科学家发现基因决定人们对咖啡的需求

Whether a cup of java will leave you craving more could be chalked up to your genes.

一杯咖啡是否会使你上瘾也许是由你的基因决定的。

People with a newly identified genetic variant in their DNA, called PDSS2, may be inclined to drink fewer cups of coffee than others, according to a small study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

根据发布在《科学报告杂志》上的一项小研究显示：有这种新发现的遗传变异PDSS2基因的人，可能会倾向于比其他人喝更少的咖啡。

"I actually was very surprised to find a new gene for coffee consumption," said Nicola Pirastu, a chancellor's research fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, and lead author of the study.

爱丁堡大学厄舍学院人口健康科学和信息学研究员，同时他也是这篇研究的主撰写人的尼古拉·皮拉斯图表示：“能找到关于咖啡消费量的新基因真的使我非常惊讶。”

"We believe that this PDSS2 genetic variant is impacting coffee drinking through the regulation of the speed at which caffeine is metabolized," he said. "It has been observed before that higher levels of PDSS2 inhibits the expression of the genes metabolizing caffeine and thus the speed at which caffeine is degraded."

他说道：“我们认为这种携带PDSS2基因突变是通过咖啡因的常规新陈代谢速度来影响咖啡的饮用量的，我们观察到这种现象是在人体释放更多的PDSS2来抑制咖啡因的代谢之前，因此咖啡因的代谢由此减慢。”

About 64% of American adults drink at least one cup of coffee a day, according to a 2017 Gallup poll.

根据2017年的盖洛普调查显示，约有64%的美国成年人每天至少要喝一杯咖啡。

For the new study, researchers analyzed medical and genetic data on 370 people from a small village in southern Italy, and 843 people from six villages in northeast Italy.

在这项新的研究中，研究者们分析了受调查者的医学和遗传数据，其中370人来自意大利南部的一个小村庄，843人来自意大利北部六个不同的村庄。

The researchers discovered that people with the PDSS2 variant reported consuming fewer cups of coffee than people without the variant.

研究者发现，体内携带PDSS2基因突变的人会比没有携带这种基因突变的人少喝很多咖啡。

When the researchers replicated the study with a group of 1,731 study participants from the Netherlands, they noticed similar results.

当研究者们在荷兰对1731名研究对象重复这项研究的时候，他们得出了相似的结果。

"This variant is very common, and around 50% of the European population has either one or two copies of it," Pirastu said. "More research is needed to determine the variant's prevalence in other populations as well as to clarify its biological link with caffeine."

皮拉斯图说：“这种基因突变很常见，欧洲人口中大约有50%的人有一或两种PDSS2的基因副本。我们需要更多的研究来判定这种记忆变体在其他人口中的广泛性，同时弄清楚这种变体与咖啡因在生物学上的联系。”