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(单词翻译)
I don’t believe, in all my years, I have ever seen a fruit fly I would consider obese1. But, thanks to the wonders of modern science, that’s all about to change. Because a team of researchers from Cold Spring Harbor laboratory has produced the first flies that are genetically3 engineered to overeat.
If you are wondering…why…it’s not as silly as it might sound. A big part of weight control has to do with making healthy dietary choices and knowing when to step away from the snack cabinet. But what controls those behaviors?
Well, we humans have a hormone4 called leptin that tells us that we’re full. After eating, leptin is released from our fat cells. And it travels to our brains to signal that we’ve had enough. Indeed, people who don’t produce leptin…or who lack the molecular5 machinery6 to detect it…really pack on the pounds.
In the new study, researchers discovered a hormone that acts the same way in flies. And when they deleted the gene2 that encodes it, the hormonally deficient7 insects just kept eating. And when presented with the fly equivalent of a high-fat or high-sugar diet, they gained three times more weight than did their hormonally competent peers. The findings appear in the journal Cell Metabolism8. [Jennifer Beshel et al., A Leptin Analog9 Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved10 Neural11 Circuit to Modulate12 Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila]
Interestingly, giving human leptin to these tubby bugs13 eliminates their tendency to binge. That suggests that by studying these flies, scientists might learn something that’s relevant to us.
In the meantime, researchers from the U.K. and Australia have also been plying14 flies with sweet treats. And they found that consuming large amounts of sugar may lead to fewer birthday cakes.
In this study, researchers compared the life spans of flies that ate a healthy diet, with 5 percent sugar…to those that went on a three-week bender of 40 percent sucrose. That’s the equivalent, the researchers note, of a person who really took Marie Antoinette’s advice to heart and ate only cake for two decades.
The results? The sugar-fed flies lost about 7 percent of their already brief 90-day life span. And that was even if they reverted15 to the healthy diet after their three weeks on sweets. These results appear in the journal Cell Reports. [Adam J. Dobson et al, Nutritional16 Programming of Lifespan by FOXO Inhibition on Sugar-Rich Diets]
The sugar overload17 apparently18 triggered long-term changes in gene activity…which accelerated aging and had the sugar-buzzed flies dropping like, well, like flies.
The findings suggest that you can have your cake and eat it, too. But not for long.
—Karen Hopkin
[The above text is a transcript19 of this podcast.]
1 obese | |
adj.过度肥胖的,肥大的 | |
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2 gene | |
n.遗传因子,基因 | |
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3 genetically | |
adv.遗传上 | |
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4 hormone | |
n.荷尔蒙,激素,内分泌 | |
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5 molecular | |
adj.分子的;克分子的 | |
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6 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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7 deficient | |
adj.不足的,不充份的,有缺陷的 | |
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8 metabolism | |
n.新陈代谢 | |
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9 analog | |
n.类似物,模拟 | |
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10 conserved | |
v.保护,保藏,保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11 neural | |
adj.神经的,神经系统的 | |
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12 modulate | |
v.调整,调节(音的强弱);变调 | |
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13 bugs | |
adj.疯狂的,发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 );病菌;虫子;[计算机](制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的)错误 | |
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14 plying | |
v.使用(工具)( ply的现在分词 );经常供应(食物、饮料);固定往来;经营生意 | |
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15 reverted | |
恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 ); 重提; 回到…上; 归还 | |
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16 nutritional | |
adj.营养的,滋养的 | |
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17 overload | |
vt.使超载;n.超载 | |
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18 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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19 transcript | |
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
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