访谈录 Interview 2007-03-28&30, 我要变聪明

This morning on Today's Health, we are gonna pump you up. You know, working out is obviously good for your body, but this week's Newsweek Magazine reports there is new evidence it can boost your brainpower and fight disease as well. Miriam Nelson is an associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University. Miriam, nice to see you, how are you doing?

Very well. Thanks for having me.

So, we are talking about rigorous, aerobic¹ exercise, clearly good for your body. Explain to me in layman's terms if you can now, about this new research that says it can also help your brain grow new nerve cells.

That's right. What we've known for years is that individuals who are physically² active have reduced risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. We've also known that people with mild cognitive³ impairment also have improved function with exercise. There's some very new research just come out that is very exciting. And what is seen is it's taken 11 individuals, put them on a about 3 or 4 months course of aerobic exercise,4 days a week, an hour. And what they've seen is actually people through MRI Scan, they see that they're actually growing new nerve cells.

And, and more new nerve cells means what to me, someone (Well) in, in my age group.

Yeah, what you're, what, my age group, too.

OK, our age group too, right.

What we are seeing is that, is the new nerve cells are growing. They're increasing a web and they're weaved and they're connecting. It's all the interconnections of the nerve cells. When you get those connections, your brain functions better, primarily this is in the executive functioning part of the brain in the hippocampus. We are looking at multitasking, memory, problem solving, name recognition, Lot of things that start to decline as we get older.

I am sure a lot of people watching this right now, Miriam Nelson, can I make up for lost time. I don't have a history of exercising throughout my life. Now in 45, 50 years old, if I start exercising now, do I make a difference?

Well, certainly, the, the data we show right now that exercising in your 40s and 50s, hopefully we wanna start a little bit early, but in your 30s,40s and 50s will make a difference for reducing the risk of getting Alzheimer as you get older. And there's even newer research with children that is also very exciting.

Let me switch gears now and turn into the subject of the connection between rigorous exercise and preventing breast cancer. And, specifically I am talking about estrogen negative breast cancers. A study showed that there was a drop between 26 and 40 percent even if you take the lower end of that spectrum⁴. That is significant.

It's a very large, uh, decrease. So, one of the first studies with the Nurse's Health Study to follow 3000 people for 14 years and they saw between a 26 to 40 percent decrease in death and recurrence⁵ in individuals who already had breast cancer. This newest study, the California Teacher Study, followed 110,000 women from the earlier mid-90s up until 2002 and they saw that the women that were exercising the most had the greatest reduction in breast cancer, as you said, about 31 percent, about 5 hours a week.

What about the impact of exercise on estrogen positive cancers?

Well, the studies before have not really differentiated⁶ between the two and the school's latest study. We've always thought that it was through estrogen because when you exercise, you have lower levels of estrogen, so we thought that was a reason that you get the decrease. This California Teacher Study was in the estrogen negative, um, type of cancer, so it seems, at the moment, that's just one study, so , at the moment, it's really looking like it's all types of breast cancer.

So to wrap things up, for a woman who gets a diagnosis⁷ of breast cancer is difficult, does it make sound the first thing you would tell that woman to do, go out and start exercising?

Well, see your doctor and get a very good medical team and then make sure that exercise is an adjunct to that, and the, the research that we are doing at the Friedman School is showing that we can get a lot of people exercising, so, um, it, it's really important for your brain as well as your, reducing your risk of breast cancer. And as a woman with a history of Alzheimer in my family, I am certainly gonna keep exercising.

A lot of people are gonna pay attention to it. Miriam Nelson, professor, thanks, good to have you here.
Thank you very much.

1 aerobic   

adj.需氧的，增氧健身法的，有氧的

参考例句：

• Aerobic exercise helps to build up stamina.有氧健身操有助于增强耐力。
• Aerobic dance is conductive to the health.有氧舞蹈有助于健康。

2 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

3 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

4 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

5 recurrence   

n.复发，反复，重现

参考例句：

• More care in the future will prevent recurrence of the mistake.将来的小心可防止错误的重现。
• He was aware of the possibility of a recurrence of his illness.他知道他的病有可能复发。

6 differentiated   

区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征

参考例句：

• The development of mouse kidney tubules requires two kinds of differentiated cells. 小鼠肾小管的发育需要有两种分化的细胞。
• In this enlargement, barley, alfalfa, and sugar beets can be differentiated. 在这张放大的照片上，大麦，苜蓿和甜菜都能被区分开。

7 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。