VOA慢速英语20061122a

HEALTH REPORT - Study Links Red Meat to Higher Risk of Breast CancerBy Caty Weaver¹

Broadcast: Wednesday, November 22, 2006

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Exercise and keeping a healthy weight are two things that doctors say might help women lower their risk of breast cancer.

Mothers may reduce their risk if they breastfeed for at least four months. For older women, hormone² replacement³ therapy can lower the risk of some other diseases. But it has been found to increase the risk of breast cancer.

So women should consider their choices carefully. The same may be said for diet.


A study found that the more red meat women ate, the greater their risk of hormone-related breast cancers

New findings show that younger women who eat a lot of red meat have higher rates of breast cancers called hormone-receptor positive. The growth is fed by the levels of estrogen or another hormone, progesterone, in the body.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, reported the findings as part of a health study of nurses. The researchers followed the health of more than ninety thousand women from nineteen ninety-one to two thousand three.

Those who ate the most red meat ate more than one and one-half servings a day. A serving was defined as roughly eighty-four grams. Those who ate the least red meat ate less than three servings a week.

This is what the study found about breast cancers that were hormone receptor-positive: The women who ate the most red meat were almost two times as likely to get them as the women who ate the least of it.

Eunyoung Cho, the lead author of the report, says more research is needed to know the reason for the link. But in the past, researchers have suggested that three things may play a part. One is the way meat is cooked or processed. Another is the use of growth hormones⁴ in cows. And the third is the kind of iron in red meat. The study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

And now we have more to tell you about our subject last week -- resveratrol. We discussed a study in the United States that found that large amounts of this plant compound helped fat mice live longer. The mice were fed much more resveratrol than people could get from red wine, one of the foods that contains it.

Now, scientists in France say resveratrol also improves muscle performance -- again, at least in mice. They were able to run two times as far in laboratory treadmill⁵ tests as mice normally could. The study at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular⁶ and Cellular⁷ Biology appeared in the journal Cell.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I'm Barbara Klein.

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

3 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

4 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

5 treadmill   

n.踏车；单调的工作

参考例句：

• The treadmill has a heart rate monitor.跑步机上有个脉搏监视器。
• Drugs remove man from the treadmill of routine.药物可以使人摆脱日常单调的工作带来的疲劳。

6 molecular   

adj.分子的；克分子的

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms.这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。
• For the pressure to become zero, molecular bombardment must cease.当压强趋近于零时，分子的碰撞就停止了。

7 cellular   

adj.移动的；细胞的，由细胞组成的

参考例句：

• She has a cellular telephone in her car.她的汽车里有一部无线通讯电话机。
• Many people use cellular materials as sensitive elements in hygrometers.很多人用蜂窝状的材料作为测量温度的传感元件。