VOA慢速英语2012 Health Report - A Campaign Against Alzheimer's Disease

 

Health Report - A Campaign Against Alzheimer's Disease

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Last week, the United States government announced a major education and research campaign against Alzheimer's disease. The brain-wasting disease has no cure. The plan includes more efforts to develop drugs to prevent it.

In the United States, more than five million people have Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. As the population gets older, the number is expected to reach almost eight million by twenty-thirty. By then, experts say Alzheimer's and other dementia disorders² could affect as many as sixty-six million people worldwide.

The national Alzheimer's plan calls on scientists to develop treatments to prevent the disease by twenty twenty-five. Officials at the National Institutes of Health have promised fifty million dollars to help support that effort. NIH held a conference of the nation's top Alzheimer's researchers where NIH Director Francis Collins discussed the plan.

FRANCIS COLLINS: "We have learned more about this disease in the last couple of years than probably ever before. And now the goal is to take that and translate it into interventions³."

Early next year, scientists at the Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Arizona plan to begin human testing of an experimental drug. The drug is called crenezumab, and the hope is it will prevent Alzheimer's.

The study will involve members of a large extended family living in villages in the Medellin area in Colombia. Some of the family members have a rare genetic⁴ disorder¹ that causes them to get early-onset Alzheimer's. They begin to show signs of mental loss in their mid-forties and fully⁵ develop the disease by their early fifties.

Three hundred people have agreed to be in the study. One-third of them will receive crenezumab. The others will be given a placebo⁶, a pill that does not contain any drug. They will not know if they have been given the drug or the placebo. The study will also include a smaller number of people in the United States.

Pierre Tariot will help lead the study, known as a human trial. He says all of the people have been informed that the drug might not work or that they might receive a placebo. Mr. Tariot says the people still wanted to be in the study.

PIERRE TARIOT: "They have been faced with this devastating⁷ illness hitting every generation for hundreds of years. As one of them put it, 'There are many rivers to cross but at least we're at the first bank.' And that's kind of the attitude that people have had."

Scientists hope that if the drug works in those facing early-onset Alzheimer's, then it might also help older people.

The study in Colombia could take as long as five years, but researchers believe they could get results in two years.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. You can learn more about Alzheimer's disease and find a link to the national plan at www.voanews.cn. I'm Faith Lapidus.

1 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

2 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 interventions   

n.介入，干涉，干预( intervention的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Economic analysis of government interventions deserves detailed discussion. 政府对经济的干预应该给予充分的论述。 来自辞典例句
• The judge's frequent interventions made a mockery of justice. 法官的屡屡干预是对正义的践踏。 来自互联网

4 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

5 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

6 placebo   

n.安慰剂；宽慰话

参考例句：

• The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
• The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。

7 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。