Эксперт

Сергей

Задать вопрос

Мы готовы помочь Вам.

BONE BOOSTER. A Treatment of Osteoporosis
Millions of Americans — most often older women — suf¬fer to some degree from osteoporosis, the potentially crippling affliction that thins bones and makes them susceptible to frac¬tures. When the loss of bone occurs in the spine — one of the most common sites — patients may experience shortened stat¬ure of the back and pain in both the back and abdomen. Women who take calcium pills can sometimes prevent the onset or progression of the disease, but there has been no successful treatment for patients who have substantial bone loss,
Reserchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Med¬ical Center at Dallas announced a promising new way of in¬creasing bone density that seems to reverse the effects of spinal osteoporosis. The treatment relies on sodium fluoride, the chemical used by dentists to strengthen teeth and in toothpaste to prevent cavities. When the drug was tested years ago as a treatment for osteoporosis, it produced severe side effects like stomach bleeding, and while the fluoride caused bones to thicken, they were still easily broken. But the Texas researchers tried giving patients slow-dissolving fluoride pills that released the drug only after leaving the stomach. The fluoride was ad¬ministered intermittently and with a calcium compounds that the new bone would form gradually and be strong. When the preparation was given to 251 women with spinal-bone loss, bone mass increased 3% to 6% a year and the frequency of vertebral fractures dropped significantly. Side effects were minor and occurred in only 5% of patients. The treatment has not been shown to work for osteoporosis of the hip or wrist.
Osteoporosis — loss of bone density due to excessive absorp¬tion of calcium and phosphorus from the bone, due to pro¬gressive loss of the protein matrix of bone which normally carries the calcium deposits.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) Osteoporosis is a crippling affliction that thins bones and makes them susceptible to fractures.
2) When the loss of bone occurs in the spine, patients experi¬ence pain in the back, but not in the abdomen.
3) Calcium pills can stop osteoporosis even in patients who have substantial bone loss.
2. Review the text to answer the following questions:
1) What is osteoporosis? What is it caused by?

THERE’S LOTS OF LIFE AFTER THE PILL
Oral contraceptives are terrific at preventing pregnancy, but they do pose well-established health hazards. Women who use them run an increased risk of strokes and heart attacks especially if they are smokers, over 35 or have a family history of cardiovascular disease. The important question of whether these elevated risks persist after a woman stops taking the Pill has never been resolved. Now a new, large and well-designed study of 119,061 women reports good news: those who don’t currently take birth-control pills but used them in the past seem to have no more likelihood of developing cardiovascular problems than women who have never been on the Pill.
The new study, published in New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted by a team of Harvard medical researchers. The subjects were part of a broader project called the Nurses’ Health Study. It involved 121,700 female registered nurses, 30 to 55, in a prospective survey of known arid sus¬pected risk factors for cancer and coronary heart disease. Starting in 1976, the nurses filled out detailed questionnaires about their past and current health, including information on dia¬betes, hypertension, smoking, blood cholesterol levels and use of oral C9ntraceptives. The data was updated with follow-up questionnaires every two years through 1984.
The Harvard study included only those nurses who had never had a stroke, heart attack or episode of angina before 1976. The researchers monitored this group for eight years and then examined past use of oral contraceptives in every woman who Suffered a stroke, heart attack or serious coronary heart disease between 1976 and 1984.
«Past users of oral contraceptives (had no material increase in their risk of cardiovascular diseases, as compared with women who had never used oral contraceptives», the authors concluded. Especially reassuring was the finding that even women who had not been off the Pill for very long had no elevated risk; nor did women who had taken it for 10 years or more.
Contraceptive — an agent used to prevent conception, e.g. condom, spermaticidal vaginal pessary or cream, rubber cer¬vical cap, intrauterine contraceptive device, oral female medi-cation.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) Oral contraceptives are terrific at preventing pregnancy, and they do not pose any health hazards.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What function do contraceptives perform? What contraceptives are used nowadays?

HEART RECIPIENT GETS A KIDNEY TRANSPLANT
The main function of the kidneys is to drain waste matter like uric acid, urea, sodium chloride and sulphate from inside the body. If the kidneys are inflamed or damaged as in nephritis, toxins will accumulate in the body, the blood will become impure, leading to headaches, nervous weakness, backache, palpitations of the heart, etc. Complete kidney failure is fatal. But nowadays there are measures to save such patients. Sometimes doctors do magic.
San Francisco. Doctors have claimed success in transplant¬ing a kidney into a man who has lived for 11 years with a heart transplant and for eight years with stainless steel hips.
Louis Bonesio, 51, underwent the kidney transplant at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr Nicholas Feduska said that Mr Bonesio was the only person alive with two organs transplanted from two donors. Doctors said that both trans¬plants were necessary because of separate diseases.

1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the sentences from the text:
1) The kidneys drain waste matter like uric acid, urea, but not such as sodium chloride or sulphate from inside the body.
2) In nephritis the kidneys are inflamed.
3) In nephritis toxins accumulate in the body.
2. Review the text to answer the following questions:
1) What function do the kidneys perform? What waste matter do the kidneys drain?

OVEREATING
There are not a few whose chief pleasure in life is eating. They go on munching all the time and expect the digestive system to do its job round the clock. The stomach and other organs, obedient servants, do their duty, though grudgingly.
Soon comes a time when they break down, and the result is stomach ache, headache, indigestion, constipation, and even sometimes worse. Let us understand the reason for their strike: it takes the organs three to six hours of undisturbed work to handle the food eaten, depending on the size of the meal. After, this work, they do need rest. Only then are they ready for fresh Work.
When food is not properly digested, it leads to poisoning of the whole body as the putrefying substance within gets into the blood stream. Bad breath results. No amount of brushing the teeth alone will help. The cure is in removing the waste from the stomach.

1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the sentences from the text:
1) There are few people whose chief pleasure in life is eating.
2) Some people expect the digestive system to do its job round the clock.
3) When digestive organs break down people suffer from stom¬ach ache, indigestion, constipation, but not headache.
2. Review the text to answer the following questions:
1) Are there many people whose chief pleasure in life is eat¬ing?

Asthma.
One of the major ailments afflicting mankind is asthma. It is an allergic condition leading to bronchospasms. It is believed to run in the family.
During an attack, the patient suffers agonies: he pants, wheezes, coughs, expectorates – all for a litre of oxygen which cannot pass through the air passage constricted by swelling and sputum.
Such attacks alternate with symptom-free periods. There is practically nothing that cannot trigger an attack: hot, cold, wet weather, pollen or dust (that is why many can get an attack when they go to bed, triggered by the dust from the pillow), everything and anything.
Sunshine, cold water for bathing or drinking, flowers, fruits, vegetables, even milk may be taboo. The body becomes weak, unable to stand any kind of exertion. Even taking a rest or sleeping becomes impossible and the nights are spent sitting in a corner because an attack may come if the patient lies down. Even excessive emotions can be dangerous.
There are plenty of drugs for asthma, but they give only a temporary relief, if at all. The constricted air passages are dilated, but ones the effect of the drug wanes, the attack starts again. Thus, it becomes a life-long agony.
Asthma is not a disease that can be cured: it is the reaction of the body to certain foreign matters. The answer lies in strengthening the system. Experiments conducted by many institutes have shown that Yoga may help those with a prolonged history of asthma.

1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the sen¬tences from the text:
1) Asthma is an allergic condition.
2) Asthma does not lead to bronchospasms.
3) Asthma does not run in the family.
2. Review the text to answer the following questions:
1) What condition is asthma believed to be?

EARLY PREDICTIONS ON BLOOD PRESSURE
Most people would assume that healthy children have «normal» blood pressure. But, as Dr Margaret Golding of the Department of Health at the University of Bristol points out, no research has been undertaken to investigate what that «normal» blood pressure is: is it higher or lower than adults’? Or is there such a wide range that the idea of a normal blood pressure is meaningless?
Five years ago nearly 15,000 children from all parts of the country who were born in April 1970, were picked to take part in the British National Cohort Study. They were measured for height and weight, and a note was made of where they lived, their sex and social backgrounds. Among other things their blood pressures were also measured.
This massive amount of information is gradually being sifted, and next month Dr Golding starts a two-year study — funded by the British Heart Foundation — to discover more about children’s blood pressure. Does it, for example, vary with height or weight, with the child’s sex, or whether the child enters puberty early? Later, Dr Golding will look to see if there are any geographical trends or any links with social class.
In time, this information may be used to help predict which children may grow up to have problems as adults and so help in the prevention of heart disease.
Hypertension — abnormally high tension, alluding to blood pressure and involving systolic and/or diastolic levels. There is no universal agreement of their upper limits of normal blood pressure, especially in increasing age. Many cardiologists consider a resting systolic pressure of 160 mm mercury (mmHg), and/or a resting diastolic pressure of 100 mmHg, to be patho-logical.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the sentences from the text:
l) Most people would assume that healthy children have «normal» blood pressure.
2) Research has been undertaken to investigate what the
«normal» blood pressure in children is.
3) The children picked to take part in research were measured for height and weight. Their sex and social backgrounds were not noted. Dr Golding will try to find out if blood pressure varies with weight, height and sex in children.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
What would most people assume about the blood pressure in healthy children

MORE CARE URGED FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA
«The Goverment should provide better care for the quar¬ter of a million people who suffer from schizophrenia», said Mrs Dorothy Silberston, Vice-Chairman of the National Schizo¬phrenia Fellowshi p.
She said that patients with the illness were being released into the community without proper facilities for their care.
She told the fellowship’s national seminar in Oxford on «The forgotten illness» that it would be better to retain the old, large Victorian mental hospitals rather than go along with the radical care in the community programme being put for¬ward by many health authorities.
She said the Department of Health and Social Security was failing to fulfil its promise to provide special hostels, ad¬joining hospitals, where long-term schizophrenics could be cared for.
There were only 48 places available in such hostels through¬out England and Wales.
She said the popular image of the Victorian mental hospi¬tal building was one of dreadful conditions where patients were locked away.
She said: «That is not our experience of the mental hospi¬tals. We don’t like the long corridors and shabby rooms any more than anyone else, but at the same time they are run by dedicated staff who understand the problems».
Mrs Silberston called on the Government to make sure that hospitals provided proper care for schizophrenics when they were discharged into the community.
«We feel that the rundown of the mental hospitals has to be stopped because we see no alternative for some of the most severely affected sufferers.»
Schizophrenia — a group of mental illnesses characterized by disorganization of the patient’s personality, often resulting in chronic life-long ill health and hospitalization. The onset, commonly in youth or early adult life, is either sudden or insidious. There are three elements common to all cases: a shallowness of emotional life; an inappropriateness of emotion; unrealistic thinking.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the sen¬tences from the text:
1) The Goverment should provide better care for those who suffer from schizophrenia.
2) The patients with mental illnesses are released into the community without proper facilities for their care.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What is schizophrenia? What is it characterized by?

DNA USED TO FIGHT SKIN CANCER
New York. The injection of new genes directly into a patient’s tumor tissue is a safe procedure that can help impel the immune system to destroy the malignancy, scientists have reported.
The results from the first phase of a clinical trial suggest that the use of DNA as a drug, a radical new approach to battling cancer and other disorders, may eventually supplement if not supplant standard tumor treatments like radiation or chemo¬therapy.
Dr Gary J. Nabel of the Medical Institute at the University of Michigan and his colleagues reported their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They found that when they injected DNA into the tumors of five patients with advanced skin cancers the genes slipped deep inside the malignant cells and switched on, as the scientists hoped.
All five patients tolerated the novel therapy well. In one patient, a 68-year-old man for whom conventional and experi¬mental therapies had failed, the treatment caused many dis¬seminated tumors to shrink and in some cases disappear.
But the researchers stressed that much more investigation remains to be done before the method can be introduced on a wide scale for the treatment of melanoma and other tumors.

1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) The injections of genes are suggested to be made directly into a patient’s tumor and the procedure is not at all safe.
2) The new procedure is supposed to help impel the immune system to destroy the malignancy.
3) Radiation and chemotherapy are standard tumor treatments.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What is used as standard tumor treatments?

NEW FEVERS
After the disappearance of smallpox, eradicated thanks to the intensive worldwide strategy of the World Health Organization, other viral diseases which were long unknown have come to be a serious health problem. All occurring in tropical countries, they are the Marbur virus disease first de¬scribed in 1967, Lassa fever discovered in Nigeria in 1969, and Ebola fever named after a small river in northern Zaire where an epidemic broke out almost concurrently with one in south-ern Sudan in 1976 and took a heavy toll of life.
High mortality
Common to these three kinds of hemorrhagic fever originating in Africa is the person-to-person infection and also an exceedingly high mortality. Ebola fever claimed the lives of 52 percent of the people contracting the disease in Sudan and over 90 percent in Zaire. Up to 50 percent of the patients fell victim to Lassa fever and the Marbur virus disease was lethal in 25 percent of the cases recorded.
There is no specific therapy nor any vaccination for these diseases. Trials have been undertaken with plasma obtained from convalescents, but its effectiveness has not yet been es¬tablished. Attempts to treat the diseases with interferon have not yielded final evidence hitherto. Therapy in hemorrhagic fever of the kinds mentioned is therefore only symptomatic. In doing so, attention is concentrated on the gastrointestinal and hemorrhagic symptoms although the pathogenesis of the hemorrhages is not finally clarified. This makes it difficult to administer supportive treatment.
A virus — a very small microorganism parasitic within living cells; differs from bacteria in having only one kind of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA, in lacking the apparatus necessary for energy production and protein synthesis, and in not reproducing by binary fission but by independent synthesis of their component parts which are then assembled; causes many kinds of acute and chronic diseases in man.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) Smallpox has not been eradicated hitherto.
2) The three viral diseases described in the text occurred in Asia.
3) The three hemorrhagic fevers described in the text are per¬son-to-person infections.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What diseases do viruses cause? What diseases do bacteria cause? What is the difference between a virus and a bacte¬rium?

TEST CAN PREDICT RARE EYE CANCER
Boston. Scientists at the University of Cincinnati say they have developed a genetic test that can predict in four out of five cases whether someone at high risk for a rare form of childhood eye cancer will develop the disease.
The test developed for retinoblastoma could also serve as a model for other types of cancer in which heredity plays a role, the researchers said. For instance, having a close relative with breast cancer increases a woman’s risk of contracting the disease.
Dr. Webster Cavenee, who headed the study, said, «This is the first time that cancer could be predicted accurately be¬fore it happened». In the test, DNA is isolated in a blood sample and mixed with a radioactive substance that enables scientists to identify certain genes, which are compared to those of two relatives who have had the disease.
Cancer — a general term which covers many malignant growths in many parts of the body. The growth is parasitic and flour¬ishes at the expense of the human host. Characteristics are the tendency to cause local destruction, to spread by metastasis, to recur after removal, and to cause toxaemia. Carcinoma refers to malignant tumours of skin or mucous membrane, sarcoma, to tumours of connective tissue.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) A genetic test can predict in four out of five cases whether someone will develop the disease.
2) Having a close relative with breast cancer does not increase a woman’s risk of contracting the disease.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What is cancer (carcinoma, sarcoma)? What are characteristics
of cancer?

SMOKING AND DRINK CLUE TO CATARACT
Cataract is one of the most common causes of blindness and the commonest reason for ophthalmic surgery. Researchers at Edinburgh University have found that it appears to be linked with several preventable causes, such as smoking and heavy drinking.
A pilot study which began in 1978 set out to consider many possible risk factors. About 1,500 people, including cataract patients, were examined for evidence of factors and conditions apparently associated with increased risk.
About 177 items of information were recorded for each individual, including occupation, medical history, and use of medical drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
The study identified some medical and other conditions, various medical drugs and other factors that seem to increase the likelihood of developing cataract.
The «high risk» factors included excessive alcohol use and total abstinence from alcohol. Among the «moderate risk» factors were smoking, cardiac disease, certain eye medications, and some medications for non-ophthalmic conditions.
«Protective» associated factors included calcium and cholesterol, and occasional moderate alcohol intake. The study shows that cataract has multiple causes, takes tune to develop, and that the number of risk factors increases with age.
The researchers say that, once causes have been estab¬lished, it will be possible to provide education on diet, alcohol and tobacco for the population.
For the medical profession, there will be information on treatment carrying a risk of effects on the eyesight, and on the relative hazards or safety of medications used in conditions unrelated to the eye.
Cataract — an opacity of the crystalline lens or its capsule. Il may be congenital, senile, traumatic or due to diabetes. Hard cataract contains a hard nucleus, tends to be dark in colour and occurs in older people; soft cataract is without a hard nucleus, occurs at any age, but particularly in the young. Cataract develops slowly and when mature is called a «ripe cataract».
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) Cataract is one of the most common causes of blindness.
2) Cataract is treated surgically.
3) Causes of cataract cannot be prevented.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What is cataract? What types of cataract do you know? What age suffers cataract? How is cataract treated? When is surgery administered to cataract patients? What may cataract cause when mature?

TONSILLITIS
Infection of the throat affects almost every child in congested and polluted areas, and adults too. The two marble-like fleshy parts on either side of the throat swell. When the tonsils turn septic, the patient will not be able to swallow, there will be fever and the body will become weak.
The tonsils are the gatekeepers which check the entry of grams. In children these tonsils are very active in fighting any unwanted and harmful matter introduced from outside.
During the work of preventing harmful material getting into the body, the tonsils themselves are affected. Germs attack them and puss forms. Also when the body is subjected to sudden severe cold or heat, the tonsils are affected.
When the body loses its power to ward off infection, almost the first victim in a child is this part in the throat. The remedy lies in building up the bodily resistance to diseases.
1. Study the text and say which statements below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) Infection of the throat affects only children in congested and polluted areas.
2) Tonsils can be described as marble-like fleshy parts situated on either side of the throat.
3) In case of tonsillitis the tonsils turn septic and swell.
4) In case of tonsillitis the patient will not be able to swallow, there will be fever and the body will became weak.
5) The tonsils cannot check the entry of grams.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) In what areas does throat infection occur most often?

DIABETES
This ailment, considered hereditary, can afflict persons at any age, though mainly who are inactive. When the pancreas fails, the sugar gets into the blood stream in excess quantities.
The bigger part of the pancreas sends its secretion to the small intestine. The smaller part secretes insulin directly into the blood. The conversion of starch into glucose is called carbohydrate metabolism. Glucose is converted into glycogen as a fuel for bodily purposes.
When the starch is not converted into such fuel, because of excess sugar intake or insufficient production of insulin by a diseased pancreas, it enters the blood stream. The kidneys are then unable to strain the excess sugar and excrete it through the urine. Thus a vital ingredient of your food, carbohydrates, which runs the body dynamo, is wasted.
In a diabetic patient the pancreas swells, the tissues die and insulin production stops. That is why insulin has to be injected daily in severe cases.

1. Study the text and say which statements below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text.
1. Diabetes is not a hereditary disease.
2. When the pancreas fails, the sugar gets into the blood stream in excess quantities.
3. The pancreas sends its secretion not only to the small intestine and into the blood stream.
2. Review the text and answer the following questions:
1) What type of disease is diabetes? What persons are usually afflicted by diabetes?

A NEW WAVE OF DRUGS FOR EPILEPSY
Washington. After a 15-year lull in new medications to control seizures, the treatment of epilepsy is entering a possible renaissance with the imminent approval of a new way of anti-convulsant drugs.
The new types of drugs appear to control brain seizure through mechanisms different from those found in commonly used anticonvulsants and may pose less of a risk of adverse side effects, scientists say.
In addition, researchers say, some of the new drugs nearing approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, or currently undergoing human trials are the first «designer drugs», com¬pounds developed specifically to influence biochemical pro¬cesses in the brain, aimed at controlling epilepsy.
«It is a very exciting period», said Dr Do Leppik, research director for the University of Minnnesota’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Program in Minneapolis. «I can see an exponential growth in terms of finding chemicals and molecules that will work against specific aspects of epilepsy, and we certainly will have a lot of new chemical agents to try in the next decade».
Epilepsy, the most common chronic neurological disor¬der, is not a disease but a combination of conditions resulting from damage to groups of cells in brain. The condition may result from an oxygen shortage during labor or delivery, or from another trauma, such as head injury, brain tumor, infection, poisoning, stroke or high fever.
1. Study the text and say which statements given below are true and which are false. Correct the false ones using the text:
1) There has never been a lull in new medications to control epilepsy.
2) A new way of anticonvulsant therapy is supposed to be approved.
3) The new types of anticonvulsant drugs control brain sei¬zures through mechanisms different from those found in commonly used drugs.
2. Review the text to answer the following questions:
1) How long did the lull in new medications to control epilepsy seizures last? What is the renaissance period characterized by?