大学英语自学教程中英文版.docx

1、大学英语自学教程中英文版大学英语自学教程(中)16-A. Heart Disease: Treat or Prevent?One of the greatest killers in the Western world is heart disease. The death rate from the disease has been increasing at an alarming speed for the past thirty years. Today in Britain, for example, about four hundred people a day die of he

2、art disease. Western healthcare systems are spending huge sums of money on the surgical treatment of the disease.This emphasis on treatment is clearly associated with the technological advances that have taken place in the past ten to fifteen years. In this time, modern technology has enabled doctor

3、s to develop new surgical techniques and procedures. Many opeations that were considered impossible a few years ago are now performed every day in U.S. hospitals. The result has been a rapid increase in heart surgery.Although there is no doubt that a large number of people benefit from heart surgery

4、, critics of our health-care systems point out that the emphasis on the surgical treatment of the disease has three clear disadvantages. First, it attracts interest and financial resources away from the question of prevention. Second, it causes the costs of general hospital care to rise. After hospi

5、tals buy the expensive equipment that is necessary for modern heart surgery, they must try to recover the money they have spent. To do this, they raise costs for all their patients, not just those patients whose treatment requires the equipment. The third disadvantage is that doctors are encouraged

6、to perform surgery - even on patients for whom an operation is not at all necessary - because the equipment and surgical expertise is available. A federal government office recently said that major heart surgery was often per-formed even though its chances of success were low. In one type of heart s

7、urgery, for example, only 15 percent of patients benefited from the surgery.In the recent past, medical researchers have begun to emphasize the fact that heart disease is associated with stress, smoking and a lack of exercise, and we can often reduce the risk of heart disease by paying more attentio

8、n to these factors.More and more people are realizing that there is a connection between heart disease and the way they live. As a result of this new awareness, attitudes toward health are changing. In the past, people tended to think that it was sufficient for good health to have a good doctor who

9、could be relied on to know exactly what to do when they became ill. Now they are realizing that merely receiving the best treatment for illness or injury is not enough. They are learning that they must take more responsibility for their own health. Today many people are changing their dietary habits

10、 and eating food with less fat and cholesterol. Many are paying more attention to reducing stress in their lives. The number of smokers in the United States is now far below the level of twenty years ago as many people succeed in breaking the habit and as fewer people take it up. More and more peopl

11、e are aware of the benefits of regular exercise like walking, running, or swimming; some have begun to walk or ride bicycles to work instead of driving. Millions have become members of health clubs and have made health clubs one of the fastest growing businesses in the United States today. And now t

12、he beneficial effects of these changing attitudes and behaviors are beginning to appear: an encouraging decrease in deaths from heart disease.16-B. Dieting Four Way to HealthAlmost everyone considers going on a diet sometime in his or her life. All, regardless of sex and age, have something in commo

13、n - losing weight and losing it fast.Though their common aim may seem basically good, they probably do not realize that misguided dieting can do more harm than good to their health. Going on too strict a diet can destroy the balance of chemicals in the human body. This happens because when the body

14、is suddenly given much less food than usual, it feels as though it is being attacked and tries hard to protect itself by saving energy. It does this by slowing down metabolism, the process by which the food we eat is converted into energy. As energy is supplied to the body at a slower and slower rat

15、e, dieters gradually become so weak that they can do nothing. They soon lose interest in everything going on about them, and their resistance to illness becomes so low that they are easily attacked by one illness after another.Most of those who diet know that foods like rice, bread, potatoes, cakes,

16、 sweets, fruits and some vegetables contain carbohydrates, and so can make one fat. What they do not realize, however, is that carbohydrates are our bodies main source of energy, and that these foods also contain components essential for the composition of substances that are needed to keep the body

17、 healthy. As a result, they try to avoid eating these foods, and consequently, they become weaker and less healthy. They begin to have difficulty sleeping properly and start to suffer from radical mood changes. In more serious cases, they even begin to show signs of mental illness.1t is strange enou

18、gh that most strict diets recommend artificial sweeteners to take the place of sugar and other natural sweeteners. In fact, such artificial sweeteners actually increase ones appetite and lead to ones eating even more than usual.Of course, the fact that misguided forms of dieting result in so many pr

19、oblems does not mean that no dieting is safe or all dieting is harmful to the health. Proper dieting can not only help a person lose ugly excess fat, but can also help him or her to keep it off and to lead a more active, happier and healthier life.You might ask just what a proper diet is. Well, simp

20、ly expressed, a proper healthy diet is one that is well-balanced, or, in other words, one that includes enough but not too many of the kinds of foods that provide the body with the nutrients that it needs to function properly. The most important of these nutrients are the macronutrients: proteins, c

21、arbohydrates and fats. The body needs fairly large amounts of proteins and carbohydrates for building material and energy. Meat, fish, eggs, milk, cream, and nuts all contain proteins and foods like rice, bread, potatoes, etc. contain carbohydrates. The body needs fat to keep it from the cold and to

22、 provide a protective layer for the organs, but only in small quantities.Vitamins and minerals such as iron, calcium, are another group of essential nutrients, though the body does not need as great a quantity of these as it does the macronutrients - proteins, carbohydrates and fats.There are two ty

23、pes of vitamins, water-soluble vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins. Water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C and the B-group vitamins do not stay in the body long and so foods containing these vitamins need to be taken rather often. On the other hand, the fat-soluble vitamins, vitamins A, D, E and K stay

24、 in the body for long periods of time and so there is no need to take foods containing them so often.One way of getting enough nutrients while keeping ones weight down is to take substitutes for foods which contain too much fat. For example, instead of regular milk, one can take skimmed milk, which

25、contains as many proteins and minerals as regular milk but has had the fat removed. In the same way, vegetable oil can be used for cooking instead of animal oil.17-A. Panic and Its EffectsOne afternoon while she was preparing dinner in her kitchen, Anne Peters, a 32-year-old American housewife, sudd

26、enly had severe pains in her chest accompanied by shortness of breath. Frightened by the thought that she was having a heart attack, Anne screamed for help. Her husband immediately rushed Anne to a nearby hospital where her pains were diagnosed as having been caused by panic, and not a heart attack.

27、More and more Americans nowadays are having panic attacks like the one experienced by Anne Peters. Benjamin Crocker, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, reveal that as many as ten million adult Americans have already experienced or will experience at least one panic attack in th

28、eir lifetime. Moreover, studies conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States disclose that approximately 1.2 million adult individuals are currently suffering from severe and recurrent panic attacks.These attacks may last for only a few minutes; some, however, continue f

29、or several hours. The symptoms of panic attacks bear such remarkable similarity to those of heart attacks that many victims believe that they are indeed having a heart attack.Panic attack victims show the following symptoms: they often become easily frightened or feel uneasy in situations where peop

30、le normally would not be afraid; they suffer shortness of breath, experience chest pains, a quick heartbeat, sudden fits of trembling, a feeling that persons and things around them are not real; and most of all, a fear of dying or going crazy, A person seized by a panic attack may show all or as few

31、 as four of these symptoms.There has been a lot of explanations as to the causes of panic attacks. Many claim that psychological stress could be a logical cause, but as yet, no evidence has been found to support this theory. However, studies show that more women than men experience panic attacks and

32、 people who drink a lot as well as those who use drugs are more likely to suffer attacks.It is reported that there are at least three signs that indicate a per-son is suffering from a panic attack rather than a heart attack. The first is age. People between the ages of 20 and 30 are more often victi

33、ms of panic attacks. The second is sex. More women suffer from recurrent panic attacks than men. The third is the multiplicity of symptoms. A panic attack victim usually suffers at least four of the previously mentioned symptoms, while a heart attack victim often experiences only pain and shortness of breath.It is generally agreed that a pan