《經濟學人·商論》，雙語（中文、英文）；是從《經濟學人》周刊的商業、金融和科技版精心挑選的內容，由通曉中英文的編輯在保留原文風格的前提下，把它們譯成中文。
--含官方翻譯的外刊
Metabolites and you
Shed-loads of chemicals
People leave molecular wakes that may give awaytheir secrets
代謝物與你
海量化學物質
你的分子「尾流」可能會洩露你的秘密
GENESCAN tell tales about you, from who your ancestors were to how likely you are todevelop a range of diseases. And it seems probable that in the future they willtell more: your personality type, perhaps, or your intelligence. For thesereasons, many countries have laws limiting what use employers and insurancecompanies can make of such information. America, for example, has the GeneticInformation Nondiscrimination Act, which makes it illegal for health insurersand employers to use genetic information to discriminate against customers andemployees.
基因可以洩露你的隱私，包括你的祖先是誰，你患各種疾病的機率多大等等。而且未來可能還會洩露更多信息，比如你的性格類型，或者智力水平。正因如此，很多國家都制定了相關法律，限制僱主和保險公司對遺傳信息的使用。例如，美國的《遺傳信息反歧視法案》（Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act）規定，醫療保險公司和僱主利用遺傳信息區別對待客戶和僱員是非法行為。
Thereis much, however, that genes cannot reveal. They are blind to what you eat, howyou exercise, how safe the place you live in is, how you unwind at the end ofthe day and which god you worship. Just as well, you might think, consideringhow easy it is to obtain samples of DNA from saliva, sweat or hair, and howcheap it is becoming to analyse such samples. But it is not just DNA thatpeople scatter to the wind as they go about their business. They shed a wholerange of other chemicals as well, in their breath, their urine, their faecesand their sweat. Collectively, and somewhat inaccurately, these molecules arereferred to as metabolites. Some truly are the products of metabolic activitywithin people's bodies. Others are substances an individual has come intocontact with, or consumed or inhaled.A1l, though, carry information of one sortor another.
然而，還是有很多信息無法通過基因獲知。基因無法透露你吃了什麼，怎樣鍛鍊身體，居住地是否安全，一天下來如何放鬆自己，以及你信奉哪位神明等等。你可能會覺得，幸好如此，因為要從唾液、汗液或毛髮中獲取DNA樣本簡直易如反掌，而且分析這些樣本的成本也日益降低。但是，人們在日常活動時，散播到空氣中的可不只有DNA。他們還會通過呼吸、尿液、糞便及汗液等排出其他各種化學物質。這些分子被統稱為代謝物（儘管可能不太準確）。它們有些確實是人體代謝活動的產物，其他一些則是人們接觸、消耗或吸入的物質。不過，所有這些物質都承載著這樣或那樣的信息。
Blood,tears, sweat and toil
Untilrecently this did not matter much, for two reasons. One was that, in practice,taking samples for analysis required either voluntary collaboration or legalduress. It could not be done clandestinely. The other was that interpreting thecomplicated patterns of metabolites is hard. But both of these obstacles arenow being overcome.
血、淚和汗
以前這些物質一直無關緊要，但近來情況不同了，原因有二。首先，在實際操作中，採集用於分析的樣本要麼需要人們自願配合，要麼需要依法強制執行，無法暗中進行。其次，代謝物結構複雜，要分辨清楚並非易事。而現在，這兩個關卡都在被攻克。
Themost common way of analysing metabolite content is gas chromatography-massspectrometry. This technique sorts molecules by their weight，producinga pattern of peaks that correspond to different substances. But the same weightcan be shared by many molecules，sothe results may be ambiguous. Nor，evenif a molecule can be identified unambiguously，isits wider significance always obvious to a particular investigator.
分析代謝物成分最常見的方法是氣相色譜-質譜法。這種方法根據質量對分子分類，產生一個圖譜，其中的各色譜峰與不同的物質相對應。但因為很多分子的質量相同，所以結果可能並不明確。即便分子能被明確地識別出來，某一位研究人員也不總能從中看出更多意義。
Thereare，however，alot of information sources out there，inthe form of publicly available metabolite databases. And last year a team ledby Pieter Dorrestein of University of California，SanDiego，invented a way，whichthey call a metabolite search engine，oflinking them up so that a sample can be compared simultaneously with thecontents of all of them.
不過，信息來源已有很多，以代謝物資料庫的形式開放給公眾。去年，加州大學聖地牙哥分校的皮耶特·德倫斯坦（Pieter Dorrestein）領導的研究小組發明了一種他們稱之為「代謝物搜尋引擎」的方法，將這些資料庫連接起來，從而可以將一個樣本與所有資料庫中的所有樣本同時加以比對。
Thedatabases themselves are getting better，too.According to Dr Dorrestein，researchersin the field were able，asrecently as four years ago，toidentify only 2%of the metabolites found in samples. Today，thathas increased to 6%and is climbing quickly. "It is reasonable'，hesays，"to assume that in another four years wewill be able to annotate 2o%of the molecular signatures that we encounter，basedon the advances that are being made."
資料庫本身也在不斷完善。德倫斯坦表示，就在四年前，該領域的研究人員還只能識別出樣本中2%的代謝物，如今已經增長到6%，而且正在迅速攀升。他說：「基於目前取得的進展，我們可以合理地認為，再過四年就能識別出所遇到的分子標記物的20%。」
Anotherarea of progress is the type，sizeand state of preservation of samples that can be interrogated. No longer areblood，urine or breath required. Sweat，tears，salivaand even dental plaque will do. A study just published by FelicianoPriego-Capote at University of Cordoba，inSpain，for example，showsit is possible to extract much meaningful information from even a dried-up dropof sweat-indeed，DrPriego-Capote is able to find in dried sweat substances that are undetectableat the moment in fresh perspiration.
另外，可分析樣本在種類、數量和保存狀態等方面都有了進展。樣本不再局限於血液、尿液或呼出的氣體。汗液、淚水、唾液，甚至牙菌斑都可以。例如，西班牙科爾多瓦大學（University of Cordoba）的費利西亞諾·普裡戈-卡波特（Feliciano Priego-Capote）剛剛發表的一項研究表明，即使是一滴幹了的汗液，也可能從中提取出很多有意義的信息。普裡戈-卡波特甚至能從幹掉的汗液中發現在剛排出狀態下檢測不到的物質。
Suchinformation can reveal a lot. Your god? Regular exposure to burning incense,and thus frequent visits to a church that uses it, will be detectable from thechemicals in the smoke. Not a Christian? Kosher and halal diets are detectableby the absence of metabolites from certain foodstuffs those diets forbid. Yourout-of-office activities? Habits like drinking, smoking and narcotic use arevisible as numerous chemicals-not merely the active pharmaceuticals whichproduce the relevant high or low. Your exercise levels? These are flagged up bylower than normal levels of things like leucine, glycerol and phenylalanine.Your local environment? Breathing in polluted air has a marked impact on theprofile of your metabolites. Your general health? Illnesses ranging fromParkinson's disease(altered levels of tyrosine and tryptophan) todiabetes(sugars and sphingomyelin) leave abundant metabolic traces. "Theday is coming soon, observes Cecil Lewis, a molecular anthropologist atUniversity of Oklahoma, who is studying the matter, "when it will bepossible to swab a person's desk, steering wheel or phone and determine a widerange of incredibly private things about them."
這類信息可以揭示很多東西。你信奉哪位神明？通過探測煙塵中的化學物質，能知道你定期接觸焚香，進而知道你經常去使用這種焚香的教堂。你不是基督徒？猶太教和伊斯蘭教禁忌的某些食物會讓你缺乏某些代謝物，由此可知你是按這些教派的教規飲食。你下班後幹了什麼？大量化學物質洩露了飲酒、吸菸或吸食毒品的習慣，而不僅僅是帶來相應快感或低落情緒的有效藥物。你的運動量夠不夠？亮氨酸、三元醇和苯丙氨酸等物質低於正常水平，就該引起注意了。你居住地的環境怎樣？吸入被汙染的空氣會對你的代謝物檔案產生顯著影響。你的健康狀況大體上如何？各種疾病都會留下大量的代謝痕跡：帕金森病會改變酪氨酸和色氨酸指標，糖尿病會改變血糖和鞘磷脂指標。「很快就會有這麼一天，」在俄克拉荷馬大學研究這一課題的分子人類學家塞西爾劉易斯（Cecil Lewis）表示，「用棉籤抹一下某個人的辦公桌、方向盤或手機，就可能得到關於他方方面面的極為私密的信息。」
Swabbingthe decks
Incontrast with DNA, the use to which knowledge of metabolites might be put haslittle legal restriction. Dr Lewis, and others like him, worry about theconsequences of this. At the moment, sampling for alcohol or illegal drug use,say, has to be overt, because it involves a blood, urine or breath test. Thatis true regardless of who is collecting the sample, whether it be the police oran employer. This also keeps purposes clear. A firm might feel it has the rightto test employees for drug use, and the law might support that. But techniqueslike Dr Priego-Capote's make it easier, as Dr Lewis observes, to sampleclandestinely, and bring a temptation to push back the boundaries of what isbeing searched for. They would, for example, allow companies to detect, if theychose to look, such private matters as whether an employee was takingantidepressants.
一抹便知
相比DNA，對代謝物數據的可能用途還沒有什麼法律限制。劉易斯和他的同行們都擔心這會帶來什麼後果。比如，由於涉及血液、尿液和呼吸檢測，目前對飲酒或服用違禁藥物的採樣必須公開進行。不管收集樣本的是警察還是僱主都一樣。這也讓採樣的目的清楚明白。公司可能認為自己有權檢測員工是否吸毒，而法律可能支持它這樣做。然而正如劉易斯所說，像普裡戈-卡波特研發的那些技術讓暗中採樣變得更加容易，會誘使一些人擴大搜尋的信息範圍。例如，如果公司真要調查員工是否服用抗抑鬱藥之類的隱私，這些技術就會派上用場。
Metabolitedata, even the sort obtained openly, will also be of interest tomedical-insurance companies, who may insist on the provision of samples as acondition of the provision of cover. They, too, might take an interest inmatters of diet and exercise, penalising those who do not conform to prescribedhealthy regimes.
代謝物數據——即使是公開獲得的那一類——也會讓醫療保險公司感興趣。它們可能會堅持讓客戶提供樣本，作為投保的必要條件。它們也會關注客戶飲食和鍛鍊的情況，對那些不遵循規定的健康方案的人另眼相待。
Thepolice may be tempted to push the boundaries as well. The fourth amendment toAmerica's constitution protects against unwarranted searches and seizure ofevidence. This means it is hard to force someone to give a sample. But ifobtaining such merely requires taking a swab of a surface in a publicplace-perhaps a keyboard someone has just used-the amendment is unlikely toapply.
警方也可能忍不住要越界執法。美國憲法第四修正案保護公民免受無端的搜查和取證。這意味著很難強迫他人提供樣本。但是，如果只需在公共場所擦拭一下某個物體的表面——或許是剛用過的鍵盤，那麼修正案就不大管用了。
Thatis not necessarily wrong, if it means more criminals are caught and convicted.But it needs to be thought about carefully, because many metabolites aresticky. Cocaine is a case in point. Studies have shown that as many astwo-thirds of the dollar bills in circulation in America carry traces of thissubstance, which might thus end up on the fingertips of the innocent, as wellas the guilty.
如果這樣做能抓到更多罪犯並給他們定罪，倒也未必是件壞事。但還是需要考慮周全，因為很多代謝物是有黏性的。古柯鹼就是這樣。研究表明，在美國，流通中的美鈔有多達三分之二都沾有些許古柯鹼，所以指尖沾了古柯鹼的既可能是罪犯，也可能是無辜的人。
Perversely,this might even help someone who really had taken the drug. The law in manyjurisdictions permits employers to fire employees for unlawful conduct, even ifit happens outside the workplace. But as Michelle Terry of WKS Law in LosAngeles, observes, given how sticky research has shown cocaine metabolites tobe, it is hard to guess how the courts would rule if someone lost their job fortesting positive, yet claimed never knowingly to have touched the stuff.
這就可能事與願違，反倒幫了那些真正的癮君子。許多司法轄區的法律允許僱主解僱有非法行為的員工，即使這種行為發生在工作場所之外。但是，正如洛杉磯WKS律師事務所（WKSLaw）的米歇爾·特裡（Michelle Terry）所言，由於研究表明古柯鹼代謝物的黏性很強，如果有人因為檢測結果呈陽性而失業，而他本人卻聲稱從未有意接觸過古柯鹼，很難想像法院會如何判決。
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