【英语语言学习】红酒可以延缓衰老？

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. Here's some news to raise a glass to: the idea that red wine may help us live longer and healthier lives. Well, it got a new boost this week. According to a team of researchers, a compound found in the skin of grapes could be an antidote¹ to aging by slowing down the process and even fending² off disease and inflammation associated with getting old. It's the topic of a new study published this week in the journal Science.

 

But before you pop the cork³ on that merlot, this story doesn't end there. The study's researchers are hoping these findings will help drug companies develop anti-aging drugs to treat diseases like Type 2 diabetes⁴, heart disease and even obesity⁵. Sound too good to be true? Well, my next guest is here to talk about it. David Sinclair is professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Med School in Boston. He's lead author of the study that was published this week in Science. He joins us from California. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

 

DAVID SINCLAIR: Hi, Ira, thanks for having me on.

 

FLATOW: Are we talking about resveratrol here?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, the resveratrol discovery was about 10 years ago. We, my colleagues and I, made that discovery. But what we've done since then is use that as a - just a stepping stone, a proof of concept to make much more potent⁸ synthetic⁹ drug-like molecules¹¹ that are just in the beginnings of human clinical trials. And this paper is about the finding that these molecules from grapes and the synthetics¹² all seem to work through this one particular gene⁶, genetic⁷ pathway we call the sirtuin pathway.

 

FLATOW: Let's back up a little bit and talk about the study you did in mice. What did you find - what did you give the mice, and what did you find there?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, originally we found resveratrol just in a test tube, looking for molecules that would turn on this enzyme¹³, this protein that seems to defend against diseases in aging. We then moved to nematode worms and flies. We've done some work with bees even. The mouse study was in 2006.

 

These were mice that were fed a Western diet. They were chubby¹⁴, and they were developing usual signs of disease that we see in elderly obese¹⁵ people. The mice that had the resveratrol in their diet were still obese, but they were seemingly or relatively¹⁶ immune to the effects of the obesity. So their arteries¹⁷ were clear, their liver was nice and thin. Their bones were stronger. They could run further.

 

And so that was really the first evidence that we were on to something important for - potentially for human health.

 

FLATOW: And so then you identified the action of how the molecule¹⁰ works.

 

SINCLAIR: Right, so that's what we've been doing for the last few years, is trying to figure out, first of all - we've been criticized for this. It does sound too good to be true. And turning on proteins rather than just inhibiting¹⁸ them is fairly rare in drug development and even biology.

 

So this was, on multiple levels, seemingly too good to be true, and what we've done in this paper with my colleagues, and there are actually 30 authors that I'm here representing, we were able to, I think, very well demonstrate how these molecules work not just in the test tube but even within cells, hitting a very precise part of this protein that we think controls health and possibly aging.

 

FLATOW: Well, give us some of the details of that. When you mean it controls aging and these other miraculous-sounding things, give us some idea of what you're talking about.

 

SINCLAIR: Well, it's important to know that I'm also here representing a field of scientists, probably hundreds of labs around the world who are focused on finding what are the causes of aging and more important, actually, the genes¹⁹ that can slow that down. And we know of probably 100 of these genes now, and they fall into certain groups.

 

There are about four major categories. One of them is the sirtuins, which I work on. There are others. There's even a compound from Easter Island that seems to have also remarkable²⁰ effects on anti-aging, on aging and extending lifespan in mice.

 

So what we're all hoping to do, us researchers, is to develop ways to not really just extend lifespan but to keep people healthier for longer. We may just have a greater impact than a single drug because these drugs could potentially treat one disease but prevent 20 others.

 

FLATOW: And so you actually co-founded a company called Sirtris, which is now owned by GlaxoSmithKline, to come up - to create these compounds, these anti-aging compounds?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, it's true. A lot of scientists are hesitant to get involved with industry. It's seen as, you know, getting in bed with the devil, actually. But I found that doing this has been really the only way and one of the best ways I know to take a finding from the bench side to people. There's no other way, in fact. This drug, if we ever succeed, is going to cost probably a billion dollars, and no academic lab can do that.

 

So yeah, I'm still working with, as a consultant²¹ to, GlaxoSmithKline. But they're the ones who have done the hard chemistry. They've made 4,000 different variants²² of chemicals that activate²³ this pathway, and the best couple of those have gone into human studies.

 

FLATOW: So when you activate the pathway, this enzyme, what does - what kind of benefits happen from that?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, there are probably 1,000 papers now on this genetic pathway and the benefits of resveratrol. Not all the effects of resveratrol of course go through this one pathway. We think many of the important ones do. So for instance, we commonly see with these molecules that the animals are, as I mentioned, protected from the effects of obesity, so the lack of inflammation, their hearts are a bit stronger, their arteries are cleaner.

 

They also seem to have improved brain function. They're protected against diseases like Alzheimer's. And they also seem to have more energy. We see that the mitochondria, these energy battery packs in our muscles and our liver, in fact in all of our cells, get revved²⁴ up by these drugs. And this could be a way to give elderly people or sick people more energy and to fight disease, and possibly live longer.

 

FLATOW: Why not just drink a lot more red wine and get it that way?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, I don't recommend people do that because the amount of resveratrol that's needed I estimate to be about 100 glasses a day, which is probably not recommended. So really what we're trying to do here is to develop drugs that could be taken as a little pill, maybe 250 milligram little pill, that could be used to treat diabetes but would also prevent cancer, Alzheimer's and inflammatory diseases.

 

And yeah, I don't recommend people try to get resveratrol out of red wine, though I've been drinking red wine every few days because I know there are some health benefits, but definitely don't go overboard.

 

FLATOW: Could you do it with grape juice too?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, actually, there's not much resveratrol in grape juice. Red wine has about a milligram or two per glass. But we're talking about hundreds of milligrams in these studies.

 

FLATOW: How is it that you get such a widespread benefit in all the different organs from just this one enzyme?

 

SINCLAIR: That is the best question. What we think is going on is that - well, let me back up. The old idea was that resveratrol and a lot of these compounds that seem to improve health work just because they're antioxidants. But it turns out resveratrol and red wine generally, it's not really a great antioxidant, and in fact it's been rather disappointing, the results for antioxidants in the aging field.

 

So what we think is going on to have these, as you said, miraculous-like effects, is that these longevity²⁵ genes, that there are many of these in our body, they get activated²⁶ by adversity. So when we exercise, when we have a very low-calorie diet or even calorie-restrict, these pathways get activated, and they tell proteins in the cell to go off, say repair DNA²⁷ better or turn on the energy supply more.

 

And we think that those complex pathways downstream regulated by these master regulators of health are responsible.

 

FLATOW: And resveratrol is - knows the pathway of how to do that, and these other drugs that you're developing basically do the same thing?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, that's the theory. And in this paper that we just put out, what we're showing evidence for is that we're on target, that we are making drugs, and resveratrol as well, hits this enzyme in the cell that has these remarkable benefits, at least in animals so far.

 

FLATOW: So could you eventually market these as anti-aging drugs then?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, if they worked, it would be great. I think proving that is going to take too long, I think, for most of us to wait. The way I think the first anti-aging drug will hit the market, and I don't know if it's going to be this work or someone behind us or even in front of us, there are a lot of people trying, but when it happens, and I think it will happen in our lifetimes, it'll be for a particular disease, because the drug approval process doesn't recognize aging as a disease. You couldn't get it on the market.

 

But eventually I think if enough people take this medicine, let's say 10,000 people are on the drug, we would start to see even within a few years whether those people are generally healthier and possibly even longer lived than the general population.

 

FLATOW: And how soon will these trials start?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, my colleagues roll their eyes whenever any of us gives an estimate. But I can say that we're in - the companies are in phase one studies. Phase one studies means very small trials with, say, a dozen, up to 100 people. And the results so far have been promising²⁸, but they haven't proven anything. The timeframe forward typically from here on is about five years if things go well.

 

But, you know, we have to be cautious because things can go wrong, and they often do in drug development. But, you know, we're certainly a lot closer than I ever thought we would be in my lifetime, and I certainly never thought that I'd be seeing patients given a drug that came out of the aging field so quickly.

 

FLATOW: Are there any bad side effects to this?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, if you use really, really high doses of resveratrol, many grams, there can be some untoward²⁹ side effects, some toxicity³⁰. So again, people shouldn't consider doing that. In the mouse studies, we haven't seen any signs of toxicity yet. We've been actually quite surprised. We've looked hard. We thought maybe there was a tradeoff, cancer would be invoked³¹, or fertility would decline. We haven't seen any of that.

 

And in these initial human studies that have recently been published with the synthetic compounds from - that are in the clinical trials, they also, at least so far in small numbers of people, seem to be safe. But we need more people, of course. But there's nothing that I'm particularly worried about right now.

 

FLATOW: So in effect you basically slowed down the aging process in mice, or did you reverse it? Did you take away the aging process so they could live a lot, lot longer?

 

SINCLAIR: Well, my colleagues and I debate whether we're really slowing down aging or we're just preventing diseases. That's probably going to be a debate we continue for a while. But in my lab, we are working on compounds that clearly do reverse aging or aspects of aging. We've got mice - we haven't published this yet, but just as a heads-up, we've got compounds that can take a two-year-old mouse, which is a pretty old mouse, and reverse its metabolic³² aging within just a week.

 

So I'm looking forward to not just delaying aging but even possibly reversing some of it.

 

FLATOW: Wow. Well, we'll talk about it some more. We've run out of time. David Sinclair, thank you very much for joining us.

 

SINCLAIR: Hey, thanks for having me.

 

FLATOW: Dr. Sinclair is a professor in the Department of Genetic at Harvard Med School in Boston. We're going to take a break, and when we come back we're going to switch gears and take a closer look at bees - bumblebees, honeybees, you name it, bee-autiful, coming after this break. Stay with us.

1 antidote   

n.解毒药，解毒剂

参考例句：

• There is no known antidote for this poison.这种毒药没有解药。
• Chinese physicians used it as an antidote for snake poison.中医师用它来解蛇毒。

2 fending   

v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开

参考例句：

• He is always spending his time fending with the neighbors. 他总是与邻里们吵架。 来自互联网
• Fifth, it is to build safeguarding system and enhance the competence in fending off the risk. 五是建立政策保障体系，提高防范和抵御风险的能力。 来自互联网

3 cork   

n.软木，软木塞

参考例句：

• We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
• Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。

4 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

5 obesity   

n.肥胖，肥大

参考例句：

• One effect of overeating may be obesity.吃得过多能导致肥胖。
• Sugar and fat can more easily lead to obesity than some other foods.糖和脂肪比其他食物更容易导致肥胖。

6 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

7 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

8 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

9 synthetic   

adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品

参考例句：

• We felt the salesman's synthetic friendliness.我们感觉到那位销售员的虚情假意。
• It's a synthetic diamond.这是人造钻石。

10 molecule   

n.分子，克分子

参考例句：

• A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hygrogen and one atom of oxygen.一个水分子是由P妈̬f婘̬ 妈̬成的。
• This gives us the structural formula of the molecule.这种方式给出了分子的结构式。

11 molecules   

分子( molecule的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

12 synthetics   

n.化学合成物

参考例句：

• cotton fabrics and synthetics 棉织物与合成织物
• It is a universally applicable thickener for printing on the synthetics. 特别适合用做纺织印染工业中人造合成纤维的印染增稠剂。

13 enzyme   

n.酵素，酶

参考例句：

• Above a certain temperature,the enzyme molecule will become unfolded.超过一定温度，酶分子将会展开。
• An enzyme that dissolves the fibrin of blood clots.能溶解血凝块中的纤维的酶。

14 chubby   

adj.丰满的，圆胖的

参考例句：

• He is stocky though not chubby.他长得敦实，可并不发胖。
• The short and chubby gentleman over there is our new director.那个既矮又胖的绅士是我们的新主任。

15 obese   

adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的

参考例句：

• The old man is really obese,it can't be healthy.那位老人确实过于肥胖了，不能算是健康。
• Being obese and lazy is dangerous to health.又胖又懒危害健康。

16 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

17 arteries   

n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道

参考例句：

• Even grafting new blood vessels in place of the diseased coronary arteries has been tried. 甚至移植新血管代替不健康的冠状动脉的方法都已经试过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is the place where the three main arteries of West London traffic met. 这就是伦敦西部三条主要交通干线的交汇处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 inhibiting   

抑制作用的，约束的

参考例句：

• The high cost of borrowing is inhibiting investment by industry in new equipment. 借款的高成本抑制了企业对新设备的投资。
• The pesticides affect the nervous system by inhibiting the enzyme cholinesterase. 这类农药抑制胆碱酯酶而影响神经系统。

19 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

20 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

21 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

22 variants   

n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体

参考例句：

• Those variants will be preserved in the'struggle for existence". 这些变异将在“生存竞争”中被保留下来。 来自辞典例句
• Like organisms, viruses have variants, generally called strains. 与其他生物一样，病毒也有变种，一般称之为株系。 来自辞典例句

23 activate   

vt.使活动起来，使开始起作用

参考例句：

• We must activate the youth to study.我们要激励青年去学习。
• These push buttons can activate the elevator.这些按钮能启动电梯。

24 revved   

v.（使）加速( rev的过去式和过去分词 )；（数量、活动等）激增；（使发动机）快速旋转；（使）活跃起来

参考例句：

• The taxi driver revved up his engine. 出租车司机把发动机发动起来。
• The car revved up and roared away. 汽车发动起来，然后轰鸣着开走了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

25 longevity   

n.长命；长寿

参考例句：

• Good habits promote longevity.良好的习惯能增长寿命。
• Human longevity runs in families.人类的长寿具有家族遗传性。

26 activated   

adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。

27 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

28 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

29 untoward   

adj.不利的，不幸的，困难重重的

参考例句：

• Untoward circumstances prevent me from being with you on this festive occasion.有些不幸的事件使我不能在这欢庆的时刻和你在一起。
• I'll come if nothing untoward happens.我要是没有特殊情况一定来。

30 toxicity   

n.毒性，毒力

参考例句：

• The hoarse grunt or squeal is characteristic of toxicity.嘶哑的哼声和叫声是中毒的特征。
• Dieldrin is related to aldrin,and its toxicity to earthworms is similar.狄氏剂与艾氏剂有关，对蚯蚓的毒性是相似的。

31 invoked   

v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• It is unlikely that libel laws will be invoked. 不大可能诉诸诽谤法。
• She had invoked the law in her own defence. 她援引法律为自己辩护。 来自《简明英汉词典》

32 metabolic   

adj.新陈代谢的

参考例句：

• Impressive metabolic alternations have been undergone during embryogenesis.在胚胎发生期间经历了深刻的代谢变化。
• A number of intoxicants are associated with metabolic acidosis.许多毒性物质可引起代谢性酸中毒。