容易患感冒都是基因惹的禍

Tried everything and still got the flu this year? While some friends and colleagues always seem to avoid it. Well, they may have more than luck on their side. Scientists have discovered that however hard you try to avoid it; flu is in your genes。

A study on British volunteers shows that some people are genetically predisposed to stave off the illness, while others are struck down year after year。

Researchers inoculated 17 healthy people with the flu virus and monitored their progress for five days。

Of the sample, nine became ill and the rest showed no symptoms at all。

總感冒？基因惹的禍！

Using technology usually employed in satellite imaging, they examined the genes in the subjects’ blood samples every eight hours。

Those who became sick developed an acute inflammation on certain genes 36 hours before the symptoms set in. This "genetic signature" was most marked in those who were suffering the worst。

Meanwhile, those who remained fine were found to have activated a totally different genetic signature。

The scientists interpreted this signature as an "anti-stress response" that showed their bodies were actively fighting off the virus. This discovery raises the possibility that experts could find a way to detect flu early, and take preventative action before the worst effects develop。

Professor Peter Openshaw, of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College, said: "This is a very important science. It has very big implications for many infectious diseases, not only flu。據英國《每日郵報》8月26日報道，今年你是否用盡一切辦法卻依然難以避免感冒？而你的一些朋友和同事卻似乎從來不會得這種病。這不僅僅是運氣問題，科學家發現，流感就在人的基因裏，無論人們如何努力都避免不了。

在對英國一些志願者進行的研究表明，一些人天生就不易感冒，而另外一些人則每年都會被流感侵襲。

研究人員給17位身體健康的人注射了流感病毒，並對他們接下來5天的病情進行了監測。

這些人中，有9人得了流感，其它人則完全沒有感冒的症狀。每8小時，研究人員就會利用衛星圖像的技術檢測被試者血液樣本中的基因。

那些得了感冒的人在感冒症狀顯現的36小時之前，他們的某些特定基因就出現了急性炎症。病情越嚴重，這種“基因信號”體現的就越明顯。

同時，(經過檢測)那些未受流感影響的人，(研究人員)發現，這些人可以激活一種完全不同的基因信號。

科學家把這種信號解釋爲一種“抗壓力反應”，表示人體正積極地與病毒做鬥爭。這一發現爲專家提早檢測到流感病毒、在病情惡化之前採取預防措施提供了可能。

英國帝國理工學院呼吸道感染病中心的彼得•奧本肖教授說：“這項科學發現非常重要。不僅對於流感，它對許多其他的傳染性疾病都有重要的意義。”