科学美国人60秒 SSS Pulling the String on Yo-Yo Weight Gain（在线收听）

Pulling the String on Yo-Yo Weight Gain 噩梦：胖了瘦，瘦了又胖

“We focus on what is called recurrent obesity or yo-yo obesity, which is a feature which affects close to 80 percent of all overweight individuals worldwide.”

我们将重点放在复发性肥胖，也称为体重的溜溜球效应，全世界超重人群中，有80%的人都受到了这一效应的影响。

Eran Elinav of the Weitzmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Eran Elinav来自于以色列威兹曼科学院。

“This is the phenomenon in which we gain weight and then we go on a successful diet, but within 12 months we go back to our original weight. And we even gain more weight from cycle to cycle. So this is called recurrent obesity.”

溜溜球效应的现象是体重增加，然后节食成功，12个月后，又胖了。之后我们就陷入了这种胖瘦的循环中。我们将此称为复发性肥胖。

But Elinav may have taken a step toward getting a handle on that frustrating post-diet pound packing that leaves people heavier than when they started. He spoke February 17th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

但是，对于减肥之后的反弹，Elinava采取了措施来进行处理。在2月17日于美国波士顿举行的美国科学促进协会上，Elinava发表了下面的讲话。

“We developed a few models in mice, which feature this exact pattern of recurrent exaggerated obesity…following cycles of obesity and successful dieting.

我们在小老鼠身上研发了几个模型，这些模型的特征是反复愈发的肥胖…伴随着周期性的肥胖和成功节食。

And what we found was that the one important determinant which drives this exaggerated weight regain tendency is a persistent alteration of the composition and function of our gut microbiome following a successful dieting. In other words, we diet and we normalize all of our metabolic parameters after we successfully diet…”

我们发现，导致这种周期性的肥胖增加的一个重要的决定因素是，在节食成功后，我们肠道微生物的组成和功能的持久改变。换而言之，在节食成功后，我们的饮食和新陈代谢参数正常化。

But we still can maintain the microbial profile—and function—that we had before losing the weight. So Elinav’s team did a detailed analysis of the biochemistry going on within the mice.

但是，我们仍然可以继续维持微生物的状况和功能，——在我们的体重再次下降之前。所以，Elinav的团队在老鼠的体内进行了一次详细的生物化学分析。

“And we came across two molecules in mice which are from the flavonoid family. And basically these molecules signal to the host adipose tissue telling it to extract more heat and to gain less fat.”

我们在老鼠的体内无意中发现了类黄酮素的两种分子。基本上，这些分子向宿主脂肪细胞发出信号：提取更多的热量，减少更少的脂肪。

The molecules, called apigenin and naringenin, get degraded in the presence of the obesity-related microbiome.

这两种分子为芹黄素和柚苷配基，在和肥胖有关的微生物存在时被降解。

“And when they are low the fat doesn’t get this signal and then weight regain occurs. So in this particular case the intervention which we’ve used is to replenish these two missing or these two degraded molecules through administration in food and their drinking water.

当这两种分子含量比较低时，脂肪并不会得到信号，然后体重就会反弹。所以，在这种特殊情况下，我们使用食物或饮用水干预来补充这两个消失或者被降解的分子，

And when we brought them back to physiological levels we completely abolished this tendency for an exaggerated weight regain.

当这两种分子重新回到生理水平，就不会再有体重反弹的倾向。

“Now extrapolating to humans, if this is true in humans and we would discover these or maybe other molecules which are depleted or in excess…an intervention which would supplement them or block their downstream signaling would potentially be helpful in this regard.”

现在，将这些推断到人类，如果这在人类身上也能适用，我们就可以发现这些或者其他含量不足或者多余的分子……采取补充分子或者阻塞其发送信号，这些干预措施将会在这一方面有作用。