Foods that make some of us put on weight can have little fect on others, according to research being carried out in Israel. It might be time to rethink the way we diet, writes Dr Saleyha Ashan.

　　据以色列进行的一项研究，让一些人长胖的食物，可能对另一些人没有丝毫影响。Saleyha Ashan博士说，也许是时候重新思考我们的饮食方式了。

　　Like most of the population, I must admit that I am on an eternal quest to lose weight. For me it’s more to do with concerns about health than aesthetics. I have polycystic ovary syndrome and a family history of type 2 diabetes and that puts me into a high risk category for developing diabetes myself.

　　和大多数人一样，我必须得承认，减肥是我的永恒不变的追求。当然对我来说，我更关心的是健康，而不是曲线美。我患有多囊卵巢综合症和2型糖尿病家族史，使得我成为易患糖尿病的高危人群。

　　I have always watched what I eat - and yet I never seem to shift the weight, while friends seem to eat what they want without putting on a single bulge. It seemed like they could just "break all the rules". But perhaps that’s just because we have been wrong about what "the rules" of diets are.

　　我一直很注意我的饮食，但我从来没有减肥成功过;而我的朋友们似乎总是随心所欲的吃，却不怎么长胖。看起来他们貌似能“打破所有的规则”，但这也许恰恰证明了：我们一直以来所信奉的饮食“规则”本身就是错的。

　　Last month, I travelled to Israel for Trust Me, I’m a Doctor to take part in a vast new research study being carried out there by a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science. They are in the process of monitoring 1,000 people in absolutely minute detail to see exactly how their bodies react to food - and their first results are rewriting the textbooks on our relationship with food.

　　上个月，我去以色列参加“相信我，我是一个医生”的研究，该研究由魏茨曼科学研究所的一个团队进行。为了分析人们的身体对食物有怎样的反应，他们对1000人进行监控，精确到每一分钟——而他们的第一个研究结果就重写了教科书中我们与食物的关系。

　　When we eat, our blood sugar level rises - and both the speed at which it peaks, and then how quickly our bodies deal with that and get it back to normal, is very important to our health.

　　当我们吃东西时，血糖上升——当速度达到峰值时，身体的反应速度、以及多久能恢复到正常，对我们的健康来说是非常重要的。

　　Foods have, therore, been traditionally classified by how much of a blood sugar spike they cause - with "high GI" (Glycaemic Index) foods being thought of as bad for us, and "low GI" as good. Every nutritionist would tell you this. But the Israeli research, led by Dr Eran Segal and Dr Eran Elinav, suggests that it is simply not so.

　　因此，依据会引起血糖升高的多少，食物在传统上被划分为对身体有害的“高GI(血糖指数)”食物和有益的“低GI”食物。每一个营养师都会这样告诉你。但是由 Eran Segal 和 Eran Elinav博士带领的以色列研究团队表示，并不是这么简单。

　　Once I arrived in Tel Aviv, the team not only took all my vital statistics and medical history, but they gave me a little implanted glucose monitor under my skin, which would monitor my blood sugar levels constantly for the next week. The team’s nutritional experts had prepared me six days of menus specifically designed to test my body’s response to a few standardised meals, mixed in with some of my personal staple foods.

　　当我到达特拉维夫后，这个团队不仅将我所有的重要数据和既往病史备案，他们还在我的皮肤下植入了一个小小的葡萄糖监测器，它将在接下来的一周里持续监测我的血糖水平。这个团队的营养专家已经为我准备好了六天的菜单，他们将一些标准化的食物和我个人的主食混合，专门用来测试我的身体的反应。

　　I’m an accident & emergency doctor, which is something that undoubtedly has an fect on my diet.

　　我是一个急救医生，这毫无疑问会对我的饮食产生影响。

　　I never buy bread - it’s an aisle I just don’t even go down in the supermarkets and I live in fear of sandwiches - but I see other people living on them.

　　我从来不买面包吃——我在超市里从来都不会去那一排货架，我也不喜欢吃三明治，但我看到很多人简直以吃面包和三明治为生。

　　I do, however, reach for the grapes - I love them. I can eat bunches of them and feel guilt-free doing so. They are my go to "healthy" snack. Another guilt-free grab is sushi. I snatch a box of salmon nigiri and am off. Now, though, had come my chance to find out what each of these foods was really doing to my body.

　　然而，我很喜欢吃葡萄。我可以吃一口气吃很多串葡萄，并且没有负罪感。它是我的“健康”小吃。另一个无负罪感的小吃是寿司。我可以很快消灭一盒子三文鱼寿司。不过，现在我终于有机会了解这些食物会对我的身体产生什么影响。

　　Other things, such as stress levels, exercise and sleep can all affect our blood glucose responses, so the research team made me log everything I did throughout the day on a little phone app.

　　其他因素，比如压力水平、锻炼程度和睡眠质量都会影响我们的血糖反应，所以研究小组让我每天都在一个手机APP上记录下所有的事情。

　　Most importantly, though, because their initial data had suggested that different individuals responded differently to foods, I teamed up with another volunteer of the same gender and age - Leila.

　　然而，最重要的是，另一位和我年龄、性别相同的志愿者莱拉跟我分在同一组——因为他们最初的数据表明，不同的人对食物有不同的反应。

　　For the next week, Leila and I did and ate exactly the same things together - eating in the same restaurants and carully weighing our food to ensure that it was as identical as possible. Textbooks said that our bodies should respond to them in a similar way. The Israeli researchers suspected that we wouldn’t.

　　在接下来的一周里，莱拉和我一起做相同的事，吃相同的东西——在同一个餐厅就餐，仔细称重我们的食物，确保两人的量完全相同。据教科书上的分析，我们的身体应该有类似的反应。但以色列的研究人员却怀疑这个结论。

　　A fortnight later when our results came through I could not have been more flabbergasted. Virtually all my "healthy snacks" such as grapes and sushi caused me big blood sugar spikes, as did a chicken sandwich, and cereal. On the "good" menu, though, was chocolate, ice cream and regular cola.

　　两周后当我们的结果公布时，我真是大吃一惊。几乎所有我的“健康食品”，比如葡萄和寿司，都像鸡肉三明治和谷物一样引起了我的血糖上升到峰值。然而，巧克力、冰淇淋和可乐却是对我“有益”的食物。

　　For Leila, the results were very different. Whereas pasta was "bad" for me, it was fine for her. Yoghurt was good for me, but bad for her, and our responses to bread and butter were also complete opposites.

　　对于莱拉来说，结果恰恰相反。意大利面对我没有好处，但对她来说却很健康。酸奶非常适合我，但对她却无益。我们对面包和黄油的反应也完全相反。

　　No-one seems to have suspected this degree of individual variation existed, simply because such a controlled study on so many people has never been done bore. There is, it seems, no such thing as a "high GI" or "low GI" food - it depends entirely on your own body. But why do our bodies vary so much? Well, the team also have a handle on that now too - and it’s an answer that has exciting implications.

　　没有人怀疑个体差异的存在。只是像这样的对很多人进行的控制性研究，以前从来没有做过。这就是说，看起来，并没有“高GI”和“低GI”食物的说法，它完全取决于你自己的身体。但为什么我们的身体会有这么大的差异呢?那么，这个团队也对此作了研究，答案也非常令人兴奋。

　　Along with our roster of health tests, Leila and I both also gave the researchers a stool sample. From this, their laboratory was able to discover the composition of our gut microbes. We all carry thousands of different bacteria, viruses and fungi in our guts, which not only help break down the food that we eat, but also produce a huge range of compounds that our bodies absorb and which can influence almost every aspect of our lives, from our immune system, to our metabolism, to our neurotransmitters.

　　随着我们的健康测试逐项进行，莱拉和我都给研究人员提供了粪便样本。这样，实验室就能分析我们肠道微生物的成分。我们体内都携带着成千上万个不同的细菌，病毒和真菌，它们不仅有助于分解我们吃下去的食物，也能产生大量的化合物，被我们的身体所吸收，从而影响生活的方方面面，从免疫系统、新陈代谢，到神经递质等。

　　By comparing the gut microbes of the hundreds of study volunteers with their blood sugar responses, Segal and Elinav have been able discover that our microbes might be the key to why our blood sugar spikes with different foods are so individual. The chemicals they produce, it seems, control our bodies to this extent. What is particularly exciting about that fact is that - unlike our gene - we can actually change our microbes. And that is very good news indeed for any of us who find that our favourite foods turn out to be "bad" for our blood sugar levels.

　　通过将几百名志愿者的肠道微生物和他们的血糖反应作比较，Segal and Elinav 已经能够发现，微生物可能起着至关重要的作用，它导致不同的食物引起血糖峰值的个体差异。看起来应该是微生物产生的化学物质，将我们的血糖控制在某种程度上。这一事实尤其令人兴奋的是，我们改变不了基因，但微生物却是我们可以改变的。这是一个非常好的消息，对每一个人来说都有了解决办法——当发现我们最喜欢吃的食物会影响自己血糖时。

　　When it comes to my own microbes, at the moment I have a mix of good news and bad. The variety of different types of gut bacteria I have is limited and that’s not ideal.

　　而谈到我身体里的微生物，此刻我喜忧参半。我拥有不同类型的肠道细菌，但它们数量有限，且不理想。

　　Healthier people, it seems, have a wide diversity. It was a huge surprise to me that there could be such a link between microbes living in my lower gut and a condition like that.

　　似乎，身体越健康的人，体内的微生物种类越广泛。肠道里的微生物和我的身体状态之间居然有这样的一种联系，这真让我大吃一惊。

　　Elinav and Segal assured me, though, that by adhering to the diet of foods that my gut bacteria like, I should actually be able to change the composition of them. This in turn would have wider impacts on the rest of my health and wellbeing.

　　不过，Elinav and Segal博士向我保证，只要根据肠道细菌的喜好来调整饮食方式，微生物的组成其实是可以改变的，这反过来也能对我的幸福健康产生广泛的影响。

　　So, armed with my list of "good" foods, I am now embarking on a second phase of the study. I am going to see if I can change my own gut microbes. My results showed that although I do have a good balance between two major groups of bacteria, I am missing a third group almost completely, which could be a key to a healthier weight, and I am also lacking in microbe diversity.

　　因此，分析得出我的“健康”食物名单后，现在进入研究的第二阶段。我要看看是否可以改变我的肠道微生物组成。我的分析结果显示，虽然两大菌群有很好的平衡，第三种菌群却几乎完全没有——而它可能恰恰是健康体重的关键，我的微生物组成也缺乏多样性。

　　Over the next month, I shall be sending regular little parcels to Israel for analysis, and hoping to see that change as I adapt my diet.

　　在接下来的一个月里，我定期将的我粪便样本发送给以色列研究中心，期待能看到我调整饮食后的变化。

　　The team at the Weismann Institute are continuing their work with a huge year-long study now into how people can improve their gut microbes. Their dream is that anyone, from anywhere in the world, will soon be able to send in a small stool sample, have their microbes analysed, and - without the need for a week’s blood sugar monitoring - be sent a personalised diet plan that will stabilise their blood sugar levels and improve their gut microbes.

　　魏茨曼科学研究所的团队仍在持续他们长达一年的研究，分析如何改善人体肠道微生物的组成。他们有一个梦想，那就是，将来世界上任何地方的任何一个人，仅需寄一份小的粪便样本给到研究中心，经工作人员分析微生物的组成——且无需时长一周的血糖监控——便能够为其量身订做一份饮食方案，稳定血糖水平，改善肠道微生物成份。

　　As they say, the widespread obesity and diabetes epidemics show that whatever we’re trying now to improve our relationship with food simply isn’t working. It could well be that they have hit upon the key to this - that until now we have completely misunderstood our own bodies and how food affects us.

　　正如研究所工作人员所说，肥胖、糖尿病的流行表明，无论我们怎么努力去改善我们与食物的关系，都不起作用，正是由于这个问题的关键其实是——直到现在人们都没有完全弄明白的——我们的身体以及食物对身体产生的影响。

　　So, as I chomp on a chocolate bar and ice cream (although the researchers hasten to add that a nutritionally balanced diet is still as important as ever), I am looking forward to seeing whether I can start to lose weight and become healthier as a result.

　　所以，当我格格的咬牙吃着巧克力和冰淇淋时(虽然研究人员赶紧补充：营养均衡的饮食仍然很重要)，我很期待我真的能够减肥成功并变得更健康。

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