Homemade soup may fight malaria

2020-06-18谷战峰

疯狂英语·新悦读 2020年4期

关键词：抗疟抵抗力青蒿素

题材文章词数医疗381 难度 ★★★体裁建议用时新闻7 min

难词探意

1. malaria /məɪleəriə/ n. 疟疾

2. parasite /ɪpærəsaɪt/ n. 寄生生物

3. ingredient /ɪnɪɡriːdiənt/ n. 成分；原料

4. standardize /ɪstændədaɪz/ v. 使标准化；使合乎标准

5. antimalarial /æntiːməɪleərɪəl/ adj. 抗疟的

A new study suggests that some homemade soups—made ofchicken， beef or vegetables—might help fightmalaria.

Jake Baum of the Imperial College London led the research. He asked children at a London school to bring in homemade clear soups that their families would make to treat a fever. The children were from many different cultural backgrounds. The soupswerethenexposed totheparasitethat creates 99. 7 percent of malaria cases in Africa， the World Health Organization， WHO， explained.

Of the 56 soups tested， five were more than 50 percent effective in containing the growth of the parasite. Two were as effective as one drug now used to treat malaria. And four soups were more than 50 percent effective atpreventingparasitesfromaging to the point that they could infect mosquitoes that spread the disease.

Baum and his team reported their results recently in the publication Archives of Disease in Childhood. “When we started getting soups that worked—in the lab under very restricted conditions—we were really happy and excited，”Baum said in an email to Agence France Presse.Baum also noted that it was unclear which foods made the soups effective against malaria. “If wewere serious aboutgoing back and finding theingredient， like good scientists， we'd have to do it in a verystandardizedway，” he said.

The soups came from families from different ethnic histories， including Europe， North Africa and the Middle East. They had several main ingredients， including chicken， beef and green vegetables. Baum said the vegetarian soups showed similar results to the soups with meat.Baum said his aim wasin partto show children that scientific research can turn an herbal cure into a man-made medicine. He noted the research of Dr. Tu Youyou of China. In the 1970s， she found that the herb quinhao was an effectiveantimalarialtreatment. The herb has been used in Eastern medicine for two thousand years. Tu's researchled tothe man-made drug artemisinin （青蒿素）， a drug now widely used to treat malaria. She won the Nobel Prize in 2015.

More and more peoplearebecomingresistantto the drugs that treat the disease， which kills about 400，000 people a year. That means scientists will have to “look beyond chemistry”and find new drugs， Baum adds.