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3.Born to be Big In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity (肥胖) in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. "This epidemic of obese 6 - month - olds," as Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls it, poses a problem for conventional explanations of the fattening of America. "Since they’ re eating only formula (配方奶) or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don’t work for babies," he points out. "You have to look beyond the obvious. " The search for the non - obvious has led to an early - life exposure to Paces of chemicals in the environment. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone - mimicking pollutants (污染物质), ubiquitous (到处存在的) in the food chain, have two previously effects. They act on genes in the developing fetus (胎儿) and newborn to turn more precursor (前体) cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic (新陈代谢的) rate, so that the body saves calories rather than burning them. "The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity," says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). " Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may he contributing to the obesity epidemic. "They are not the cause of extra pounds in every person who is overweight but environmental chemicals may well account for a good part of the current epidemic, especially in those under 50. The new thinking about obesity comes at a critical time politically. As the debate over health care shines a light on the country’s unsustainable spending on doctors, hospitals, and drugs, the obese make tempting scapegoats (替罪羊). About 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and their health - care costs are higher: $3,400 in annual spending for a normal- weight adult versus $ 4,870 for an obese adult, mostly due to their higher levels of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions. If those outsize costs inspire greater efforts to prevent and treat obesity, fine. But if they lead to demonizing (妖魔化) the obese - caricaturing (画成漫画讽刺) them as lazy pigs raising insurance premiums (保险费) for the rest of us -that’ s a problem, and not only for ethical reasons: it threatens to obscure (使不明显) that one potent cause of weight gain may be largely beyond an individual’s control. The obese may be blamed for outsize costs such as spending more on doctors, hospitals and drugs.
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Could you please introduce your major in college and your strong points
Chocolate to Live For! A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003 reported that dark chocolate may lower your blood pressure. Researchers at the University of Cologne studied men and women who were recently diagnosed with mild high blood pressure. Half were given 100g (fabout 3.5 ounces) of dark chocolate per day and half were given white chocolate. After only two weeks systolic (收缩的) blood pressure decreased on average by five points and diastolic (以及舒张的) blood pressure by two points in those consuming dark chocolate, but not those consuming white chocolate. In a similar study, researchers from Italy reported in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension that 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate for one week lowered systolic blood pressure by 12 points and diastolic blood pressure by 8.5 points when blood pressure was monitored continuously for 24 hours. Insulin (胰岛素) sensitivity and LDL cholesterol also improved. No benefits were seen with white chocolate. Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that chocolate may help repair damage to smokers’ blood vessels, at least temporarily. why Chocolate increases your body’ s production of nitric oxide (一氧化氮), a powerful substance that causes your blood vessels to relax and dilate. This, in turn, causes an increase in blood flow and a decrease in blood pressure--like opening a water spigot (水龙头). A study published in July in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that just 30 calories per day of dark chocolate lowered blood pressure and increased nitric oxide production after 18 weeks. Nitric oxide is also stimulated by drugs such as Viagra and Levitra, which increase blood flow to the penis and enhance erections. This may be one of the reasons why chocolate has had a long reputation as an aphrodisiac (壮阳药). Casanova (卡萨诺瓦) is said to have considered it as his "favorite breakfast dish. " Chocolate also contains phenylethylamine (苯乙胺), which research suggests is a stimulant that is released when you’ re interacting with someone intimately. Chocolate has long been considered as an aphrodisiac because
In the United States, older people rarely live with their adult children. But in many other cultures children are expected to care (51) their aged parents. In some parts of Italy, the percentage of adult children who (52) with their parents reach 65 to 70 percent. In Thailand, too, children are expected to care for their elderly parents ;few Thai elderly live (53) . What explains these differences in living arrangements (54) cultures Modernization theory (55) the extended family household to low levels of economic development. In traditional societies, the elderly live with their children in large extended family units for economic reasons. But with modernization, children move to urban areas, leaving old people behind in (56) rural areas. Yet modernization theory cannot explain why extended family households were never common in the United States or England, or why families in Italy, which is fully modemized, (57) a strong tradition of intergenerational living. Clearly, economic development alone cannot explain (58) living arrangements. Another theory associated intergenerational living arrangements with inheritance patterns. In some cultures, the stem family pattem of inheritance predominates. (59) this system, parents live with a married child, usually the oldest son, who then (60) their property when they die. The stem family system was once common in Japan, but changes in inheritance laws, as well as broader social changes brought (61) by industrialization and urbanization, have (62) the tradition. In 1960about 80 percent of Japanese over 65 lived with their children; by 1990 only 60 percent did - a figure that is still high (63) U.S. standards, but which has been (64) steadily. In Korea, too, traditional living arrangements are (65) : the percentage of aged Koreans who live with a son declined from 77 percent in 1984 to 50 percent just 10 years later. Although most elderly Koreans still expect to live with a son, their adult children do not expect to live with their children when they grow old.
Marriage Linked With Better Sleep Marriage may improve your sleep, and better sleep may improve your marriage, two new studies suggest. Women who are married or who have stable partners appear to sleep better than women who have never married or lost a panner, according to research from an eight - year study presented at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting. They also found that marital (婚姻的)happiness lowers the risk of sleep problems, while marital conflict heightens the risk. Although married women overall slept more soundly than unmarried women, the researchers, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, did identify a "newlywed" effect. Women who were single at the start of the study but gained a partner had more restless sleep than women who were akeady married. The researchers speculated that newly married women were less adjusted to sleeping with their partner than those who had been married longer. The study included 360 middle - aged African--American, Caucasian and Chinese. American women who had taken part in the Study of Women’ s Health Across the Nation. Researchers used in--home sleep studies, activity monitors to track sleep--wake patterns and relationship histories to look at the effect stable marriages, unstable marriages and marital transitions, such as a divorce, had on sleep. Another small study of 29 couples found that on a daily basis, the quality of a couple’ s relationship and the quality of their sleep are closely linked. In that study, from the University of Arizona, 29 heterosexual (异性的) couples who shared a bed and did not have children completed sleep and relationship diaries for a week. The results showed that when men get better sleep, they are more likely to feel positive about their relationship the next day. And for women, problems in the relationship were Strongly associated with poor sleep for both themselves and their partner. "When we look at the data on a day - by - day basis, there seems to be a vicious cycle in which sleep affects next day relationship functioning, and relationship functioning affects the subsequent night’s sleep," said principal investigator Brant Hasler, a clinical psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona, in a press release. "In this cycle, conflict with one’ s partner during the day leads to worse sleep that night, which leads to more conflict the following day. " The data from both studies suggest that sleep and relationship happiness are closely linked. The lesson for couples, especially those who are struggling with problems, is that paying attention to sleep habits may help solve other issues in the relationship. The data from the study show that
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