英语听力文摘 English Digest 498、身体，你怎么啦？（在线收听）

每次生病了，家里人最多说的一句话就是“不吃药怎么行？”。可是，有的时候吃药不一定就对身体有好处，反而有可能会帮助病原体“攻击”我们的身体。今天我们来了解了解一种新的理论“达尔文医学”，开开眼界吧!

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.

呼叫达尔文

Yaël: Don, 你感冒很严重呢！要不要吃些止咳药？

Don: 不用了。

Y: 难道你不想吃点药让自己好受点？

D: Yaël，我不需要这个。流鼻涕、打喷嚏、咳嗽都不用管，这样子我比较容易好。

Y: 但是，放任不管的话你的咳嗽不会更严重？

D: 我们看待打喷嚏和咳嗽的时候可不能只从一个方面来看哦。当出现这些症状时，人们的第一反应就是吃药、和止咳糖浆来将其“治愈”。或者说，人们可以把这些看成是身体免疫系统会出现的自然现象。这样的理论来叫做“达尔文医学”（又称“演化医学”）。

“达尔文医学”理论试着从进化的角度来解释我们为什么会生病。这种医学理论还试着具体阐释人体是如何应对疾病，为什么会对疾病有所反应。比如说，人体发低烧，很可能是因为机体试图通过这样的“改变”使侵入机体的细菌感觉不适。在这样的情况下，如果你吃药退烧的话，你可能反而是在帮“始作俑者”的忙了。

Y: 你的意思是说我们不该吃药？

D: 并不全是。有的时候确实需要吃药，比如说发高烧的时候。但这并不是说当你不舒服的时候都不管不顾，让那些症状自己消失。直到对服用阿司匹林及其他的退烧药的效果的研究完成之前，我们很难确定什么时候该治疗感冒症状，什么时候该放之任之！

但是在小感冒或是轻度发烧的情况下，就顺其自然吧！还有一点，一定要记住，千万不要让儿童服用阿司匹林！