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你的体内有哪些毒素?

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（本文为时报专栏文章，作者是纪思道。）

Our bodies are full of poisons from products we use every day. I know – I’ve had my urine tested for them. But before I get into all that, let’s do a quick check for poisons that might be in your body.

我们体内充满了每天使用的产品带来的毒素。这我知道——我已经为此做了尿检。但在说这件事之前，让我们快速检查一下可能存在于你体内的毒素。

Choose all the products you have been exposed to in the past month

选择过去一个月内你曾接触过的所有产品

Here are 12 chemicals found in these everyday products

这些日常产品中含有以下12种化学物质

Surprised? So was I when I had my urine tested for these chemicals. (A urine or blood test is needed to confirm whether you have been exposed.)

惊讶吗？当我在尿检中发现这些化学物质时也是如此。（需要尿检或验血以确认你是否接触了这些化学物质。）

Let me stress that mine should have been clean.

让我强调一下，我的检测结果本该是干干净净的。

Almost a decade ago, I was shaken by my reporting on a class of toxic chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are linked to cancer and obesity and also seemed to feminize males, so that male alligators developed stunted genitalia and male smallmouth bass produced eggs.

大约十年前，我报道了一种名为内分泌干扰素的有毒化学物质，感到震惊不已。它们与癌症和肥胖有关，而且似乎会使男性出现女性化特征——它们令雄性短吻鳄发育出显著的外阴，令雄性小嘴鲈产卵。

In humans, endocrine disruptors were linked to two-headed sperm and declining sperm counts. They also were blamed for an increase in undescended testicles and in a birth defect called hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the side or base of the penis rather than the tip.

在人类中，内分泌干扰素会导致男性产生双头精子，并使精子数量下降。它们还被认为会增加隐睾和一种叫做尿道下裂的先天缺陷，后者指尿道开口出现在侧面或冠状沟位置，而不是顶端。

Believe me, the scariest horror stories are found in urology journals. If you’re a man, you don’t wring your hands as you read; you clutch your crotch.

相信我，泌尿学期刊中可以找到最可怕的恐怖故事。如果你是一个男人，你在阅读它们的时候不会绞拧双手；而是会紧紧握住裆部。

So I’ve tried for years now to limit my exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Following the advice of the President’s Cancer Panel, I eat organic to reduce exposure to endocrine disruptors in pesticides. I try to store leftover meals in glass containers, not plastic. I avoid handling A.T.M. and gas station receipts. I try to avoid flame-retardant furniture.

所以多年来，我尝试减少接触干扰内分泌的化学物质。根据总统癌症小组(President’s Cancer Panel)的建议，我吃有机食品，以减少接触农药中的内分泌干扰素。我将剩余的餐食储存在玻璃容器中，而不是塑料容器。我不去碰ATM和加油站的收据。我尽量避免使用阻燃家具。

Those are all common sources of toxic endocrine disruptors, so I figured that my urine would test pristine. Pure as a mountain creek.

上述这些都是有毒的内分泌干扰素的常见来源，所以我认为我的尿检结果会绝对干净。纯净如山溪。

Silent Spring Institute near Boston, which studies chemical safety, offers a “Detox Me Action Kit” to help consumers determine what harmful substances are in their bodies. Following instructions, I froze two urine samples (warning my wife and kids that day to be careful what food they grabbed from the freezer) and Fed-Exed them off for analysis.

波士顿附近研究化学品安全性的寂静泉研究所(Silent Spring Institute)提供“为我排毒行动工具包“，帮助消费者确定他们体内有哪些有害物质。我按照指示，冷冻了两份尿样（当天我警告妻子和孩子们从冰箱里拿食物时要留心），然后用联邦快递把它们寄去化验。

By the way, the testing is for women, too. Men may wince as they read about miniaturized alligator penises, but endocrine disruptors have also been linked to breast cancer and gynecological cancers. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warns women that endocrine disruptors can also cause miscarriages, fetal defects and much more.

顺便说一下，女性也可以测试。男性读到关于短吻鳄缩小的文章时，可能会皱起眉头，但内分泌干扰素也同乳腺癌和妇科癌症有关。美国妇产科医师学会(American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)警告女性，内分泌干扰素会导致流产和胎儿畸形等问题。

As I waited for the lab results, I continued to follow the latest research. One researcher sent a bizarre video of a mouse exposed to a common endocrine disruptor doing back flips nonstop, as a kind of nervous tic.

在等待实验结果时，我继续关注最新研究。一名研究员发布了一段奇怪的视频，在视频中，一只经常接触一种常见内分泌干扰素的老鼠不停地做后空翻，这是一种神经抽搐。

Finally, I heard back from Silent Spring Institute. I figured this was a report card I had aced. I avoid all that harmful stuff. In my columns, I had advised readers how to avoid it.

最后，我得到了寂静泉研究所的回音。我对自己的报告单满怀信心。我避开了所有那些有害物品。我曾在自己的专栏中建议读者如何避开它们。

Sure enough, I had a low level of BPA, best known because plastic bottles now often boast “BPA Free.”

毫无疑问，我体内的BPA含量很低。BPA最为公众所知，因为现在有很多塑料瓶自吹“不含BPA”。

But even a diligent student like me failed the test. Badly. I had high levels of a BPA substitute called BPF. Ruthann Rudel, a toxicologist who is the head of research at Silent Spring, explained that companies were switching to BPF even though it may actually be yet more harmful (it takes longer for the body to break it down). BPF is similar to that substance that made those mice do back flips.

但即使像我这样勤奋的学生也没有通过那项测试。而且还差得很远。我的BPF含量很高，它是BPA的一种替代品。寂静泉的研究主任、毒理学家露丝安妮·鲁德尔(Ruthann Rudel)表示，很多公司正在改用BPF，尽管它实际上可能更有害（身体需要更长的时间才能将它分解）。BPF与那些导致老鼠做后空翻的物质类似。

“These types of regrettable substitutions — when companies remove a chemical that has a widely known bad reputation and substitute a little-known bad actor in its place — are all too common,” Rudel told me. “Sometimes we environmental scientists think we are playing a big game of whack-a-mole with the chemical companies.”

“这些令人遗憾的替代品太常见了。很多公司在移除一种恶名远播的化学物质时，往往会用另一种鲜为人知的有害物质来取代它，“鲁德尔对我说。“有时，我们这些环境科学家觉得自己在与化学公司玩一场大型打地鼠游戏。”

Sigh. I thought I was being virtuous by avoiding plastics with BPA, but I may have been causing my body even more damage.

哎呀……我自以为是地觉得自己避开了含有BPA的塑料制品，但我可能给自己的身体造成了更大的伤害。

My urine had an average level of an endocrine disruptor called triclosan, possibly from soap or toothpaste. Like most people, I also had chlorinated phenols (perhaps from mothballs in my closet).

我的尿液中还含有一种名为三氯生的内分泌干扰素，它的含量属于平均水平，有可能来自肥皂或牙膏。和大多数人一样，我的尿液中也含有含氯苯酚（可能来自我壁橱里的樟脑球）。

I had a high level of a flame retardant called triphenyl phosphate, possibly from a floor finish, which may be “neurotoxic.” Hmm. Whenever you see flaws in my columns, that’s just my neurotoxins at work.

我的尿液中还有一种名为三苯基磷酸盐的阻燃剂，其含量属于高水平，它可能来自地板的末道漆，它可能“毒害神经“。嗯。每当你看到我的专栏里有错误，那就是我身体里的神经毒素在起作用。

Will these endocrine disruptors give me cancer? Make me obese? Make my genitals fall off? Nobody really knows. At least I haven’t started doing random back flips yet.

这些内分泌干扰素会导致我患上癌症吗？会让我超重吗？会导致我的生殖器脱落吗？没有人确切知道。至少我还没有开始不由自主地做后空翻。

The steps I took did help, and I recommend that others consult consumer guides at ewg.org to reduce their exposures to toxic chemicals. Likewise, if I had downloaded the Detox Me smartphone app, I would have known to get rid of those mothballs, along with air fresheners and scented candles. (Science lesson: A less fragrant house means cleaner pee.)

我采取的那些措施确实有帮助，我建议其他人在ewg.org网站上查阅消费者指南，减少接触有毒化学物品的风险。同样地，如果我早些下载Detox Me智能手机应用程序的话，我就会丢掉那些樟脑球，以及空气清新剂和香氛蜡烛（科学经验：不那么香的房子能让你尿出更干净的尿）。

Yet my takeaway is also that chemical industry lobbyists have rigged the system so that we consumers just can’t protect ourselves adequately.

不过，我的结论是，化学工业的说客们操纵了这个体系，让我们消费者无法充分保护自己。

“You should not have to be a Ph.D toxicologist to be safe from so many of the chemicals in use,” Dr. Richard Jackson of U.C.L.A. told me. “So much of what we are exposed to is poorly tested and even less regulated.”

“就算是毒理学博士也无法保证彻底安全，因为我们使用的化学物品太多了，“加州大学洛杉矶分校(UCLA)的理查德·杰克逊博士(Richard Jackson)在接受采访时说，“我们接触的很多产品都没有经过严格测验，。”

The Trump administration has magnified the problem by relaxing regulation of substances like chlorpyrifos, Dow Chemical’s nerve gas pesticide. The swamp has won.

特朗普政府放松了对陶氏化学(Dow Chemical)的神经毒气杀虫剂“毒死蜱“(chlorpyrifos)等物质的管制，更令这个问题雪上加霜。华盛顿的沼泽获胜了。

So the saddest lesson is that even if you understand the peril and try to protect yourself and your family — as I strongly suggest you do — your body may still be tainted. The chemical companies spend tens of millions of dollars lobbying and have gotten the lightest regulation that money can buy.

因此，最悲哀的教训是，即使你了解这种危险，试图保护自己和家人——正如我强烈建议的那样——但你的身体依然可能受到污染。化学公司花费数千万美元进行游说，。

They are running the show, and we consumers are their lab mice.

它们在主导这个游戏，我们消费者是它们的实验室小白鼠。

作者：纪思道

翻译：王相宜、晋其角

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