科学美国人60秒 SSS When Dining for Trillions, Eat Wisely
时间：2018-12-02 作者：英语课 分类：2016年Scientific American(十二)月
You are what you eat, the old expression goes. But it leaves out one crucial detail. "We don't dine alone. We dine with trillions of friends." Jeff Gordon, a microbiologist at Washington University in Saint Louis. "And they are partners in consuming these meals and ingredients."
Those friends—they're microbes in our guts 2. They break down dinner, including otherwise indigestible stuff, and pass the leftovers 3 on to more microbes. Creating a complex food web inside us.
But that microbial garden is a lot more diverse in people who eat a calorie-restricted, veggie-rich diet. The typical American diet on the other hand—breads, meat, cheese, not a lot of veggies—doesn't raise up near as diverse a crop of microbes.
And microbial diversity matters. Because in a mouse model, Gordon's team found that, if you give up the American diet, in favor of a healthier one with lots of veggies—the "Americanized" gut 1 bacteria, being less diverse, aren't primed to respond. They're not great at regrouping, to accommodate all the nutrients 4 in kale and broccoli 5 and so on. The study is in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. [Nicholas W. Griffin et al., Prior Dietary Practices and Connections to a Human Gut Microbial Metacommunity Alter Responses to Diet Interventions]
All this isn't to say you shouldn't try to eat healthier. Because it's not clear how this microbial efficiency translates into human health. Or to what extent you might be able to pick up beneficial microbes from those around you, as they demonstrated mice can, in this study. But Gordon's colleague Nick Griffin had this prediction: "It's entirely 6 possible that in the future we'll more and more recognize a need to reinstall absent populations of bacteria in people as they're looking to change their diet for benefits to health."
Until then—next time you're about to fertilize 7 your microbial flora 8 with a patty melt—you might just wanna do a gut check first.
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript 9 of this podcast.]
- 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。
- 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》
- He can do miracles with a few kitchen leftovers.他能用厨房里几样剩饭做出一顿美餐。
- She made supper from leftovers she had thrown together.她用吃剩的食物拼凑成一顿晚饭。
- a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
- Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- She grew all the broccoli plants from seed.这些花椰菜都是她用种子培育出来的。
- They think broccoli is only green and cauliflower is only white.他们认为西兰花只有绿色的，而菜花都是白色的。
- The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
- His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
- Fertilizer is a substance put on land to fertilize it.肥料是施在地里使之肥沃的物质。
- Reading will fertilize his vocabulary.阅读会丰富他的词汇。
- The subtropical island has a remarkably rich native flora.这个亚热带岛屿有相当丰富的乡土植物种类。
- All flora need water and light.一切草木都需要水和阳光。
- A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
- They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。