心理效应大过基因影响？

If you want to win a race or stick to a difficult diet, coaches of all kinds will tell you it’s all about “mind over matter.”

如果你想赢得一场比赛或坚持一种很难的饮食习惯，各种各样的教练都会告诉你，这完全是“精神胜过物质”。

But that advice rarely crosses over into the medical community, where an inborn ability—or risk—is thought to depend more on genes and environment than on mindset.

但这一建议很少进入医学界，因为人们认为与生俱来的能力——或风险——更多地取决于基因和环境，而不是心态。

Now, in a study examining what may be a novel form of the placebo response, psychologists have found that just telling a person they have a high or low genetic risk for certain physical traits can influence how their body functions when exercising or eating, regardless of what genetic variant they actually have.

如今，在一项针对可能是新型的心理效应的研究中，生理学家们发现，只需要告诉一个人他们在某些物理特性方面拥有较高或者较低的风险，就可以影响他们的身体机能，而无论他们事实上是属于哪种基因变异类型。

The results could be an eye-opener for medical providers and consumer DNA testing companies.

这一结果可能会让医疗服务提供商和针对消费者的DNA检测公司大开眼界。

“From a psychological science perspective, it’s not terribly surprising that genetic risk information can function this way,” says behavioral researcher Susan Persky of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved in the study.

马里兰州贝塞斯达国家人类基因组研究所的行为研究员苏珊·波斯基说:“从心理科学的角度来看，遗传风险信息能够以这种方式发挥作用并不奇怪。”她并未参与此次研究。

But it’s a novel idea in the genetics community, she adds.

但她补充说，这在遗传学领域是一个新奇的想法。

After getting ethics approval to conduct an experiment that involved deceiving participants, graduate student Bradley Turnwald and co-workers in the lab of psychologist Alia Crum at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, recruited 116 young and middle-aged people for what they called a “personalized medicine study.”

在获得伦理批准进行一项涉及欺骗参与者的实验后，斯坦福大学心理学家阿利亚·克拉姆实验室的研究生布拉德利·特瓦尔德和同事们招募了116青年人以及中年人来进行这项他们称为“个性化医疗的研究”。

They tested each for a gene variant that influences a person’s capacity for exercise.

他们分别测试了每一个人的影响其运动能力的基因变异。

The volunteers also took a treadmill test.志愿者们还进行了跑步机测试。

A week later, the participants were given a result, based not on their actual data, but rather on one of two groups into which they had been randomly placed.

一周后，参与者得到的结果不是基于他们的实际数据，而是基于他们随机分到的两组中的哪一组。

Some were told they had the form of a gene called CREB1 that makes a person tire easily; others were told they had the high-endurance version.

一些人被告知他们有一种叫做CREB1的基因，这种基因使人容易疲劳;其他人则被告知他们拥有这种基因的高耐久力版本。

Then they ran on the treadmill again.

然后他们又在跑步机上进行了跑步。

This time, those who had been told they had the low-endurance version of CREB1 did worse on the test, even if they had the other variant.

这一次，那些被告知携带CREB1低耐久力版本的人在测试中表现更差，即使他们携带的是另一种变体。

Compared with their results on the first test, on average their bodies removed toxic carbon dioxide less efficiently, their lung capacity dropped, and they stopped running 22 seconds sooner, the team reports today in Nature Human Behavior.

与第一次测试的结果相比，他们的身体排出有毒二氧化碳的效率更低，肺活量下降，而且他们停止跑步的时间也提前了22秒。

And those who thought they had the high-endurance form of the CREB1 gene ran slightly longer on average before feeling hot and tired, regardless of what gene variant they had.

而那些认为自己具有高耐久性版本CREB1基因的人，在感到热和疲倦之前，平均跑得稍长一些，不管他们有什么基因变体。

“Simply giving people this information changed their physiology,” Turnwald says.

“简单地告诉人们这些信息就能改变他们的生理机能，”特瓦尔德说。

The team also tested a second group of 107 people for its version of FTO, a gene that influences how full we feel after eating.

研究小组还对另一组107人进行了FTO基因测试，FTO是一种影响我们进食后饱腹感的基因。

Some versions can also predispose people to obesity.

有些版本还会使人容易肥胖。

Participants ate a small meal and rated their fullness.

参与者会吃一小顿饭，然后测试他们的饱足程度。

After being told, at random, that they had a version of FTO that made them hungrier than average or one that made them easily sated, participants ate the same meal.

在被随机地告知他们拥有让他们比别人更饿或者更容易饱的FTO基因型之后，参与者们又吃了同样的一顿饭。

Those told they had the “hungry” version of the gene didn’t feel any different.

那些被告知拥有“易饿”基因型的人们没有感到什么不同。

But those who were told they had the other version felt less hungry on average after eating; they also had higher blood levels of a hormone that indicates a feeling of fullness.

不过，那些被告知拥有易饱基因型的人们吃完之后普遍感觉不那么饿；他们血液中指示饱足程度的激素水平也更高了。

In the cases of both genes, some of the changes in bodily reactions were larger than what the researchers measured between people who actually carried different versions of the genes, suggesting their attitude could change their risk as much or more than their genetics.

在这两种基因的情形中，身体反应的一些变化比研究人员测量的携带不同基因版本的人之间的变化要大，这表明他们的态度对风险的影响可能与基因一样大，甚至更大。

“What people haven’t fully appreciated is that that information also puts you into a mindset: 'I’m at high risk or I'm protected,’” Crum says.

“人们没有充分意识到的是，这些信息也会让你陷入一种心态:'我处于高风险中，或者我受到了保护，’”克拉姆说。

“And that alone can have potent effects on physiology and motivation.”

“而这种心态就会对身体和心理动机产生潜在的影响。”

Such a placebo response to genetic information could have serious implications for genetic testing, especially commercially available products that can reveal risk scores for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.

这种对基因信息的心理效应反应可能会对基因测试产生严重影响，尤其是那些可以揭示阿尔茨海默病和癌症等疾病风险分数的商业产品。

The Stanford team says people shouldn’t necessarily stop getting tested.

这支斯坦福大学的团队说人们也不一定就不能去做这些测试了。

But they—along with medical providers and genetic counselors—should keep in mind that just knowing about risk can subtly influence outcomes.

不过人们—还包括那些提供医疗服务和基因咨询的人们—应该清楚知道，仅仅知晓风险就可以轻微地影响最后的结果。

The results suggest that if a person just thinks they are at high risk for, say, obesity, it could change their physiology in a way that makes them more prone to the condition, Turnwald says.

特瓦尔德说，研究结果表明，如果一个人只是认为自己有患肥胖症等高风险疾病的风险，这可能会改变他们的生理机能，使他们更容易患上肥胖症。

The next question is whether these effects fade quickly, or last for years.

下一个问题就是这些影响是转瞬即逝，还是会持续多年。

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