VOA常速英语2019--体内让我们成为人的细胞不到一半，剩下的细胞又是什么？

Less Than Half of Human Body is Human. What is the Rest?

These scientists look at what’s in a person’s poop.It’s a window into what makes up more than half of a human.To our 30 trillion human cells, we have on average about 39 trillion microbial cells, so by that mixture and we’re only about 43 percent human.Each person is a walking apartment building that houses a variety of micro-organisms invisible to the naked eye.It is common knowledge that they are bacteria even viruses and fungi¹ in areas of our bodies such as the mouth, skin and gut²,but it’s only in recent years that scientists realize that each person’s gut bacteria is unique, and that bacteria can greatly impact the health of the person, such as their weight and whether they’ll get heart disease.The microbes in your guts³ can even affect your mood.They change the way we think about biology, and changed the way we think about what it means to be human.

这些科学家在看一个人的粪便中存在什么。粪便是研究人体主要成分的窗口。相对于我们体内30万亿的人体细胞，平均每个人还有39万亿的微生物细胞，基于这样的组合，我们只是百分之四十三的人类。每个人都是一个行走着的公寓，体内有各种肉眼不可见的微生物。众所周知，在我们体内的不同区域，比如口腔、皮肤和肠道都存在着细菌，甚至是真菌和病毒。但是，近年来科学家们意识到每个人的肠道细菌是独特的。而且细菌很大程度上会影响人的健康，比如体重、或者患上心脏病的可能。肠道内的微生物甚至会影响你的心情。这些发现改变了我们对生物学的看法，改变了我们对微生物之于人类意义的看法。

The body is that at least 70 percent of our immunity⁴ and the immune cells in our body exist in the gut and we don’t think like that.Karen Sfanos is studying the link between microbes and cancer.There’s still many cancers out there where we have no idea what even causes the cancer, so we’ve been trying to solve this puzzle,and up until this point, half the pieces were missing because we didn’t even know half the pieces existed.There’s just a tremendous amount of knowledge that’s to be gained and to be researched,to understand the profound influence that these microbes might have on both cancer initiation⁵, but also a therapeutic⁶ response to certain cancer therapies.

我们体内至少百分之七十的免疫细胞存在于肠道内，但是我们不以为然。Karen Sfanos正在研究微生物和癌症之间的联系。仍然有很多癌症我们甚至无法弄清楚其病因，我们一直在试图解决这个问题，直到现在，一半的线索都丢失了，因为我们甚至不知道还有这一半的细胞存在着。只有学习了充分的知识，研究了大量的资料，才能理解这些微生物可能对癌症病发产生的影响和某些特定癌症疗法的治疗反应。

One company is fighting diabetes⁷ based on gut microbe research.The diversity and abundance of the bacteria in the gut are a very useful predictor in how people process food.Since each person’s gut bacteria is different, how a body reacts to sugars is also different for each person.So by profiling the gut, we can actually help people get to a personalized prescription⁸ for food that works for them.From what you eat to the animals near you to where you’ve been, the microbes in your body are changing every day.A growing number of scientists are researching these microbes to learn which ones are good or bad.They’re already seeing promising⁹ results in treating a hospital-acquired infection called C. diff.You can treat C. diff by taking the stool from a healthy person giving it to a sick person,and they typically recover in two or three days and it has about a 90 percent cure rate as opposed to 30 percent for antibiotics¹⁰.Researchers are working toward a future where there is a more precise approach to weeding out the bad bacteria and introducing more good microbes into the body.

一家公司正在研究肠道微生物，以对抗糖尿病。肠道中细菌的多样性和丰富性能够非常有用的帮助我们预测人们消化食物的方式。由于每个人的肠道细菌都不一样，身体对糖的反应也是不同的。所以，剖析肠道，我们可以给人们开出个性化的食品处方。从你吃的东西，你身边的动物，到你到的地方，你体内的微生物每天都在变化。越来越多的科学家正在研究这些微生物，想知道哪些是好的哪些是坏的。在治疗在医院感染的艰难梭菌方面，我们已经能看到不错的效果了。你可以从健康人的粪便中提取出艰难梭菌，然后给病患，患者可以在两至三天内恢复，其治愈率为百分之九十，而抗生素的治愈率则为百分之三十。研究人员正在寻找一种更加精准的方式来清除体内的坏细菌，引进优质的微生菌。

1 fungi   

n.真菌，霉菌

参考例句：

• Students practice to apply the study of genetics to multicellular plants and fungi.学生们练习把基因学应用到多细胞植物和真菌中。
• The lawn was covered with fungi.草地上到处都是蘑菇。

2 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

3 guts   

v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠

参考例句：

• I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
• Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

5 initiation   

n.开始

参考例句：

• her initiation into the world of marketing 她的初次涉足营销界
• It was my initiation into the world of high fashion. 这是我初次涉足高级时装界。

6 therapeutic   

adj.治疗的，起治疗作用的；对身心健康有益的

参考例句：

• Therapeutic measures were selected to fit the patient.选择治疗措施以适应病人的需要。
• When I was sad,music had a therapeutic effect.我悲伤的时候，音乐有治疗效力。

7 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

8 prescription   

n.处方，开药；指示，规定

参考例句：

• The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
• The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。

9 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

10 antibiotics   

n.（用作复数）抗生素；（用作单数）抗生物质的研究；抗生素，抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
• The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。