1 . Drugs that could save tens of thousands of lives in Britain should be prescribed (开药) to three times as many patients as at present, medical experts recommended after a study showed these drugs have great effects on heart disease and stroke (中风).

British research has shown that statins, a class of drug that lowers cholesterol (胆固醇), can prevent a third of all cases of heart disease or stroke in patients at highest risk. If statins were given to 10 million high-risk patients, they could save at least 50,000 lives a year worldwide. In Britain, where heart disease is the leading cause of death, statins could save up to 10,000 lives a year.

Studies have found that safety issues surrounding statins were so tiny that they were significant. The risk of muscle problems was only about one in ten thousand. Fears that statins could increase deaths from other diseases, such as cancer, were assuaged by the study. At present, only people with high cholesterol are prescribed statins, but the eight-year study found that anyone at risk of heart disease or stroke could benefit. Statins are now given to fewer than one in twenty people aged over 40, mostly men with heart disease or high cholesterol. Under the recommendation, this would increase to one in eight.

A total of 20,000 volunteers aged 40 to 80 took part in the study, which looked at the effects of statins on patients for whom the benefits were uncertain. The guidelines previously said that female patients aged over 65 would not benefit from the drug, but the five years of monitoring all types of patients at high risk of heart attacks and stroke showed that everyone benefited as much from statins. The new recommendations will be easy to put into practice because statins are readily available and the patients who benefit from them most are already known to doctors.

1. What does paragraph 2 focus on?

A．Main diseases in Britain.	B．Side effects caused by statins.
C．Positive effects of statins.	D．The numbers of heart disease cases.

2. What does the underlined word “assuaged” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Eased.

B．Discovered.

C．Ignored.

D．Compared.

3. What does the five years of monitoring concerning statins show?

A．The effects of the drug are unclear.	B．The drug can be widely prescribed.
C．The drug hardly benefits female patients.	D．The drug should be limited in application.

4. What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To call for the monitoring of drug studies.	B．To explain different ways of testing drugs.
C．To seek improvement in the drug research.	D．To spread medical experts’ recommendation.