Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that"Earth laughs in flowers" Well, you know what?
拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生写道：“大地在花丛中欢笑。”你知道吗？
I don't think it's funny. If you're like me, the coming of spring signals one thing: allergies.
我觉得一点都不好笑。如果你像我一样，春天的到来就意味着一件事：过敏。
I mean seriously, how much crud can my head really hold? It's like Hermione's purse up in there.
我的意思是，说真的，我的脑袋能装多少脏东西？就像赫敏的钱包在里面。
Of course it's not really fair to blame flowers for most seasonal allergies. While most plants do keep their pollen-covered private parts right out there in the open, flower pollen is usually too heavy to go airborne, instead they get bees and other pollinators to help them do the fertilization deed.
当然，把大多数季节性过敏归咎于鲜花是不公平的。虽然大多数植物它们裹着花粉的中心部位都裸露在外面，但花粉太重，不能在空气中传播，它们会让蜜蜂和其他传粉者帮助它们完成受精。
It's mainly trees and grasses that let their genetic material loose on the wind, and they don't mess around. I mean really? !
主要是树和草让它们的遗传物质随风飘散，它们不会乱跑。我是说真的吗？！
Is that necessary? If one tree needs that much pollen to reproduce, maybe evolution is trying to tell you something.
有必要吗？如果一棵树需要那么多花粉来繁殖，也许进化论是想告诉你一些事情。
That's all I'm saying. Maybe this was a mistake… By my immune system!
这就是我想说的。也许这就是错误....由我的免疫系统引起的！
Allergic reactions are the result of our immune system going haywire, and doing battle with completely and totally harmless stuff like pollen, dust, or pet dander, because it clearly has nothing better to do. Your body enlists several types of antibodies in its immune army.
过敏反应是免疫系统紊乱的结果，就是与花粉、灰尘或宠物皮屑等完全无害的物质作斗争，因为它显然没别的事可做。你的身体把几种抗体招募进了免疫大军中。
Most are sent out to fight different invaders like viruses and bacteria, but this one, IgE, seems to have just one purpose: making us miserable a few times a year… I mean mediating our body's response o allergens. When we are first exposed to an allergen, we don't have much of a reaction… on the outside.
大多数人被派出去与病毒和细菌等不同的入侵者作斗争，但这一种，IgE，似乎只有一个目的：让我们一年痛苦几次……我的意思是调节我们身体以对过敏原做出反应。当我们第一次接触过敏原时，我们没有太多的反应……在身体外部是这样。
But inside our bodies, it's different. A special cell in our immune system vacuums up foreign antigens and presents them to other cells, like"Hey, check this out, this doesn't belong here".
但在我们体内，那就不一样了。我们免疫系统中的一个特殊细胞清扫出外来抗原，并将其呈现给其他细胞，比如“嘿，看看这个，这个不是这里的”。
Mr. T cell sniffs it out, and says, "I pity the fool who try and invade my mucous membrane", sending out a chemical signal that turns on our B cell antibody factories which pump out IgE proteins that bind specifically to the pollen, cat hair, bee venom, whatever. The IgEs latch on to these mast cells, where they wait quietly for the NEXT time the allergen shows up, and when that happens, BAM, the mast cells start pumping out a chemical called histamine.
T细胞先生嗅出它的气味，说，“我很同情这个试图侵入我粘膜的蠢货”，并发出一个化学信号，启动我们的B细胞抗体工厂，这个工厂将针对花粉、猫毛、蜂毒等的产生大量免疫球蛋白。IGE附着在这些肥大细胞，它们在那安静地等待下一次过敏原出现，当这发生时，砰的一声，肥大细胞开始分泌一种叫做组胺的化学物质。
You might know it from all the anti-histamines you take to beg it, at any cost, to please stop doing its histamine thing. Histamine causes blood vessels in your nose to dilate and become leaky, it stimulates nerves to make you sneeze, and even increases inflammation, giving you that nice red-nosed look to set off those bloodshot eyes.
你可能从你服用的所有抗组胺药中知道它，不惜任何代价，乞求它不要再做组胺的事情。组胺会使你鼻子里的血管扩张然后流鼻涕，它会刺激你的神经让你打喷嚏，甚至加剧炎症，给你一个漂亮的红鼻子来衬托那些充血的眼睛。
What's weird is that in developed countries, allergies seem to be getting more common. In the US, food allergies in children have increased by 50% since 1997, and environmental allergies are estimated to affect up to one in three people at any time.
奇怪的是，在发达国家，过敏似乎越来越普遍。在美国，儿童的食物过敏自1997年以来增加了50%，且估计环境过敏随时都会影响到三分之一的人。
So, what gives? Allergies do seem to have a genetic basis.
所以，谁造成的呢？过敏似乎确实有遗传基础。
Parents with allergies are more likely to have children with allergies, although they're not necessarily to the same thing, but identical twins are likely to share specific allergies. Many scientists think that perhaps we're living too clean, that our hygienic lifestyle doesn't train our immune systems correctly from a young age.
有过敏症的父母更有可能生有过敏症的孩子，尽管他们不一定对同一种东西过敏，但同卵双胞胎可能会有特定的过敏症。许多科学家认为，也许我们生活得太干净了，我们的卫生生活方式不能从很小的时候正确地训练我们的免疫系统。
Many allergies and autoimmune diseases are less common in the developing world, and as nations get richer, they get more allergic. Maybe playing in the mud a bit more could keep us from sneezing later in life.
许多过敏症和自身免疫性疾病在发展中国家并不常见，而且随着国家变得富裕，人们会变得更加过敏。也许在泥里多玩一点可以防止我们以后打喷嚏。
Some researchers have found that increasing exposure to an antigen over time, usually in drops placed under the tongue, can desensitize the body from reacting. And in 2013, Johns Hopkins researchers pinpointed a pathway involving the protein TGF-beta as a possible culprit for this whole sneezy mess.
一些研究人员发现，随着时间的推移，接触抗原的次数增多（通常是在舌下滴入的液滴中），会使身体失去反应力。而在2013年，约翰霍普金斯大学的研究人员发现了一种涉及TGFβ蛋白的途径，这可能是导致整个喷嚏混乱的罪魁祸首。
Our microbiome might have something to do with it too. A small study done by the BBC found fewer species of bacteria living on folks with allergies than without, and researchers have seen that when other parts of the immune system were exposed to and fought off bacteria, it silenced the part of the immune system that activates IgE.
这也可能跟我们的微生物群有关。英国广播公司的一项小型研究发现，过敏人群身上的细菌种类比不过敏人群少，研究人员发现，当免疫系统的其他部分暴露在细菌中并与之抗争时，这个过程抑制住了免疫系统激活免疫球蛋白E的部分。
In another study, mice given certain bacteria were cured of a peanut allergy. It's likely that, like most things in medicine, allergies are likely due to more than one cause, our hygiene, our environment, even our changing lifestyles.
在另一项研究中，给小鼠特定细菌可以治愈它们的花生过敏。像医学上的大多数东西一样，过敏很可能是由多种原因引起的，包括我们的卫生、环境，甚至是我们不断变化的生活方式。
But one thing's for sure. It's not fun.
但有一点可以确定。这一点也不好笑。
Stay curious.
保持好奇心
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