科学美国人60秒 SSS 红辣椒可缓解肠炎

Hot Chilies 2 Cool Down Gut 3 Inflammation in Mice 红辣椒可缓解肠炎

The ingredient that makes hot chilies hot is called capsaicin—and it can set your mouth on fire. But the spicy 4 compound has a soothing 5 effect too: in your gut, it kicks off a chemical cascade 6 that might calm the immune system and reduce inflammation.

导致红辣椒很辣的成分叫做辣椒素——它会让你的嘴像着火一样火辣辣的。不过这种辛辣的化合物还有一种舒缓效果:它会在人的肠道中触发一种化学级联，可以舒缓免疫系统并减少炎症。

\Researchers studied that phenomenon in mice. Once inside the gut, the capsaicin molecules 7 plugged into a specific receptor, spurring the release of another compound, called anandamide. Anandamide happens to be an endocannabinoid—similar to active ingredients in marijuana—which binds 8 to cannabinoid receptors in the gut. That last step in the cascade ramped 9 up the production of cells that damp down inflammation in the mice—and even cured them of a mouse model of diabetes 10 type 1, an autoimmune disease.

研究人员在小白鼠身上研究了这一现象。一旦这种辣椒素的分子进入肠道，便会进入一个特定的受体，刺激另一种叫做“花生四烯酸乙醇胺”的化合物的释放。花生四烯酸乙醇胺恰好是一种类似于大麻中活性成分的“内源性大麻素”，它会与肠道中的大麻素受体结合。这一化学级联的最后一步便是加速在小白鼠身上生产能够抑制炎症的细胞，甚至治愈小白鼠身上的1型糖尿病——一种自体免疫性疾病。

If all this sounds a bit similar to the chemical messaging that happens in the brain… that's because it is. "The gut has a very large nervous system. It's almost as large as the brain itself. Pramod Srivastava, an immunologist at UConn Health and one of the study’s leaders.

这一切是不是听起来有点类似于发生在大脑中的化学通讯……的确如此。大肠中有非常大的神经系统。它几乎和大脑一样大。普拉莫德?斯里瓦斯塔瓦，康涅狄格大学健康中心的免疫学家，同时也是该研究的负责人之一。

"We don't quite fully 11 understand what this huge amount of neurons are doing in the gut. We don't understand its language, and the molecules and mediators. And I think with this work we can at least claim to have found a couple of words in that language." The study is in the Proceedings 12 of the National Academy of Sciences.

“我们并不太清楚这么大量的神经元在肠道中有何作用。我们不懂它的语言，它的分子和介质。我认为通过这一项目，我们至少可以声称已经找到了这门语言中的几个单词。”这项研究发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。

So to recap that chemical chain: chilies cause the production of endocannabinoids, which produce immune suppressant cells, which soothe 13 inflammation. So, what if you cut out the chili 1 initiator, and just eat cannabinoids—pot brownies, stuff like that?

因此，简明扼要地说明这一化学反应链——辣椒导致内源性大麻素的产生，进而产生免疫抑制细胞，从而缓解炎症。那么，如果你切断辣椒这一引发剂，只吃一些类似于用大麻素制作的罐装巧克力这种食物会怎样？

"Obviously we are very interested in people who use edible 14 cannabinoids. I'm extremely curious if people with colitis or Crohn's disease, who are edible pot users, do they benefit from it? I have no idea. But it's something we can now find out because sizable numbers of people are consuming those edibles 15.”

“显然，我们对使用可食用大麻素的人非常感兴趣。我对患有结肠炎或节段性回肠炎，并会食用这种罐装食品的人感到非常好奇——他们会从中受益吗？我也不知道。但是现在我们将能够找出这一答案，因为已有相当数量的人在食用这种食物了。”