时间:2019-01-11 作者:英语课 分类:2007年VOA标准英语(六月)


英语课
By Carol Pearson
Washington
18 June 2007
 


The number of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease is expected to quadruple by the year 2050. Researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, say 106 million people worldwide will develop the disease by that time. They refer to the situation as a "global epidemic," and they say 43 percent of those with the disease in 2050 will require high-level care. The research shows the largest increase in the prevalence of Alzheimer's will occur in Asia, where nearly half of the world's Alzheimer's patients currently live.


These statistics, and the experience of watching loved ones slip into this disease, have more people doing what they can to prevent the onset 1 of Alzheimer's.  VOA's Carol Pearson reports.






Participants in a brain exercise class


Participants in a brain exercise class, including Nancy Levitt, center



Researchers at the University of California say the brain begins to show signs of aging when we are in our early 20s. They estimate that only one third of what determines memory ability and long-term brain health is genetically 2 programmed.


Researchers say the factors in brain health are actually dictated 3 by things that are under our own control, such as lifestyle and personal health. 


That said, many Americans are taking this information to heart to try to enhance the fitness of their brains.  At a "brain gym,” people are getting a mental workout with computer programs that exercise the brain like a muscle. 


Many Americans, like Nancy Levitt, have watched parents and other family members suffer from Alzheimer's. "I'm more frightened of this than getting in a car accident or something horrible like that," she admits.


So she enrolled 4 in a memory class with Dr. Gary Small at the University of California, Los Angeles. "If you learn specific memory techniques, you will improve your memory performance -- not only in a very short period of time, but you can have sustained effects up to four or five years," says the doctor.


Other experts on aging say you do not have to go to a brain gym or use equipment that sends neurotransmitters to exercise your mind.  Professor David Loewenstein, at the University of Miami Medical School, says, "There is no data or scientific evidence to suggest that these programs are any more effective than other alternatives, such as anagrams, crossword 5 puzzles."


Many people sign up for brain training programs because they are frightened. Says Levitt, "I'm trying to save my own life, make it last longer and better."


Loewenstein says Alzheimer's patients can learn skills that are meaningful, and that these skills can be maintained. Skills such as re-learning the names of common objects. It does not stop the disease, but it can keep an Alzheimer's patient functioning longer. 




n.进攻,袭击,开始,突然开始
  • The drug must be taken from the onset of the infection.这种药必须在感染的最初期就开始服用。
  • Our troops withstood the onset of the enemy.我们的部队抵挡住了敌人的进攻。
adv.遗传上
  • All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
  • Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物
v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 );口授;支配;摆布
  • He dictated a letter to his secretary. 他向秘书口授信稿。
  • No person of a strong character likes to be dictated to. 没有一个个性强的人愿受人使唤。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 );登记,招收,使入伍(或入会、入学等),参加,成为成员;记入名册;卷起,包起
  • They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起,他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.纵横字谜,纵横填字游戏
  • He shows a great interest in crossword puzzles.他对填字游戏表现出很大兴趣。
  • Don't chuck yesterday's paper out.I still haven't done the crossword.别扔了昨天的报纸,我还没做字谜游戏呢。
学英语单词
128
2S-IRMA
a-mode ultrasonic diagnostic equipment
amorphous semiconductor
annulaturris annulata
antiphosphatidylinositol
appropriation money
arizmendi
arnharts black-egg disease
automatic batch scale
background data terminal
baffle cloth
be kind of
bismuthosis
blood-CSF barrier
book-store
calculation of PN db
catallactics
centi-tesla
ceroplastes rubens
Chinese Information Processing System
cinobufatalin
Cleder
closed loop servo-control system
comes forward
comings
cultural construct
d-wv
dissemination by wind
dorsal cuneonavicular ligament
dual-focus X-ray tube
ecclesias
electrical point indicator
exsudation cyst
F-61
Federal Judicial Circuits
field warehouse loans
frailties
furst
gassy cheese
Harden and Young ester
holding bracket
horizontal micrometer
imaging mirror
invisible ray
jailhouse rock
kerranged
khelil
Kijwado
life-supports
lignocellulosic anthracite
Little Fork
majesticalness
make a butt of
mazunte
mbda
mechanical stamping
meliola anodendri
monopropellant rocket engine
mycotic aneurysm
noemis
nonhistones
northern polarity
participant agreement
Partinico
philanthropos
Port-Francqui(Ilebo)
Prairies, R.des
pressure safety relief valves
ramrath
raphes
realistic painter
richemond
routine control
rubble arch
schizogeny
security book
self-discharge bulk carrier
sense of obstruction
Sevillans
single shoulder tie plate
slit disk
slowed up
smokeless mosquito-repellent incense
solid-state memory element
spill out
square slide
sticky-tape
suicide squad
sulci horizontalis cerebelli
surge-power generator
thermic balance
thioates
thyroid cancer treatment
timbaland
to-and-fro funiculars
tuning period
uncooked
volume outside bark
way stage
wildmoors
Worcester porcelain