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How Deafness Makes It Easier to HearMost people think of Beethoven"s hearing loss as an obstacle to composing music. However, he produced his most powerful works in the last decade of his life when he was completely 1 .This is one of the most glorious eases of the triumph of will over adversity, but his biographer, Maynard Solomon, takes a different 2 . Solomon argues that Beethoven"s deafness "heightened" his achievement as a composer. In his deaf world Beethoven could experiment, free from the sounds of the outside world, free to 3 new forms and harmonies.Hearing loss does not seem to affect the musical ability of musicians 4 become deaf. They continue to "hear" music with as much, or greater, accuracy than if they were actually hearing it being 5 .Michael Eagar, who died in 2003, became deaf 6 the age of 21. He described a fascinating phenomenon that happened within three months: "My former musical experiences began to play 7 to me. I couldn"t differentiate between what I heard and real hearing. After many years, it is still rewarding to listen to these playbacks, to "hear" music which is new to me and to find many quiet accompaniments for all of my moods."How is it that the world we see, touch, hear, and 8 is both "out there" and at the same time within us There is no better example of this connection between external stimulus and internal perception than the cochlear implant. No man-made 9 could replace the ability to hear. However, it might be possible to use the brain"s remarkable power to make sense of the electrical signals the implant produces.When Michael Eagar first "switched on" his cochlear implant, the sounds he heard were not at all 10 . Gradually, with much hard work, he began to identify everyday 11 . For example, "The insistent ringing of the telephone became clear almost at once."The primary purpose of the implant is to allow communication with 12 . When people spoke to Eagar, he heard their voices "coming through like a long-distance telephone call on a poor connection". But when it 13 to his beloved music, the implant was of no help. When he wanted to appreciate music, Eagar played the piano. He said, "I play the piano as I used to and hear it in my head at the same time. The movement of my fingers and the feel of the keys give added "clarity" to 14 in my head."Cochlear implants allow the deaf to hear again in a way that is not perfect, but which can change their lives. Still, as Michael, Eagar discovered, when it comes to musical harmonies, hearing is irrelevant. Even the most amazing cochlear implants 15 have been useless to Beethoven as he composed his Ninth Symphony at the end of his life.
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Stem Cell Therapy May Help Repair the HeartAccording to scientists in the USA, stem cell therapy may one day be able to repair the hearts of people with heart failure. Researchers at Pittsburgh University School of Medicine examined 20 patients who had severe heart failure and were going to have surgery.They injected stem cells into the parts of their hearts that were damaged. They then compared their hearts with those of people who had undergone surgery without having the stem cells injected into them (they had also suffered from severe heart failure). The patients who had the stem cells injected had hearts that were able to pump (用泵抽水) more blood than the others.According to Professor Robert Kormos, one of the researchers, these results could revolutionize heart treatment. Although previous studies had indicated that there might be a benefit, this is the first study that has actually proved that stem cell therapy can help the failing heart work better.All the patients in this study had hearts that could not pump blood properly. The scientists measured their ejection fraction (射血分数). This is a measure of heart performance; you measure how much blood is being pumped out by the left ventricle (心室).Healthy people"s ejection fraction is about 55%. These patients had ejection fraction of under 35%. They all had by-pass surgery (搭桥手术) performed on them. Some of the patients had stem cells taken from their hip bones and injected into 25-30 sites in the damaged heart muscle. Six months later their ejection fraction rate was 46.1% while those who just had surgery but no stem cell injections averaged 37.2%.No side effects were reported.Heart failure is a common problem all over the world. In the UK alone about 650,000 people suffer from heart failure every year. As the number of people suffering from heart failure increases in the world in general these findings are particularly significant.Current treatments relieve the symptoms. This new stem cell therapy actually repairs the damaged muscle in the heart and has the potential of curing the disease. Stem cell therapy seems to have great prospects.
Stress and Heart DiseaseIf you often feel angry and overwhelmed, like the stress in your life is spinning out of control, then you may be hurting your heart. If you don"t want to break your own heart, you need to learn to take charge of your life where you can—and recognize there are many things beyond your control.So says Dr. Robert S. Eliot, author of a new book titled FromStress to Strength: How to Lighten Your Load and Save Your Life.He"s a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Nebraska. Eliot says there are people in this world whom he calls "hot reactors". For these people, being tense may cause tremendous and rapid increases in their blood pressure.Eliot says researchers have found that stressed people have higher cholesterol levels, among other things. "We"ve done years of work in showing that excess alarm or stress chemicals can literally burst heart muscle fibers. When that happens it happens very quickly, within five minutes. It creates many short circuits, and that Causes crazy heart rhythms. The heart beats like a bag of worms instead of a pump. And when that happens, we can"t live."Eliot, 64, suffered a heart attack at age 44. He attributes some of the cause to stress. For years he was a "hot reactor". On the exterior, he was cool, calm and collected, but on the interior, stress was killing him. He"s now doing very well.The main predictors of destructive levels of stress are the FUD factors—fear, uncertainty and doubt—together with perceived lack of control, he says.For many people, the root of their stress is anger, and the trick is to find out where the anger is coming from. "Does the anger come from a feeling that everything must be perfect" Eliot asks.One step to calming down is to recognize you have this tendency. Learn to be less hostile by changing some of your attitudes and negative thinking.Eliot recommends taking charge of your life. "If there is one word that should be substituted for stress, it"s control. Instead of the FUD factors, what you want is the NICE factors—new, interesting, challenging experiences.""You have to decide what parts of your life you can control," he says. "Stop where you are on your trail and say, "I"m going to get my compass out and find out what I need to do.""He suggests that people write down the six things in their lives that they feel are the most important things they"d like to achieve. Ben Franklin did it at age 32. "He wrote down things like being a better father, being a better husband, being financially independent, being stimulated intellectually and remaining even-tempered—he wasn"t good at that."From Eliot"s viewpoint, the other key to controlling stress is to realize that there are other troublesome parts of your life over which you can have little or no control—like the economyand politicians. What should we do if we don"t want to break our heart
As time went on, a genuine friendship grew up between us.
Yoga May Help Ease High Blood PressurePeople who follow the ancient practice of yoga may be getting an added health boost, with a new study suggesting it can fight high blood pressure—also known as hypertension."This study confirms many people"s feelings that exercise may be useful in the control of hypertension," said Dr. Howard. "Yoga would be a useful adjunct in the lowering of blood pressure in certain populations." 1 Although the study couldn"t prove a cause-and-effect relationship, doing yoga two to three times a week was associated with an average drop in blood pressure readings from 133/80 to 130/77 ,the researchers said.In comparison, the average decrease in blood pressure was smaller (134/83 to 132/82) among people who ate a special diet but did not do yoga. In a bit of a surprise, doing yoga in tandem with a special diet did not outperform doing yoga alone. 2 Dr. Howard said the study shows that "yoga can have a favorable effect" on hypertension. 3 "But some large population studies have suggested that changes of this magnitude could have very significant long-term benefits." 4 , including its relatively short length and the fact that most participants were young and had milder forms of high blood pressure, Dr. Howard said. 5 "Yoga, along with deep breathing exercises, meditation and inner reflection, is a good adjunctive and integrative cardiovascular approach to better health, including lowering blood pressure, as this data suggests," said Dr. David Friedman.A. This may be because doing both required a greater amount of time, making it more difficult for participants to stick with their regimens.B. In the study, researchers tracked 58 women and men, aged 38 to 62 ,for six months.C. The study did have some limitationsD. Yoga is proved to be effective in lowering high blood pressure.E. Another expert agreed that the ancient Indian practice of yoga might ease hypertension.F. The amount of change was small, he said.
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