Loneliness is bad for your health—certainly as bad as being obese, and possibly as bad as being a moderate smoker.So, in these days of plague, when enforced solitude is the order of the day in many places,how to stop solitude turning into loneliness is a pressing medical question.One part of the answer is to try to understand the physiology of the change.And that has, for the past few years, been the objective of Steven Cole of the University of California, Los Angeles.Dr Cole began his work with a study he published in 2015, in collaboration with John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago.The pair led a team of psychologists, neuroscientists and immunologists who found that the pattern in people's blood of immune cells called myeloid cells is notably different in those who score as "very lonely" on loneliness tests compared with those who do not.
译文

孤独不利健康——绝对和肥胖一样糟糕，可能也和吸烟一样有害。因此，在疫情肆虐的日子里，在许多地方，人们被迫独处，如何阻止独处转化为孤独是一个紧迫的医学问题。答案之一是试图理解这种变化的生理学原理。在过去的几年里，这一直是加州大学洛杉矶分校的Steven Cole的目标。Cole博士与芝加哥大学的John Cacioppo合作，于2015年发表了一项研究，由此开始了他的研究工作。这两人领导了一个由心理学家、神经科学家和免疫学家组成的团队，他们发现，在孤独感测试中，评分为“非常孤独”的人和正常人相比，他们血液中被称为骨髓细胞的免疫细胞的模式差异很大。

Lonely people have unusually low numbers of a type of myeloid cell that generates what are known as interferon responses, which hamper viral replication.This makes them particularly vulnerable to viral infections. They also have an abundance of a second type of myeloid cell,one that promotes the activity of genes which drive inflammation—and it has been known for years that those who feel lonely experience more inflammation than those who do not.These correlations are intriguing, but do not explain which comes first, the loneliness or the myeloid response.Dr Cole and Dr Cacioppo addressed that question by repeatedly measuring perceptions of social isolation in individual volunteers,while simultaneously tracking, from blood samples, their gene-expression patterns and other changes in their physiology.
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孤独的人他们血液中骨髓细胞的数量异常的低，骨髓细胞可以产生干扰素反应，阻碍病毒复制。这让他们尤为容易受病毒感染的影响。他们第二种骨髓细胞含量也很丰富这是一种促进驱动炎症的基因活动的细胞——多年来人们都知道，感觉孤独的人比没有孤独感的人更容易患炎症。这些相关性很有趣，但并不能解释孤独和骨髓反应哪个更重要。Cole博士和Cacioppo博士解决了这个问题，他们重复测量每位志愿者的社会孤立感，同时根据他们的血样，追踪他们的基因表达模式和其他生理变化。

They found that, initially, volunteers' feelings of isolation coincided with an increase in their inflammation genes' activity and a concomitant increase in the circulation of immature immune cells, called monocytes, that are involved in inflammation—and which are also known to travel into the brain and promote anxiety.They noted, too, increased levels in the brain of signalling molecules associated with both inflammation and behaviours such as social withdrawal,feelings of suspicion towards the outside world and a tendency to act more defensively by making decisions that involve few risks.That, of course, promotes further feelings of loneliness. Which, in turn, trigger a further myeloid response. And so on.It seems, therefore, that though loneliness starts with solitude, it can quickly take on a physiological life of its own.Dr Cole thus worries that the enforced isolation, brought about by current circumstances,of those who are already living alone may create in many people a state of chronic loneliness that is difficult to escape from when things start returning to normal.
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他们发现，最初，志愿者的孤立感随着炎症基因活动以及与炎症相关的未成熟免疫细胞（单核细胞）循环的增加而增加——这些物质也会进入大脑，引发焦虑。他们还注意到，大脑中与炎症和社交退缩、对外部世界的怀疑情绪以及做出决定时的防御倾向等行为相关的信号分子水平也有所增加。当然，这进一步加剧了孤独感，反过来会进一步触发骨髓反应。等等。因此，似乎孤独感始于独处，但它很快就有了自己的生理生活。因此，Cole博士担心，对那些已经独处很久的人来说，当下环境所造成的的强制隔离可能会使其中许多人产生一种长期的孤独感，当生活开始恢复正常时，他们很难摆脱这种孤独感。

注释

1.enforce 强制
United Nations troops enforced a ceasefire in the area.
联合国军队在该地区强制执行停火命令。

2.notably 显著地
The figures of operating cycle show that the operating cycle has been prolonged notably.
营业周期的计算数字表明，营业周期已经显著地加长了。

3.hamper 妨碍
The bad weather hampered rescue operations...
恶劣的天气阻碍了救援工作的进行。

4.intriguing 有趣的
These discoveries raise intriguing questions.
这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。

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