2017考研英語拓展閱讀：咖啡上癮和基因有關

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Whether a cup of java will leave you craving more could be chalked up to your genes.

一杯咖啡是否會使你上癮也許是由你的基因決定的。

People with a newly identified genetic variant in their DNA, called PDSS2, may be inclined to drink fewer cups of coffee than others, according to a small study published in the journal Scientific Reports on Thursday.

根據上周四在《科學報告雜志》上的一篇小研究顯示：基因里有這種新發現的遺傳變異PDSS2的人，可能傾向于比其他人喝更少的咖啡。

I actually was very surprised to find a new gene for coffee consumption, said Nicola Pirastu, a chancellor’s research fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, and lead author of the study.

尼古拉·皮拉斯圖說：“能找到關于咖啡消費的新的基因真的使我非常驚訝。” 尼古拉是愛丁堡大學厄舍學院人口健康科學和信息學的校長研究成員，同時他也是這篇研究的主撰寫人。

We believe that this PDSS2 genetic variant is impacting coffee drinking through the regulation of the speed at which caffeine is metabolized, he said. "It has been observed before that higher levels of PDSS2 inhibits the expression of the genes metabolizing caffeine and thus the speed at which caffeine is degraded.”

他說“我們認為這種PDSS2的基因變量通過咖啡因的常規新陳代謝速度來影響咖啡的飲用量，我們觀察到這種現象是產生在在人體產生釋放更多的PDSS2來抑制咖啡因的代謝之前，因此咖啡因的代謝由此減慢。”

The findings add to existing research suggesting that our espresso habits may be embedded in our genes, Pirastu said.

皮拉斯圖說，基于現有的研究基礎上，這些新發現表明我們對于濃咖啡的愛好是藏在我們的基因中的。

About 64% of American adults drink at least one cup of coffee a day, according to a 2015 Gallup poll.

根據2015年的蓋洛普民意測試，約有64%的美國成年人每天要喝至少一杯咖啡。

For the new study, researchers analyzed medical and genetic data on 370 people from a small village in southern Italy, and 843 people from six villages in northeast Italy. The study participants also self-reported their daily coffee-drinking habits.

在這項新的研究中，研究者們分析了人們的醫學和遺傳數據，其中370人來自意大利南部的一個小村莊，843人來自意大利北部六個不同的村莊。研究對象們也會報告自己每天喝咖啡的情況。

The researchers discovered that people with the PDSS2 variant reported consuming fewer cups of coffee than people without the variant.

研究者發現，體內帶有PDSS2變量的人會比沒有這種變量的人少喝很多咖啡。

When the researchers replicated the study with a group of 1,731 study participants from the Netherlands, they noticed similar results.

當研究者們在荷蘭對1731名研究對象重復這項研究的時候，他們得出了相似的結果。

This variant is very common, and around 50% of the European population has either one or two copies of it, Pirastu said. More research is needed to determine the variant’s prevalence in other populations as well as to clarify its biological link with caffeine.

皮拉斯圖說：“這種基因變體很常見，歐洲人口中大約有50%的人有一或兩種PDSS2的基因副本。”我們需要更多的研究來判定這種記憶變體在其他人口中的廣泛性、同時弄清楚這種變體與咖啡因在生物學上的聯系。

Although different statistical models were used, the previous research tested a few of the same genetic variations included in the new study. However, an association with coffee consumption was not found, said Marilyn Cornelis, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University who led the 2014 study.

盡管運用了不同的統計模式，但是之前的研究也測試了幾種新研究中所提到的基因變體。然而并沒有發現有任何和飲用咖啡的行為的關聯，瑪麗蓮·康奈利說。康奈利是美國西北大學預防醫學的副教授，同時她也是2014研究的負責人。

Therefore, it seems that the newfound variant’s impact on coffee consumption may be minor compared with the previously identified genetic variants, said Cornelis, who was not involved in the new research.

康奈利說，因此和之前研究中已被識別的基因變量相比，可能新發現的變量對于咖啡消耗的影響是比較弱的。康奈利沒有參與新的研究。

The [new] study is small relative to the previous genome-wide association studies of coffee consumption, Cornelis said.

康奈利說：“新的研究和之前的全組基因與咖啡消費行為的研究相關甚微。”

Genes can exist in different forms from one person to the next. We can have ’fast’ and ’slow’ acting forms, and depending on what we’ve inherited, it can impact how our body processes or metabolizes nutrients or food constituents like caffeine, said Ahmed El-Sohemy, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the new research.

艾哈邁德教授說，每個人的基因組成都不相同。我們會有“快”和“慢”的作用形式，而且根據我們已經繼承的基因的不同，這些基因組會影響我們身體的工作或者代謝營養物質及類似咖啡因這樣的食物成分。他是多倫多大學營養科學教授，也沒有參與這次新的研究。

People generally tend to self-regulate how much coffee they consume based on a balance of how caffeine in the beverage has positive benefits, such as mood-enhancing effects, and negative outcomes, such as anxiety or "jitters," he added.

艾哈邁德補充道，通常人們傾向于通過判斷咖啡因在積極作用和消極作用的平衡來自我調節咖啡的攝入量。比如飲料中的咖啡因有多大的提高情緒的積極作用，還是有引發焦慮或神經過敏這樣的消極作用。