关于盐，我们所知的一切可能都错了
奥利弗·克尼克尔（中）与几名俄罗斯宇航员在位于莫斯科的一座隔离设施中。European Space Agency
两百多年来一直被教授给医生的水盐平衡，并不是个难理解的理论。
The salt equation taught to doctors for more than 200 years is not hard to understand.
人类的身体依赖这种必不可少的矿物质实现各种机能，包括血压和传递神经脉冲。我们必须小心地维持血液中的钠浓度。
The body relies on this essential mineral for a variety of functions, including blood pressure and the transmission of nerve impulses. Sodium levels in the blood must be carefully maintained.
如果你食用了很多盐——氯化钠——就会口渴，会喝水，这样就会稀释你的血液，使之保持适当的钠浓度。最终你会通过尿液排出大部分多余的盐和水。
If you eat a lot of salt — sodium chloride — you will become thirsty and drink water, diluting your blood enough to maintain the proper concentration of sodium. Ultimately you will excrete much of the excess salt and water in urine.
这个理论直观简单。但它或许完全是错误的。
The theory is intuitive and simple. And it may be completely wrong.
一项研究否定了有关身体如何处理盐分的许多传统认知，并表明高浓度的盐分或许对减肥有帮助。该研究最近通过在《临床调查杂志》(The Journal of Clinical Investigation)上的两篇复杂的论文得到发表。
The research, published recently in two dense papers in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, contradicts much of the conventional wisdom about how the body handles salt and suggests that high levels may play a role in weight loss.
这些结果令肾脏专家感到震惊。
The findings have stunned kidney specialists.
“实在太新奇、太惊人了，”哈佛医学院(Harvard Medical School)医学助理教授梅拉妮·霍尼格(Melanie Hoenig)说。“研究做得十分严谨。”
“This is just very novel and fascinating,” said Dr. Melanie Hoenig, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “The work was meticulously done.”
匹兹堡大学(University of Pittsburgh)教授詹姆斯·R·约翰斯顿(James R. Johnston)在两篇文章的页边标出了每一个让他意想不到的发现。结果两篇论文都被他涂满了。
Dr. James R. Johnston, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, marked each unexpected finding in the margins of the two papers. The studies were covered with scribbles by the time he was done.
“的确很酷”，他说。不过他也提到，这些发现需要重复验证。
“Really cool,” he said, although he added that the findings need to be replicated.
这些新发现是科学家延斯·蒂策(Jens Titze)几十年坚持不懈研究的结果，他现在是范德堡大学医学中心(Vanderbilt University Medical Center)和德国埃朗根临床研究跨学科中心(Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research in Erlangen)的肾脏专家。
The new studies are the culmination of a decadeslong quest by a determined scientist, Dr. Jens Titze, now a kidney specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research in Erlangen, Germany.
1991年，还是一名柏林医学生的蒂策，上了一门有关极端环境下人体生理的课程。这门课的教授与欧洲太空计划合作，展示了一项为期28天的模拟飞行任务的数据。在这项任务中，全体宇航员都生活在一个小太空舱里。
generatedIn 1991, as a medical student in Berlin, he took a class on human physiology in extreme environments. The professor who taught the course worked with the European space program and presented data from a simulated 28-day mission in which a crew lived in a small capsule.
这项任务的主要目标是了解宇航员们会如何相处。但科学家们也收集了他们的尿液和其他生理指标。
The main goal was to learn how the crew members would get along. But the scientists also had collected the astronauts’ urine and other physiological markers.
蒂策在这些数据中注意到了一些令人困惑的地方：宇航员们的尿量以七天为一个周期上下波动。这与他在医学院学到的东西是完全矛盾的：不应该有这样的时间周期。
Titze noticed something puzzling in the crew members’ data: Their urine volumes went up and down in a seven-day cycle. That contradicted all he’d been taught in medical school: There should be no such temporal cycle.
1994年，俄罗斯太空计划决定在和平号(Mir)空间站进行为期135天的生命模拟实验。蒂策设法去了俄罗斯，研究宇航员的尿液变化规律，以及饮食中的盐如何影响这些变化。
In 1994, the Russian space program decided to do a 135-day simulation of life on the Mir space station. Titze arranged to go to Russia to study urine patterns among the crew members and how these were affected by salt in the diet.
结果他有了一个惊人的发现：宇航员身体中的纳浓度以28天为周期进行变化，而且这些变化与他们的尿量多少无关。此外，钠浓度的变化规律也比尿样变化更加显著。
A striking finding emerged: a 28-day rhythm in the amount of sodium the cosmonauts’ bodies retained that was not linked to the amount of urine they produced. And the sodium rhythms were much more pronounced than the urine patterns.
纳浓度本应随着尿量变化而增减。尽管这项研究不够完美——宇航员的钠摄入量没有经过精确的校准——但蒂策确信，有液体摄取之外的其他东西在影响船上宇航员体内的纳存储。
The sodium levels should have been rising and falling with the volume of urine. Although the study wasn’t perfect — the crew members’ sodium intake was not precisely calibrated — Titze was convinced something other than fluid intake was influencing sodium stores in the crew’s bodies.
他意识到，这样的结论是“异端邪说”。
The conclusion, he realized, “was heresy.”
2006年，俄罗斯太空计划又宣布了两项模拟研究，一项持续105天，另一项520天。蒂策看到一个机会，可以让他搞清楚这些异常的发现是否是真的。
In 2006, the Russian space program announced two more simulation studies, one lasting 105 days and the other 520 days. Titze saw a chance to figure out whether his anomalou
s findings were real.

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