科学美国人60秒:Choir Practice Could Lower Stress in Cancer Patients

This isn't your typical choir practice. And it’s not held in a traditional practice space. These singers are all dealing with cancer, theirs or a loved one’s. "There are people in our choirs who are undergoing treatment right now. There are some people who are waiting for treatment." Rosie Dow leads the choir groups at Tenovus Cancer Care, in the U.K. "We do have some terminally ill patients as well in our choirs, so people in palliative care. And then we also have people who've lost people to cancer. So carers and supporters."
这不是一般的合唱练习。也不是在传统的练习场所。这些“歌手们”都在与癌症做斗争或者是家人患有癌症。“我们合唱队有一些人正在接受治疗。还有一些人在等待接受治疗。”罗西·涛是英国Tenovus癌症治疗中心合唱队的负责人。“我们合唱队里有一些癌症晚期的患者，还有一些人在接受保守治疗。此外，有一些成员的家人因为癌症去世。所以，他们可以说是护理人员和支持者们。”

Anecdotally, chorus members have said that belting out tunes makes them feel good. But Dow and her colleagues wanted to see if that psychological effect might translate to a biological effect. So they selected five choir groups in Wales—with a total of 193 singers—and took saliva samples both before and after an hour of singing. They found that singers had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol after the session than they’d had prior to choir. Along with an increase in proteins called cytokines—which the researchers say might suggest a boost in immune activity. The results are in the journal eCancer Medical Science.
令人感到奇怪的是，合唱成员曾经说过唱歌让他们感觉良好。所以，涛和同事们想要探究是否心理效应会转化成为生理效应。他们在193名合唱成员中挑选了5位成员，并在唱歌前和唱歌后分别抽取了其唾液样本。研究发现，这5位成员的应激激素皮质醇含量在唱歌之后，显著降低。同时一种称为细胞因子的蛋白质含量升高，对此研究人员称这可能表明免疫活动可能增强。该研究结果发表在eCancer Medical Science上。

It's still not clear whether those biochemical changes translate to any better outcome for patients. And choir practice is in addition to—not instead of—conventional treatments. "Of course we wouldn't recommend it as an alternative to chemotherapy or radiotherapy or surgery or any of the other conventional cancer treatments, but in terms of people's mental health, this might be a good complement to the treatment that they're having."
这些生化变化是否对病人有益，尚不清楚。此外，合唱训练也不能代替传统的治疗。“当然，我们也不建议用这种方法代替化疗、放疗、手术或其他治疗癌症的传统方法。但是在人们的心理健康方面，这种方法会对病人现有疗法的疗效有积极的补充作用”

Next up, the researchers will conduct a follow-up study at the U.K.'s biggest cancer center to see if these biological changes hold up over the long term. After all, singing is certainly a cheap treatment. And it does no harm, either…as long as you don't wail too hard.
接下来，研究人员们将会对英国最大的一家癌症治疗中心进行跟踪调查研究，以观察这些生物学上的变化带来的积极效应是否能够持续较长时间。毕竟，唱歌可是一种便宜很多的治疗方案。当然只要你不要那么十分用力的嚎叫，自然没有其它伤害。