1 . Optimism May Help People Live Longer
People who have an optimistic view on life are more likely to live longer, a US study said Wednesday.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, analyzed data from 2004 to 2012 from 70,000 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study, a long-running US study tracking women’s health via surveys every two years.
The researchers looked at participants’ levels of optimism and other factors that might play a role in how optimism may affect mortality risk, such as race, high blood pressure, diet, and physical activity.
It found the most optimistic women, or the top 25%, had a nearly 30 percent lower risk of dying from any of the diseases analyzed in the study compared with the least optimistic women, or the bottom 25%.
The most optimistic women had a 16 percent lower risk of dying from cancer; 38 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease; 39 percent lower risk of dying from stroke; 38 percent lower risk of dying from respiratory disease; and 52 percent lower risk of dying from infection.
Previous studies have linked optimism with reduced risk of early death from cardiovascular (心脑血管的) problems, but this was the first to find a link between optimism and reduced risk from other major causes.
“While most medical and public health efforts today focus on reducing risk factors for diseases, evidence has been mounting that enhancing psychological resilience (弹性，复原力) may also make a difference,” said Eric Kim, research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-lead author of the study.
“Our new findings suggest that we should make efforts to boost optimism, which has been shown to be associated with healthier behaviors and healthier ways of coping with life challenges.”
The study also found that healthy behaviors only partially explain the link between optimism and reduced mortality risk. One other possibility is that higher optimism directly affects our biological systems, Kim said.
Co-lead author and postdoctoral research fellow Kaitlin Hagan said optimism can be varied with relatively uncomplicated and low-cost interventions (干预), even things as simple as having people write down and think about the best possible outcomes for various areas of their lives, such as careers or friendships.
“Encouraging use of these interventions could be an innovative way to enhance health in the future,” Hagan said.
1. According to the recent study, optimism can ________.| A．help women live longer than men |
| B．enable people to stay healthy |
| C．cure people of high blood pressure |
| D．make woman stay young and nice |
| A．took the risk of dying from infection |
| B．were less likely to die from some disease |
| C．had a 39% lower risk of suffering from cancer |
| D．were less likely to suffer from low emotions |
| A．increasing | B．appearing |
| C．doubling | D．showing |
| A．simple but high-cost interventions should be tried out |
| B．higher optimism indirectly influences our body |
| C．optimism should be encouraged and developed |
| D．optimism can help people meet all kinds of challenges |
2 . For as long as we’ve known about it, humans have searched for a cure for cancer. Across the world, countless amounts of time and money have been spend on researching a way to stop the terrible disease.
But now, it seems like the answer could have been inside our own bodies the whole time.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, a government agency that’s responsible for healthcare, approved a new form of gene therapy that could mean the end of a certain type of cancer.
The therapy allows scientists to “train” the immune cells of sick patients to fight leukemia – a blood cancer that mostly affects young people.
The exciting new treatment works by removing healthy immune cells from the patient, known as T-cells, which are then altered to be able to “hunt down” cancer cells.
The cells are then put back into the patient, before they begin to get rid of the patient’s leukemia over time, similar to how the body fights off other illnesses.
“This is truly an exciting new day for cancer patients,” Louis J. DeGennaro, president of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, said in a news release. Up until now, a drawn-out （持续很久时间的）and painful bone marrow transplant was the only option for many leukemia patients.
In this procedure, healthy blood cells are taken from a donor and placed into the sick patient, who also has to go through chemotherapy to allow their body to adjust to the new cells.
But with a recovery rate of around 83 percent–according to a news release published by the FDA–it’s hoped that the days of painful trips to the hospital, or even death, are over for leukemia sufferers.
“We’re entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient’s own cells to attack a deadly cancer,” FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in the release.
“New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold the potential to transform medicine and... our ability to treat and even cure many intractable（难治的） illnesses.”
1. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?| A．Scientists take healthy immune cells from a patient and then reprogram them to help fight some cancer. |
| B．Much time and effort have been put to stop cancer |
| C．Scientists have now found a new form of gene therapy which can cure leukemia. |
| D．The altered T-cells are expected to find and fight cancer cells. |
| A．fight off. |
| B．cure. |
| C．search for. |
| D．treat. |
| A．new technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold the potential to transform medicine. |
| B．the new therapy may save leukemia patients from painful bone marrow transplant. |
| C．the new therapy still requires blood cell donations. |
| D．science enters a new frontier in medical innovation. |
3 . A drug used to treat severe bleeding could save thousands of lives for mothers giving birth. A global trial of the drug found it reduced the risk of bleeding deaths during childbirth by nearly one-third. The study involved 20,000 women in 21 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The trial was carried out by London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The drug is called d tranexamic acid (氨甲环酸). It is low-cost and researchers said it does not cause serious side effects for mothers or babies.
The drug is used to treat mothers for severe bleeding during childbirth, also known as postpartum hemorrhage (产后出血).It is the leading cause of mother’s death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
Haleema Shakur is the project director of the trial. She says despite medical advances in many countries, severe bleeding after childbirth remains a big problem in some parts of the world. “It's one of the biggest killers of mothers. In Africa and Asia. about 10 percent of women will end up with severe bleeding. " The drug works by stopping blood clots(血凝块) from breaking down after a mother gives birth. The treatment can prevent the need for doctors to perform surgery to find the source of bleeding.
Shakur said the best results were reported when the drug was given to women as soon as possible after childbirth, “The earlier you give it- so within the first three hours of giving birth—the better the effect is. ”
The next step will be to get the drug where it is needed provide training for doctors and nurses on how to use it. During the trial, women were given the drug in a hospital. But researchers are looking for easier ways to administer the drug so it can be more widely used in small clinics and rural areas.
1. Tranexamic acid is a drug that________ .| A．should be used for every mother |
| B．helps mothers before giving birth |
| C．ensures most new-born babies’ health |
| D．can help mothers giving birth stop bleeding |
| A．To know how much the drug is. |
| B．To get permission to use the drug. |
| C．To let more people know the drug. |
| D．To make medical staff know how to use the drug. |
| A．The more mothers use the drug, the better its effect is. |
| B．African and Asian countries made great progress in medicine. |
| C．There is a long way to go before the drug can be used more widely. |
| D．Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of women’s death. |
| A．Care for the Health of Mothers |
| B．How Can We Use Tranexamic Acid Well? |
| C．Childbirth Drug Greatly Reduces Bleeding Deaths |
| D．What's the Biggest Killer of Mothers? |
