英語聽力文摘498 身體，你怎么啦？

每次生病了，家里人最多說的一句話就是“不吃藥怎么行?”。可是，有的時候吃藥不一定就對身體有好處，反而有可能會幫助病原體“攻擊”我們的身體。今天我們來了解了解一種新的理論“達爾文醫(yī)學”，開開眼界吧!

Calling Dr. Darwin

Yaël: Sounds like you have a bad cold, Don? Do you need some cough medicine?

Don: No.

Y: Don't you want anything to help you feel better?

D: I don't need help, Yaël. Always sniffling, sneezing, and coughing are doing the work for me.

Y: But, doesn't that make you feel worse?

D: There's more than one way to look at sneezing and coughing. They can be symptoms, in which case your first reaction is to try to “cure” them with all sorts of pills and syrups. Or, you can see them as the body’s natural defense system. It’s called Darwinian medicine.

Darwinian medicine tries to find evolutionary explanations for why we get sick. It also tries to figure out how and why we respond to sickness. For example, when you get a low grade fever it might be because your body is trying to make things uncomfortable for invading microbes. When you take medicine to lower a fever you might actually be helping whatever’s making you sick in the first place.

Y: So you are saying I should never take medicine?

D: Not at all. Sometimes medicine is absolutely necessary, like when you have a really high fever. But the point is that it’s not always best to automatically try to stop all symptoms when you don’t feel well. Until studies are done on the effectiveness of taking aspirin and other fever-lowering drugs, it may be hard to know when to treat cold symptoms and when to leave them alone.

But in the case of a cold or mild fever, it may very well be worth letting nature take care of business. Bear in mind, too, that aspirin should never be given to children.

呼叫達爾文

Yaël: Don, 你感冒很嚴重呢!要不要吃些止咳藥?

Don: 不用了。

Y: 難道你不想吃點藥讓自己好受點?

D: Yaël，我不需要這個。流鼻涕、打噴嚏、咳嗽都不用管，這樣子我比較容易好。

Y: 但是，放任不管的話你的咳嗽不會更嚴重?

D: 我們看待打噴嚏和咳嗽的時候可不能只從一個方面來看哦。當出現(xiàn)這些癥狀時，人們的第一反應(yīng)就是吃藥、和止咳糖漿來將其“治愈”。或者說，人們可以把這些看成是身體免疫系統(tǒng)會出現(xiàn)的自然現(xiàn)象。這樣的理論來叫做“達爾文醫(yī)學”(又稱“演化醫(yī)學”)。

“達爾文醫(yī)學”理論試著從進化的角度來解釋我們?yōu)槭裁磿?。這種醫(yī)學理論還試著具體闡釋人體是如何應(yīng)對疾病，為什么會對疾病有所反應(yīng)。比如說，人體發(fā)低燒，很可能是因為機體試圖通過這樣的“改變”使侵入機體的細菌感覺不適。在這樣的情況下，如果你吃藥退燒的話，你可能反而是在幫“始作俑者”的忙了。

Y: 你的意思是說我們不該吃藥?

D: 并不全是。有的時候確實需要吃藥，比如說發(fā)高燒的時候。但這并不是說當你不舒服的時候都不管不顧，讓那些癥狀自己消失。直到對服用阿司匹林及其他的退燒藥的效果的研究完成之前，我們很難確定什么時候該治療感冒癥狀，什么時候該放之任之!

但是在小感冒或是輕度發(fā)燒的情況下，就順其自然吧!還有一點，一定要記住，千萬不要讓兒童服用阿司匹林!