职称英语(A.B)

6.Once-daily Pill Could Simplify HIV TreatmentBristol-Myers Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have combined many HIV drugs into a single pill Sometimes the best medicine is more than one kind of medicine. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/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 HIV, 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 HIV 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 HIV 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 ofthe new once-daily pill has not beenannounced. 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 HIV7. ExerciseWhether or not exercise adds to thelength of life, it is common experiencethat a certain amount of regular exercise improves the health and contributes a feeling of well-being. Furthermore, exerisewhich involves play and recreation, and relieves nervous tension and mental fatigue in so doing, is not only pleasant but beneficial. How much and what kind of exercise one should take merits careful consideration.Thegrowing child and the normal young man and young woman thrill with the exhilaration of strenuous sports. They fatigue to the point of exhaustion but recover promptly with a period of rest. But not so with those _of middle age and beyond. For them moderation is of vital importance. Just how much exercise a person of a given age can safely take is question hard _to answer. Individual variability is too great to permit of generalization. A game of tennis may be perfectly safe for one person of forty but folly for another. The sage limit for exercise depends on the condition of the heart, the condition of the muscles, the type of exercise, and the regularity with which it is taken. Twogeneral suggestions, however, will serve as sound advice for anyone. The first is that the condition of the heart andgeneral health should be determinedperiodically by careful, thorough physical examinations. The other is that exercise should be kept below the point of physical exhaustion. What type of exercise one should choose _depens upon one’s physical condition. Young people can safely enjoy vigorous competitive sports, but most older persons do better to limit themselves to less strenuous activities. Walking, swimming, skating are among the sports that one can enjoy and safely participate in throughout life. Regularity is important if one is to get the most enjoyment and benefit out of exercise. 8.Old And ActiveOld And ActiveOld And ActiveOld And ActiveIt is well—known that life expectancy is longer in Japan than in most other countries. A recent report also shows that Japan has the longest health expectancy in the world．A healthy long life is the result of improvement in social environment. Scientists are trying to work out exactly what keeps elderly Japanese people so healthy, and whether there is a lesson to be learnt from their lifestyles for the rest of us. Should we make any changes to our eating habits, for instance, or go jogging each day before breakfast? Is there some secret ingredient in the Japanese diet that is particularly beneficial to the human body? Another factor contributing to the rapid population aging in Japan is a decline in birthrate．Although longer life should be celebrated, it is actually considered a social problem．The number of older people had doubled in the last half century and that has increased pension and medical costs．The country could soon be facing an economic problem, if there are so many old people to be looked after and relatively few younger people working and paying taxes to support them．Raising the retirement age from 65 to 70could be one solution to the problem.Work can give the elderly a sense of responsibility and mission in life. It’simportant that the elderly play activeroles in the society and live in harmonywith all generations.9. Hospital MistreatmentAccording to a study, most medical interns report experiencing mistreatment, including humiliation by senior doctors, being threatened, or physical abuse in their first year out of medical school. The findings come from analysis of the responses to a 13-page survey mailed in January 1991 to 1, 733 second-year residents. The survey and analysis appear in the April 15th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Overall, out of the 1,277 residents who completed surveys, 1,185 said that they had experienced at least one incident of mistreatment in their intern year. In addition to reportingincidents where they were abused, more than 45% of the residents said they had witnessed at least one incident where other persons had made false medical records. Moreover, nearly three quarters of the residents said they had witnessed mistreatment of patients by other residents, attending physicians, or nurses. Almost 40% said patient mistreatment was a frequent event. More than 10% of the residents said they were not allowed to have enough sleep, and the average number of hours without _ sleep was 37.6. The average on-call hours during a _ typical week was 56.9 hours, but about 25% of the residents said their on-call assignments were more than 80 hours some weeks. Although 30% of the residents said they experienced some type of sexual harassment or discrimination, verbalabuse was the most common problem cited. When abusive incidents were limited to events occurring three ormore times, 53% of the respondentsreported that they were belittled or humiliated by more senior residents, while just over 21% reported someone taking credit for their work. Being “given tasks for punishment,” “being pushed, kicked or hit,” and having someone “threatening your reputation or career,” were reported as a more frequent occurrence by over 10% of the responding residents.10. The Case of the Disappearing FingerprintsOne useful anti-cancer drug caneffectively erase the whorls and othercharacteristic marks that give peopletheir distinctive fingerprints. Losing__1them__ could become troublesome. Acase released online in a letter by Annals of Oncology indicates how big a __2problem__ of losing fingerprints is. Eng-Huat Tan, a Singapore-based medical doctor describes a 62-year old man who has used capecitabine to __3treat__ his nasopharyngeal cancer. After three years onthe __4_drug_ ，the patient decided to visit U. S. relatives last December. But he was stopped by U. S. customs officials __5_for_ 4 hours after entering the country when those officials couldn't get fingerprints from the man. There were no distinctive swirly __6marks__ appearing from his index finger.U. S. customs has been fingerprintingincoming foreign visitors for years, Tansays. Their index fingers are __7_printed_and screened against digital files of the fingerprints of bad guys— terrorists and potential criminals that our federal guardians have been tasked with keeping out of the country. Unfortunately, for the Singaporean traveler，one potential __8side__ effect of his drug treatment is a smoothing of the tissue on the finger pads. __9Hence__ ，no fingerprints.“It is uncertain when fingerprint loss wil l __10_begin_ to take place in patients wh o are taking capecitabine，” Tan points out. So he cautions any physicians who _ _11_prescribe_ the drug to provide their patients with a doctor’s note pointing o ut that their medicine may cause fingerp rints to disappear.Eventually, the Singapore traveler made i t into the United States. I guess the name on his passport didn’t raise any red flags . But he，s also now got the explanatory doctor’s n ote — and won’t leave home __12withou t__ it.By the way, maybe the Food and Drug Ad ministration, __13_which_ approved use of the drug11 years ago, should consider __14_upda ting_ its list of side effects associated wit h this medicine. The current list does not e that patients may experience vomiting, stomach pain and some other side effect s. But no where __15_does_ it mention th e potential for loss of fingerprints. Migrant WorkersIn the past twenty years, there has been an increasing tendency for workers to move from one country to another, While some newly independent countries have understandably restricted most jobs to local people, others have attracted and welcomed migrant workers. This is particularly the case in Middle East, where increased oil incomes have enabled may countries to call in outsiders to improve local facilities. Thus the Middle East has attracted oil-workers from the U.S.A. and Europe. It has brought in construction workers and technicians from many countries, including South Korea and Japan.In view of the difficult living and working conditions in Middle East,it is not surprising that the pay is high toattract suitable workers. Many engineers and technicians can earn at least twice as much money in the Middle East asthey can in their own country, and this isa major attraction. An allied benefit is the low taxation or complete lack of it.3 This increases the net amount of pay received by visiting workers and is very popular with them.Sometimes a disadvantage has acompensating advantage. For example,the difficult living conditions often lead to increased friendship when workers have to depend on each other for safety and comfort. In a similar way , many migrant workers can save large sums of money partly because of the lack of entertainment facilities. The work is often complex and full of problems but this merely presents greater challenge to engineers who prefer to find solutions to problems rather than do routine work in their home country.One major problem which affectsmigrant workers in the Middle East isthat their jobs are temporary ones. Theyare nearly always on contract, so it is not easy for them to plan ahead with great confidence. This is to be expected since no country welcomes a large number of foreign workers as permanent residents. In any case , migrant workers accept this disadvantage, along with others, because of the considerable financial benefits which they receive.Migrant WorkersIn the past twenty years, there has beenan increasing tendency for workers tomove from one country to another,While some newly independentcountries have understandably restricted most jobs to local people, others have attracted and welcomed migrant workers. This is particularly the case in Middle East, where increased oil incomes have enabled may countries to call in outsiders to improve local facilities. Thus the Middle East has attracted oil-workers from the U.S.A. and Europe. It has brought in construction workers and technicians from manycountries, including South Korea andJapan.In view of the difficult living andworking conditions in Middle East,it isnot surprising that the pay is high to attract suitable workers. Many engineers and technicians can earn at least twice as much money in the Middle East as they can in their own country, and this is a major attraction. An allied benefit is the low taxation or complete lack of it.3 This increases the net amount of pay received by visiting workers and is very popular with them.Sometimes a disadvantage has acompensating advantage. For example, the difficult living conditions often lead to increased friendship when workers have to depend on each other for safety and comfort. In a similar way , many migrant workers can save large sums of money partly because of the lack of entertainment facilities. The work is often complex and full of problems but this merely presents greater challenge to engineers who prefer to find solutions to problems rather than do routine work in their home country.One major problem which affects migrant workers in the Middle East is that their jobs are temporary ones. They are nearly always on contract, so it is not easy for them to plan ahead with great confidence. This is to be expected since no country welcomes a large number of foreign workers as permanent residents. In any case , migrant workers accept this disadvantage, along with others, because of the considerable financial benefits which they receive.DreamsEveryone can dream．Indeed, everyone does dream．Those who claim that they never dream at all actually dream just as frequently as the rest of us,though they may not remember anything about it．Even those of us who are perfectly aware of dreaming nightafter night very seldom remember thosedreams in great detail but merely retainan untidy mixture of seemingly unrelated impressions. Dreams are notsimply visual-we dream with all oursenses , so that we appear to experience sound, touch, smell, and taste．One of the world's oldest known written documents is the Egyptian Book of Dreams．This volume is about five thousand years old, so you can see that dreams were believed to have a special significance even then．Many ancient civilizations believed that you should never wake a sleeping person as, during sleep, the soul had left the body and might not be able to return in time if the sleeper were suddenly awoken.From ancient times to the present day , people have been making attempts to interpret dreams and to explain their significance．There are many books available on the subject of dream interpretation．although unfortunately there are almost as many meanings for a particular dream as there are books．Scientists Develop Ways of Detecting Heart AttackGerman researchers have come up with a new generation of defibrillators and early-warning software aimed at offering heart patients greater protection from sudden death from cardiac arrest.In Germany alone around 100,000people die annually as a result of cardiacarrest and many of these cases are caused by disruption to the heart’s rhythm. Those most at risk are patients who have already suffered a heart attack, and for years the use of defibrillators has proved useful in diagnosing life-threatening disruptions to heart rhythms and correcting them automatically by intervening within seconds. These devices take on a range of functions, such as that of pacemaker.Heart specialists at Freiburg’s U niversityClinic have now achieved a breakthrough with an implanted defibrillator capable of generating a six-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) within the body. This integrated system allows early diagnosis of acute blood-flow problems and a pending heart attack. It will be implanted in patients for the first time this year. Meanwhile, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Mathematics in Kaiserslautern have developed new computer software that renders the evaluation of ECG data more precise .The overwhelming majority of patientsat risk will not have an implanteddefibrillator and must for this reason undergo regular ECGs. “Many of the current programs only take into account a linear correlation of the data. We are, however, making use of a non-linear process that reveals the chaotic patterns of heart beats as an open and complex system,” Hagen Knaf says, “In this way changes in the heart beats over time can be monitored and individual variations in patients taken into account.”An old study of ECG data, based upon 600 patients who had suffered a subsequent heart attack, enabled the researchers to compare risks and to show that the new software evaluates the data considerably better.Life Expectancy in the Last HundredYearsA hundred years ago，life expectancy in developed countries was about 47；in the early 21st century, men in the United States and the United Kingdom can expect to live to about 74. Women to about 80, and these ages are rising all the time. What has brought about these changes? When we look atthe life span of people l00 years ago, we need to look at the greatest killers of the time. In the early 20th century, thesewere the acute and often highlyinfectious diseases such as smallpox. Many children died very young from these diseases and others, and the weak and elderly were always at risk.In the developed world thesediseases are far1ess deadly today, and insome cases have almost disappeared. Anumber of factors have led to this: improvements in sanitation and hygiene, the discovery and use of antibiotics, which make bacterial diseases much less dangerous, and vaccinations against common diseases. In addition, people's general health has improved with improvements in our general environment: cleaner air, better means of preserving food，better and warmer housing，and better understanding of nutrition.Genetically，we should all be able to live to about 85 but while people do live longer today, there are still some big killers around that are preventing us from consistently reaching that age. The problems that affect people today are the more chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and strokes, and those spread by viruses, such as influenza and AIDS. Of course, cancer is a huge killer as well. In most cases these diseases affectolderpeople, but there are worryingtrends in the developed world withproblems such as obesity leading tomore heart disease and illnesses such asdiabetes at younger ages.The killers today can be classed as "lifestyle diseases"，which means that it may be possible to halt their progress. Young Adults Who Exercise GetHigher IQ ScoresYoung adults who are fit have a higher IQ and are more likely to go on to university，reveals a major new study carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academyand Sahlgrenska University Hospital.The results were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).The studyinvolved 1.2 million Swedish men doingmilitary service who were born between1950 and 1976.The research group analysed the results of both physical andIQ tests the youngsters took right afterthey started serving the army.The study shows a clear link between good physical fitness and better results for the IQ test.The strongest links are for logical thinking and verbal comprehension.But it is only fitness that plays a role in the results for the IQ test，and not strength.“Being fit means that you also have good heart and lung capacity and that your brain gets plenty of oxygen，"says Michael Nilsson，professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy and chief physician at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital.“This may be one of the reasons why we can see a clear link with fitness，but not with muscular strength.We are also seeing that there are growth factors that are important.”By analysing data for twins，the researchers have been able to determine that it is primarily environmental factors and not genes that explain the link between fitness and a higher IQ.“We have also shown that those youngsters who improve their physical fitness between the ages of 15 and 18 increase their cognitive performance，”says Mafia Aberg，researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy and physician at Aby health centre.“This being the case ，physical education is a subject that has an important place in schools，and is an absolute must if we want to do well in maths and other theoretical subjects."The researchers have also compared the results from fitness tests during national service with the socio-economic status of the men later in life.Those who were fit at 18 were more likely to go into higher education，and many secured more qualified jobs. Smoking Can Increase Depressive Symptoms in TeensWhile some teenagers may puffon cigarettes to“self-medicate” against the blues，scientists at the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal have found that smoking may actually increase depressive symptoms in some teens.“This observational study is one of the few to examine the perceived emotional benefits of smoking among teens，"says lead researcher Michael Chaiton，a research associate at the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit of the University of Toronto.“ Although cigarettes may appear to have self-medicating effects or to improve mood，in the long term we found that teens who started to smoke reported higher depressive symptoms."As part of the study，some 662 high school teenagers completed up to 20 questionnaires about their use of cigarettes to affect mood.Secondary schools were selected to provide a mix of French and English participants，urban and rural schools，and schools located in high，moderate and low socioeconomic neighbourhoods.Participants were divided into three groups：never smokers;smokers who did not use cigarettes to self-medicate，improve mood or physical state ;smokers who used cigarettes to self-medicate.Depressive symptoms were measured using a scale that asked how often participants felt too tired to do things;hadtrouble going to sleep or staying asleep;felt unhappy，sad，or depressed;felt hopeless about the future;felt vexed，antsy or tense;and worried too much about things."Smokers who used cigarettes as mood improvers had higher risks of elevated depressive symptoms than teens who had never smoked，"says co-researcher Jennifer O’Loughlin，a professor at the University of Montreal Department of Social and Preventive Medicine.“Our study found that teen smokers who reported emotional benefits from smoking are at higher risk of developing depressive symptoms.”The association between depression and smoking exists principally among teens that use cigarettes to feel better.“It’s important to emphasize that depressive symptom scores were higher among teenagers who reported emotional benefits from smoking after they began to sm oke,” says Dr.Chaiton.。