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2009年卫生新书 (蓝色标题为09年新增文章)
第六部分 完形填空
第一篇
Better Control of TB Seen If a Faster Cure is Found (C级)
The World Health Organization1 estimates that about one-third of all people are infected with bacteria that cause tuberculosis . Most times, the infection remains inactive. But each year about eight million people develop active cases of TB, usually in their lungs . Two million people die of it. The disease has increased with the spread of AIDS and drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis.
Current treatments take at least six months. Patients have to take a combination of several antibiotic drugs daily. But many people stop as soon as they feel better. Doing that can lead to an infection that resists treatment. Public health experts agree that a faster-acting cure for tuberculosis would be more effective. Now a study estimates just how effective it might be. A professor of international health at Harvard University2 led the study. Joshua Salomon says a shorter treatment program would likely mean not just more patients cured. It would also mean fewer infectious patients who can pass on their infection to others.
The researchers developed a mathematical model to examine the effects of a two-month treatment plan. They tested the model with current TB conditions in Southeast Asia. The scientists found that a two-month treatment could prevent about twenty percent of new cases. And it might prevent about twenty-five percent of TB deaths. The model shows that these reductions would take place between two thousand twelve and two thousand thirty. That is, if a faster cure is developed and in wide use by two thousand twelve.
The World Health Organization developed the DOTS3 program in nineteen ninety. DOTS is Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course. Health workers watch tuberculosis patients take their daily pills to make sure they continue treatment.
Earlier this year, an international partnership of organizations announced a plan to expand the DOTS program. The ten-year plan also aims to finance research into new TB drugs. The four most common drugs used now are more than forty years old. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development4 says its long-term goal is a treatment that could work in as few as ten doses.
第二篇：
Exercise Cuts Cancer Deaths in Men(C级)
Men who exercise often are less likely to die from cancer than those who don’t , new research published in the British Journal of Cancer revealed yesterday.
A team of scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden looked at the effect of physical activity and cancer risk in 40, 708 men aged between 45 and 79.
The seven-year study found that men who walked or cycled for at least 30 minutes a day had an 34 per cent lower risk of dying from cancer than the men who did less exercise or nothing at all. During the period studied, 3,714 men developed cancer and 1,153 died from the disease. The researchers suggest that half an hour’s walking or cycling a day increased survival among these men by 33 per cent.
The researchers surveyed men from two counties in central Sweden about their lifestyle and the amount of physical activity they were usually doing. They then scored these responses and compared the results with data on cancer diagnosis and death officially recorded in a central cancer registry over a seven-year period.
Lead author, Professor Alicja Wolk, said: “These results clearly show for the first time the effect that very simple and basic daily exercise such as walking or cycling has in reducing cancer death risk in middle-aged and elderly men”.
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: “This study gives us a clear indication that men who exercise are less likely to die from cancer, and that they are more likely to survive the disease if they get it. It’s not entirely clear from this study what role exercise plays in preys in preventing cancer in men, but we do know that a healthy lifestyle can prevent up to half of all cancers ——and regular exercise forms a key part of this.”
第三篇：
One Good Reason to Let Smallpoxn [医]天花 Live(C级)
理工第三篇
It’s now affair bet that we will never see the total extinction消失, 消灭 of the smallpox virusn.[微]病毒. The idea was to cap the glorious achievement of 1980, when smallpox was eradicated in the wild, by destroying the killer virus in the last two labs the are supposed to have it—one in the US and one in Russia. If smallpox had truly gone from the planet, what point was there in keeping these reserves?
In reality, of course, it was naive天真的 to imagine that everyone would let go of such a potent有力的, 有效的 potential潜在的 weapon.1 Undoubtedly无庸置疑地, 的确地 several nations still have a few vials. And the last “official” stocks of live virus bred繁殖, 教养, 抚养 mistrust 不信任, 猜疑of the US and Russia,2 for no obvious gain.
Now American researchers have found an animal model of the human disease, opening the way for tests on new treatments and vaccines. So once again there’s a good reason to keep the virus—just in case the disease puts in a reappearance.
How do we deal with the mistrust of the US and Russia? Simple. Keep the virus under international auspices由...主办及赞助 in a well-guarded UN laboratory that’s open to all countries. The US will object, of course, just at it rejects a multilateral approach to just about everything. But it doesn’t mean the idea is wrong. If the virus is useful, then let’s make it the servant of all humanity—not just a part of it.
第四篇:
Diet饮食；食物, Alcohol Linked to Nearly One Third of Cancers(C级)
Diet is second only to tobacco as a leading cause of cancer and, along with alcohol, 连同...一起, 随同...一起 is responsible for nearly one third of cases of the disease in developed countries, a leading researcher said on Tuesday.
Dr. Tim Key, of the University of Oxford, told a cancer conference that scientists are still discovering how certain foods contribute to出力， 做出贡献 cancer , but they know that diet, alcohol and obesity肥胖, 肥大 play a major role.
“Five percent of cancers could be avoided if nobody was obese, 肥胖的; 肥大的” he said.
While tobacco is linked to about 30 percent of cancer cases, diet is involved in an estimated 25 percent and alcohol in about six percent.
Obesity raises举起,加薪,增加 the risk of breast, womb子宫, 发源地, bowel and kidney cancer, while alcohol is known to cause cancers of the mouth, throat and liver. Its dangerous impact is increased when combined with smoking.
Key told the meeting of the charity慈善, 施舍, 慈善团体 Cancer Research UK that other elements of diet linked to cancer are still unknown but scientists are hoping that the EPIC study, which is comparing the diets of 500,000 people in 10 countries and their risk of cancer, will provide 供应, 供给, 准备, 预防, 规定some answers .
Early results of the study have revealed显示,透露 that Norway, Sweden and Denmark have the lowest consumption消费, 消费量 of fruit and vegetables among European countries while Italy and Spain have the highest. Eating at least five portions一部分, 一分 of fruit and vegetables a day is recommended to reduce the risk of cancer.
Key, principal scientist on the EPIC study, said it is looking at dietary links to some of the most common cancers including colorectal[解]结肠直肠的, breast 乳房,and prostate前列腺的.
第五篇：
Men Too May Suffer from Domestic Violence(C级)
Nearly three in 10 men have experienced violence at the hands of an intimate partner during their lifetimes, according to one of the few studies to look at domestic violence and health among men.
“Many men actually do experience domestic violence, although we don’t hear about it often,” Dr. Robert J. Reid of the University of Washington in Seattle, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health. “They often don’t tell and we don’t ask. We want to get the message out to men who do experience domestic violence that they are not alone and there are resources available to them.”
The researchers asked study participants about physical abuse and non-physical abuse, such as threats that made them fear for their safety, controlling behavior (for example, being told who they could associate with and where they could go), and constant name-calling.
Among men 18 to 54 years old, 14.2 percent said they had experienced intimate partner violence in the past five years, while 6.1 percent reported domestic violence in the previous year.
Rates were lower for men 55 and older, with 5.3 percent reporting violence in the past five years and 2.4 percent having experienced it in the past 12 months.
Overall, 30.5 percent of men younger than 55 and 2626.5 percent of older men said they had been victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. About half of the violence the men experienced was physical.
However, the physical violence men reported wasn’t as harsh as that suffered by women in a previous study; 20 percent to 40 percent of the men rated it as severe, compared to 61 percent of women .
Men who reported experiencing domestic violence had more emotional and mental health problems than those who had not, especially older men, the researchers found.
第六篇
Once-daily pill could simplify HIV1 Treatment(B级)
Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have combined many H.I.V. drugs into a single pill Sometimes the best medicine is more than one kind of medicine. Malaria, tuberculosis and H.I.V./AIDS,2 for example, are all treated with combinations of drugs. But that can mean a lot of pills to take. It would be simpler if drug companies combined all the medicines into a single pill, taken just once a day.
Now, two companies say they have done that for people just starting treatment for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The companies are Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences. They have developed a single pill that combines three drugs currently on the market.3 Bristol-Myers Squibb sells one of them under the name of Sustiva.4 Gilead combined the others, Emtriva and Viread, into a single pill in two thousand four.
Combining drugs involves more than technical issues. It also involves issues of competition if the drugs are made by different companies. The new once-daily pill is the result of what is described as the first joint venture agreement of its kind in the treatment of H.I.V.
In January the New England Journal of Medicine5 published a study of the new pill. Researchers compared its effectiveness to6 that of the widely used combination of Sustiva and Combivir. Combivir contains two drugs, AZT7 and 3TC.8 The researchers say that after one year of treatment, the new pill suppressed H.I.V. levels in more patients and with fewer side effects.9 Gilead paid for the study. Professor Joel Gallant at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, led the research. He is a paid adviser to Gilead and Bristol-Meyers Squibb as well as the maker of Combivir, GlaxoSmithKline.
Glaxo Smith Kline reacted to the findings by saying that a single study is of limited value. It says the effectiveness of Combivir has been shown in each of more than fifty studies.
The price of the new once-daily pill has not been announced. But Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb say they will provide it at reduced cost to developing countries. They plan in the next few months to ask the United States Food and Drug Administration10 to approve the new pill.
There are limits to who could take it because of the different drugs it contains. For example, pregnant women are told not to take Sustiva because of the risk of birth disorders.11 Experts say more than forty million people around the world are living with H.I.V.
第七篇：
Happy Marriage, Happy Heart (B级)
Happily married people have lower blood pressure than unhappily married people or singles, a Brigham Young University study says.
On the other hand, even having a supportive social network did not translate into a blood pressure benefit for singles or unhappily married people, according to the study.
“There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage. It’s not just being married that benefits health – what’s really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage,” study author Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist who specializes in relationships and health, said in a prepared statement.
The study included 204 married and 99 single adults who wore portable-pressure monitors for 24 hours. The monitors recorded blood pressure at random intervals and provided a total of about 72 readings.
“We wanted to capture participants’ blood pressure dong whatever they normally do in everyday life. Getting one or two readings in a clinic is not really representative of the fluctuations that occur throughout the day,” Holt-Lunstad said.
Overall, happily married people scored four points lower on the blood pressure readings than single adults. The study also found that blood pressure among married people-especially those in happy marriages - dropped more during sleep than in single people.
“Research has shown that people whose blood pressure remains high throughout the night are at much greater risk of heart disease than people whose blood pressure drops,” Holt-Lunstad said.
The study was published in the March 20 issue of the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
The study also found that unhappily married adults have higher blood pressure than both happily married and single adults.
Holt-Lunstad noted that married couples can encourage healthy habits in one another , such as eating a healthy diet and having regular doctor visits. People in happy marriages also have a source of emotional support, she said.
第八篇：
Charter Schools1(B级)
American public education has changed in recent years. One change is that increasing numbers of American parents and teachers are starting independent public schools called charter schools.