from the genes telling a cell which proteins to make. The level of messenger RNA from most genes was the same in both types of people. There were several dozen genes, however, that were less active in the lonely, and several dozen others that were more active. Moreover, both the less active and the more active gene¹ types came from a small number of functional⁷ groups.

　　加州大学洛杉矶分校的Steven Cole认为他可能知道这是为什么。他在华盛顿特区举办的美国科学促进会大会上展示了他对孤独的人的基因表达所做的研究。Cole博士收集了孤独之人和爱交际之人的白细胞样品。然后他分析了他们基因的活性——靠测量信使RNA的多少。这种分子携带着基因上的指令，告诉细胞合成那类蛋白质。在这两种人中，大多数基因的信使RNA的水平是一样的。然而有些基因在孤独之人中活力较弱，同时另外一些基因却活力较高。而且，无论是活力较高的基因还是活力较低的基因都来自少数功能群。

　　Broadly speaking, the genes less active in the lonely were those involved in staving off viral infections. Those that were more active were involved in protecting against bacteria. Dr Cole suspects this could help explain not only why the lonely are iller, but how, in evolutionary⁸ terms, this odd state of affairs has come about. For inflammation is an antibacterial response.

　　一般来说，孤独的人体内活力较低的基因是那些帮助人们避开病毒感染的基因。而那些活力较高的基因帮助人们抵抗细菌。Cole博士怀疑这不但能够解释为什么孤独之人容易得病，而且能从进化的角度这种奇怪的状态时怎么进化来的。因为炎症反应时抵抗细菌的反应。

　　The crucial bit of the puzzle is that viruses have to be caught from another infected individual and they are usually species-specific. Bacteria, in contrast, often just lurk¹⁰ in the environment (like tetanus), and may thrive on many hosts (as does bubonic plague, for example). The gregarious are therefore at greater risk than the lonely of catching¹¹ viruses, and Dr Cole thus suggests that past evolution has created a mechanism¹² (the details of which remain unclear) which causes white cells to respond appropriately. Conversely, the lonely are better off ramping¹³ up their protection against bacterial⁹ infection, which is a bigger relative risk to them.

　　这个问题的关键点是，病毒必须从另外一个已经感染此病毒的身上感染另一个人，并且病毒通常有其一对一的特殊宿主。细菌却相反，它们潜伏在周围环境中（像是破伤风杆菌），并且宿主众多（比如说黑死病）。因而爱交际的人比孤独之人更易感染病毒。因此Cole博士认为进化过程创造出了一种机制（细节仍不清楚），可以让白细胞对这一状况进行反应。相反，孤独之人更善于加强他们对细菌感染的保护反应，这对他们来说是一个相对更大的风险。

　　What Dr Cole seems to have revealed, then, is a mechanism by which the environment (in this case the social environment) reaches inside a person's body and tweaks its genome so that it responds appropriately. It is not that the lonely and the gregarious are genetically¹⁴ different from each other. Rather, their genes are regulated differently, according to how sociable¹⁵ an individual is. Dr Cole thinks this regulation is part of a wider mechanism that tunes¹⁶ individuals to the circumstances they find themselves in. Where it goes wrong is when loneliness becomes chronic, and the inflammatory response becomes chronic at the same time.

　　Cole博士想要揭示的是这样一种机制：环境（在这里是社交环境）可以影响人们体内的生化活动，调整人体内的基因组以让其做出合适的反应。并不是说孤独之人和爱交际之人在基因上彼此不同。而是他们根据个人对交际喜爱的程度不同，各自以不同的方式调控各自的基因。Cole博士认为这种调节是一种更广泛的让个人适应他们所在环境的机制中的一部分。当孤独的生活状态变成一种常态，问题就出现了——炎症反应同时也变成常态了（成了慢性疾病）。

　　Before civilisation¹⁷ intervened, such chronic loneliness would have been so rare (because isolated¹⁸ individuals are so vulnerable to predation) that evolution would have ignored it. Now, paradoxically, the large population that civilisation makes possible means loneliness is commonplace—and with it consequences that natural selection, which is blind to the future, has not yet had time to deal with.

　　在文明到来之前，这种常态性的孤独非常罕见（因为单独的个体易被捕食），进化就把它忽略了。现在，自相矛盾地，文明使得人口众多成为可能，意味着孤独状态成为常事——在这种情况下看不清未来的自然选择的后果还来不及去应付。

1 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

2 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

3 gregarious   

adj.群居的，喜好群居的

参考例句：

• These animals are highly gregarious.这些动物非常喜欢群居。
• They are gregarious birds and feed in flocks.它们是群居鸟类，会集群觅食。

4 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

5 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

6 molecule   

n.分子，克分子

参考例句：

• A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hygrogen and one atom of oxygen.一个水分子是由P妈̬f婘̬ 妈̬成的。
• This gives us the structural formula of the molecule.这种方式给出了分子的结构式。

7 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

8 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

9 bacterial   

a.细菌的

参考例句：

• Bacterial reproduction is accelerated in weightless space. 在失重的空间，细菌繁殖加快了。
• Brain lesions can be caused by bacterial infections. 大脑损伤可能由细菌感染引起。

10 lurk   

n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏

参考例句：

• Dangers lurk in the path of wilderness.在这条荒野的小路上隐伏着危险。
• He thought he saw someone lurking above the chamber during the address.他觉得自己看见有人在演讲时潜藏在会议厅顶上。

11 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

12 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

13 ramping   

土堤斜坡( ramp的现在分词 )； 斜道； 斜路； （装车或上下飞机的）活动梯

参考例句：

• The children love ramping about in the garden. 孩子们喜欢在花园里追逐嬉戏，闹着玩。
• Have you ever seen a lion ramping around? 你看到过狮子暴跳吗？

14 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

15 sociable   

adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的

参考例句：

• Roger is a very sociable person.罗杰是个非常好交际的人。
• Some children have more sociable personalities than others.有些孩子比其他孩子更善于交际。

16 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

18 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。