寿司寄生虫数量正在悄然上升

研究表明，寿司寄生虫数量正在悄然上升

A lot of sashimi bites back.

很多生鱼片会反咬一口。

“Sushi parasites” have been increasing exponentially over the past half-century, according to findings published Thursday in the journal Global Change Biology.

根据周四发表在《全球变化生物学》杂志上的研究结果，“寿司寄生虫”在过去半个世纪里呈指数级增长。

Led by the University of Washington researchers, the study — called “It’s a Wormy World” — found a dramatic increase in the number of worms transmittable to humans who consume raw or undercooked seafood.

由华盛顿大学的研究人员领导的这项名为“这是一个有虫的世界”的研究发现，食用生的或未煮熟的海产品的人可感染的蠕虫数量急剧增加。

Using findings from previous studies, the authors concluded that seafood lovers today have a much higher likelihood of biting into a parasite than their 1970s cohorts did. Scientists are not sure why, but there’s been a 283-fold spike in the amount of Anisakis, or herring worms, in raw fish between 1967 and 2017.

根据以前的研究结果，作者得出结论，今天的海鲜爱好者比他们70年代的同伴更有可能咬到寄生虫。科学家尚不清楚原因，但在1967年至2017年间，生鱼中鲱鱼虫的数量增加了283倍。

Humans may interpret the nausea, vomiting and diarrhea they experience after eating the worms to be food poisoning, but these symptoms are in fact caused by the parasite invading the intestinal wall. The worms cannot live or reproduce for longer than a few days within a human intestine (although they can persist in marine mammals). Symptoms let up once they have died.

人类可能会将食用蠕虫后的恶心、呕吐和腹泻解释为食物中毒，但这些症状实际上是寄生虫侵入肠壁所致。这种蠕虫在人类肠道内的生存或繁殖时间不能超过几天(尽管它们在海洋哺乳动物中可以存活)。一旦他们死了症状就会缓解。

Industry experts have been good at removing worms from food before it is made available for consumption — but with the worms’ numbers growing, it’s becoming more difficult.

行业专家一直擅长于在食用前将蠕虫从食物中清除，但随着蠕虫数量的增长，变得越来越困难。

While gross, the worms do not pose much of a health risk to humans — but they do to other animals.

这些蠕虫虽然很恶心，但对人类健康危害不大，不过会对其他动物构成威胁。

“One of the important implications of this study is that now we know there is this massive, rising health risk to marine mammals,” said Wood. “It’s not often considered that parasites might be the reason that some marine mammal populations are failing to bounce back. I hope this study encourages people to look at intestinal parasites as a potential cap on the population growth of endangered and threatened marine mammals.”

伍德说：“这项研究的一个重要意义是，我们现在知道，海洋哺乳动物面临着巨大的、不断上升的健康风险。”。“人们通常不认为寄生虫可能是一些海洋哺乳动物种群无法反弹的原因。我希望这项研究能鼓励人们将肠道寄生虫视为濒危，和受威胁海洋哺乳动物种群增长的潜在上限。”