|
If you have heart disease, your doctor might tell you eat more vegetables. 如果你患有心脏病，医生可能会让你多吃蔬菜。 A tactic that has limited success. 但这一办法收效甚微。 "Getting people to change their diets is actually pretty hard. So these are lessons I would give over and over again. And I would think, 'Why is this so hard to do?'" “实际上，让人们改变饮食习惯相当困难，所以，这些就是我一遍又一遍重复的教训。我就会想，‘为什么改变饮食习惯如此困难?’” Jennifer L. Smith is a nurse researcher at the University of Kentucky who now has a preliminary answer about why change is so hard: it might depend on your genes. 珍妮弗.史密斯是肯塔基大学的一名护士研究员,现在，她对改变饮食习惯困难的原因有了初步答案:这可能取决于你的基因。 Specifically, whether or not you're genetically predisposed to perceive bitterness and therefore bitter veggies. 具体地说，不管你有没有感知苦味，尝出苦味蔬菜的基因。 "So broccoli is definitely one of them. They tend to be cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brusselssprouts, asparagus." “所以，西兰花绝对是苦味蔬菜之一， 这类蔬菜往往是十字花科，比如西兰花、花椰菜、卷心菜、抱子甘蓝和芦笋。” If you ever took that test in science class where you put a piece of paper on your tongue to see if it tastes bitter, you might already know your bitter status. 如果你曾在科学课上做过这样的测试，把一张纸放在舌头上，看看尝起来是不是很苦，你就可能已经知道自己感知苦味的能力。 Smith took saliva samples from 175 adults known to be at risk of cardiovascular disease. 史密斯提取了175名已知有患心血管疾病风险的成年人的唾液样本。 She then did a genetic test to determine whether they had a copy of a bitter-taste gene variant. 然后，她做了一个基因测试，以确定他们是否有一个苦味基因变异的副本。 She also had them fill in a questionnaire about their eating habits after controlling for factors like age, gender, income, and so on. 控制了年龄、性别、收入等因素后，她还让他们填写了一份饮食习惯问卷。 Smith found that people with a copy of the bitter sensitive gene variant were just 40 percent as likely to report eating a lot of veggies as were the folks without the gene variant. 史密斯发现，与没有苦味基因变体的人相比，携带苦味敏感基因变体的人多吃蔬菜的可能性只有40%。 She's presenting the results this week at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia. 本周，她在费城举行的美国心脏协会科学会议.上展示了该研究结果。 If these findings hold up to more testing,Smith says, perhaps doctors could advise patients with this gene variant to avoid the most offensively bitter veggies but to try the others. 史密斯表示，如果这些发现经得起更多测试，也许医生可以建议携带苦味基因变体的病人不吃最讨厌的苦味蔬菜，而是尝试吃其他蔬菜。 Or perhaps certain herbs and spices might counteract the bitterness, she says. 她表示，某些香草和香料或许可以抵消这种苦味。 Of course, chefs already figured this out with cheesy broccoli. 当然，厨师已经用奶酪西兰花解决了这个问题。 But for heart patients, the better flavor might not be a favor. 但对心脏病患者来说，更好的口味可能不是什么好事。 |
|
|
