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健康的身体在于平衡
如果你已经认可这一点，不必再看下去了。
How to get the best from your immune system
如何最佳地利用你的免疫系统
By Matt Richtel (for the NYT)
Journalism has given me many surprises over the years. Few compete with this sentence: Do not boost your immune system. C’mon, really? What would cause me to urge you to ignore all the accepted wisdom and powerful marketing aimed at having you boost your immunity? Because the actual science tells a very different story. The immune system is much less about exercising power than it is about finding balance. You can help train and maintain it. Here’s how.
这些年来，新闻工作给了我很多惊喜。谁会这么说：不要增强免疫系统。真的吗？是什么促使我敦促您忽略所有旨在提高您的免疫力的公认的智慧和强大的营销？因为真正的科学讲述的故事截然不同。免疫系统其实不是在于如何行使力量，而是在于寻找平衡。您可以帮助培训和维护你的免疫系统。下面，我来谈谈如何做。
What Is the Immune System?
什么是免疫系统？
Our great defense system helps ward off the most dangerous of invaders.
我们强大的防御系统有助于抵御最危险的入侵者。
We live in a sea of organisms. Bacteria, viruses, parasites and other life forms great and small pave our surroundings, cover our skin, share our gut. Most of them mean us no harm. The job of the immune system is to keep us healthy in the midst of this challenging, complex environment.
我们生活在有机生物海洋中。细菌、病毒、寄生虫和其他大大小小的生物 存在于我们的环境中，覆盖我们的皮肤，共享我们的肠道。它们中的大多数对我们无害。免疫系统的工作是在这个充满挑战的复杂环境中保持人体的健康。It is a common misconception that the immune system goes to war with every foreign organism. That would lead to scorched earth, nuclear winter. Instead, the job of the immune system is to take stock, monitor, assess and judge potential threats. Ideally, the immune system would find a cooperative existence with the many microbes with which we share our bodies and the planet. But if an invader is deemed a threat, the immune system has a narrow job: destroy the threat while doing as little collateral damage as possible. This response from the immune system is called “inflammation.”
一个普遍的误解是免疫系统会与每种外来生物交战。那将导致焦土、核冬天。相反，免疫系统的工作是盘点、监测、评估和判断潜在威胁。理想情况下，免疫系统将与许多微生物合作存在，无论这些微生物存在于人体还是地球上别的地方。但是，一个入侵者一旦被视为威胁，免疫系统只有一个任务：在消除威胁的同时，尽可能减少对人体附带的损害。免疫系统的这种反应，被称为“炎症”。
Inflammation can be a violent affair, causing an outpouring of poisonous, deadly cells and molecules aimed at clearing a pathogen out of the body. The point of infection can look like the scene of a multi-car crash. The actors in the immune system rush to assess the problem, attack it, clean the area and rebuild new tissue. 炎症可能是一种暴力事件，导致旨在清除病原体的有毒、致命细胞和分子的大量涌入。感染点看起来像是多辆车祸的现场。免疫系统中的参与者，会急于评估问题、解决问题、清理现场并重建新组织。To you, inflammation can feel like a stuffy nose, sore throat, tummy ache, fever, fatigue or headache. Yes, the symptoms of an immune response feel lousy, but you must suffer a little to keep the rest of your body healthy over the long term. And for your health and daily well-being, the key is to keep your immune system from underperforming or getting out of hand.
对您来说，炎症感觉就像鼻塞、嗓子疼、肚子疼、发烧、疲劳或头痛。是的，免疫反应的症状让你感到很糟糕，但是从长远来看，您必须承受一点痛苦才能保持身体其余部分的健康。为了您的健康，关键的事是防止免疫系统表现不佳或失控。
It’s About Balance
健康的身体在于平衡
The immune system, often seen as a ruthless defender, seeks a steady state, not a police state. I liken the immune system to a fiercely delicate combination of a bouncer and a ballet dancer. In fact, many molecules in this complex system are designed to send a signal that it should withdraw, pause an attack and stand down. Without these molecules, the state of inflammation that helps destroy threats would lay your body to waste.
免疫系统通常被视为无情的捍卫者。其实，它寻求的是稳定状态，而不是警察状态。我将免疫系统比作弹跳动作和芭蕾舞动作的精致组合。实际上，这个复杂系统中的许多分子被设计为发出一个信号、表明它应该撤退、暂停攻击和停止攻击。没有这些分子，有助于破坏威胁的炎症将搞垮您的身体。
“You need inflammation to protect against invaders. You need policemen,” said Dr. Charles Dinarello, who discovered the molecule that causes fever. (Who better to ask when to take Tylenol? More on that in a moment.) “But if police are too rambunctious they can cause damage to innocent people.”
“您需要炎症来防御入侵者。您需要警察。”查尔斯·迪纳雷洛博士说。是他发现了引起发烧的分子。 （谁更想问何时服用泰诺呢？稍后再谈。）“但是，如果警察过分粗鲁，他们可能会给无辜的人民造成伤害。”
On a day-to-day basis, honoring the finely honed balance of the immune system is essential to feeling healthy and living well. Instead of boosting your immune system, you should be supporting it. And you should try to never undermine its delicate structures.
在日常生活中，遵守免疫系统的微调平衡对于健康至关重要。与其增强免疫系统，不如支持它。而且，您应该尝试永不破坏其精致的结构。
Let me illustrate with a personal story of stupidity.
A Personal Tale of Woe
(skip/跳过)
The Immune System and the Beast
免疫系统和免疫破坏者
Let's take a moment to understand how (and why) our immune system acts in the face of a threat.
让我们花一点时间来了解我们的免疫系统在面对威胁时如何（以及为什么）起作用。
Our immune system took shape roughly 480 million years ago. All jawed vertebrates going back to the shark share its key properties. One property is priority setting. Our defenses must calculate which threat to our survival requires the most attention at any given moment. Which requires the most resources: Infection, tissue repair or the sudden appearance of a lion or bear?
我们的免疫系统大约在4.8亿年前形成。所有包括鲨鱼的颌骨脊椎动物都具有其关键特性。其一种属性是优先级设置。我们的防御人员必须计算在任何给定时刻最需要关注的是对我们生存的威胁。哪个需要最多的资源：感染、组织修复、还是狮子或熊的突然出现？
When we face an acute threat, like a lion attack, the body’s network focuses wholly on that threat. Your body goes into an emergency state you may know colloquially as “fight or flight.”
当我们面对诸如狮子袭击的急性威胁时，人体的整个网络系统将完全专注于这种威胁。您的身体进入紧急状态，俗称“战斗或逃跑”。
During these periods, the body fires off powerful chemicals, including:
Epinephrine, which creates a kind of high for the body to subvert fatigue.
Norepinephrine, which also helps to subvert fatigue.
Cortisol, which helps the body maintain essential functions, like blood flow.
(skip)
When these hormones are at work, we can feel generally O.K., as I did while I was skiing. But not only was I still sick, I was also making things worse. That’s because the release of these fight-or-flight hormones dampens our immune response. I was causing my immune system to withdraw.
【背景：作者感冒了，依然不肯放弃滑雪。】当这些激素发挥作用时，就像滑雪时一样，我们通常会感觉很好。但是我不仅仍然生病，而且还在使情况变得更糟。那是因为这些战斗或逃跑激素的释放会削弱我们的免疫反应。我正在使免疫系统撤退。
Why The Immune System Withdraws
Sleep Is a Magic Bullet
睡眠是万能的子弹
Both you and your immune system need rest.
您和您的免疫系统都需要休息。
(skip)
Exercise, Food and Meditation
运动，饮食和冥想
Ward off illness with these three staples of a healthy body.
通过健康身体的这三个要素来预防疾病。
(skip)
Spend Time With Dirt
常常接触脏东西
Exposure to a great variety of germs can help us stay healthy.
接触多种细菌可以帮助我们保持健康。
(skip)
About the Author
Matt Richtel, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter for The New York Times, has an aggressive muse he’s stopped fighting – for better or worse. He writes nonfiction books ("An Elegant Defense, the Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System" and "A Deadly Wandering"), thrillers ("Dead on Arrival"), a children's book ("Runaway Booger"), endless songs ("Don't Pick Your Nose") and created and wrote the comic strip "Rudy Park." He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children, and owes it all to them, naps, tennis and coffee.
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