Smoke Gets in Your Mind

    1. Lung cancer, hypertension, heart disease, birth defects—we are all too familiar with the dangers of smoking. But add to that list a frightening new concern. Mental illnes. According to some controversial new findings, if smoking does not kill you, it may, quite litter, drive you to despair。

    2.The tobacco industry openly pushes its product as something to lift your mood and soothe anxiety. But the short-term feel-good effect may mask the truth: that smoking may worsen or even trigger anxiety disorders, panic attacks and depression, perhaps even schizophrenia.

    3.Cigarettes and mental illness have always tended to go together. An estimated 1.25 billion people smoke worldwide. Yet people who are depressed or anxious are twice as likely to smoke, and up to 88 per cent of those with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia smokers. A recent American survey concluded that around half of all cigarettes burn in the fingers of those with mental illness.

    4.But the big question is why? The usual story is that the illness comes first. Mentally ill people take up smoking, or smoke more to alleviate some of their distress. Even when smoking seems to start before the illness, most doctors believe that early but invisible symptoms of the disorder spark the desire to light up¹. But perhaps something more sinister is going on.

    5.A growing number of researchers claim that smoking is the cause, not the consequence of clinical depression and several forms of anxiety. “We know a lot about the effects of smoking on physical health, and now we are also starting to see the adverse effects in new research on mental illness,” says Naomi Breslau, director of research at the Henry Ford Health Care System in Detroit.

    6.Breslauwas one of the first to consider this heretical possibility. The hint came from studies, published in 1998, which followed a group² of just over 1,000 young adults for a five-year period. The 13 per cent who began the study with major depression were around three times more likely to progress from being light smokers to daily smokers during the course of the study, though there was no evidence that depression increased the tendency to take up smoking. But a history of daily smoking before the study commenced roughly doubled the risk of developing major depression during the five-year period Smoking, it seems, could pre-date illness.

    7.At firstBreslauconcluded that whatever prompts people to smoke might also make them depressed. But as the results of other much larger studies began to back the statistical link, she became more convinced than ever that what she was seeing were signs that smoking, perhaps the nicotine itself, could somehow affect the brain and cause depression.

    8.One of these larger studies was led by Goodman, a pediatrician. She followed the health of two groups of teenagers for a year. the first group of 8,704 adolescents were not depressed, and might or might not have been smokers, while the second group of 6,947 were highly depressed and had not been smokers in the past month. After a year her team found that although depressed teenagers were more likely to have become heavy smokers, previous experimentation with smoking was the strongest predictor of such behaviour, not the depression itself³. What is more important is that teenagers who started out mentally fit but smoked at least one packet per week during the study were four times more likely to develop depression than their non-smoking peers. Goodman says that depression does not seem to start before cigarette use among teens. “Current cigarette use is however, a powerful determinant of developing high depressive symptoms.”

    9.Breslau, too, finds that smokers are as much as four times more likely to have an isolated panic attack and three times more likely to develop longer-term panic disorder than non-smokers. It’s a hard message to get across⁴, because many smokers say they become anxious when they quit, not when they smoke. ButBreslausays that this is a short-lived effect of withdrawal which masks the reality that, in general, smokers have higher anxiety levels than non-smokers or ex-smokers.

 

词汇：

hypertension /ihaipa丨ten J(3)n/ n.高血压

schizophrenia /jskitss"friims/ n.精字申分裂症

psychotic /sai"kotik/ adj.精神分裂的

alleviate /a"liivieit/ v.减轻

sinister "sinister) / adj.不祥的

clinical /"khmk^l/ adj.临床的

heretical /hi丨retik(3)l/ adj.异端的

prompt /prompt/ v.促使

nicotine / 丨ndra丨tiin/ n.

paediatrician /ipiidis"tn^n/ n.儿禾斗医生

 

注释：

1.Even when smoking seems to start before the illness, most doctors believe that early but invisible symptoms of the disorder spark the desire to light up.即使病人是在得病之前就开始抽烟的，但 大多数医生相信早期一些没有觉察到的症状使病人产生了抽烟的欲望.

2.... studies ... which followed a group ...:…对一组……作跟踪的调查

3.... although depressed teenagers were more likely to have become heavy smokers, previous experimentation with smoking was the strongest predictor of such behaviour, not the depression itself.：……虽然情绪抑郁的少年更有可能成为瘾君子，但究其原因却往往是以前有过尝试 抽烟这样的经历，而不是情绪抑郁本身所致。

Paragraph 3 Paragraph 4 Paragraph 6 Paragraph 8

4.It"s a hard message to get across. :这个信息很难让人理解。

A. have been proved to be misleading

B. but to their mental health as well

C. taking up smoking

D. involved fewer people

E. they started to smoke at an early age

F. but their level of anxiety increases when they quite smoking

To contradict Breslau’s conclusion, many smokers say that they are less anxious when they smoke _________.

A:A B:B C:C D:D E:E F:F

—Do you mind if I smoke —（）.

A:Why not B:Yes, help yourself. C:Go ahead. D:Yes, but you'd better not.

Air pollution is caused by many things. Great clouds of smoke come from factories. Cars send smoke and fumes into the air. Burning waste fills the air with bits of dirt. Even burning leaves add smoke to the air. Sometimes, planes cannot find their landing spots through smoke. Smoke of all kinds is bad to breathe and can do great harm to the body.
Still, we cannot live without air. We must find a way to clean the air we have.
In time, we may have factories that are run by atomic energy. Our cars may run on smoke-free electric power. Scientists are also working on new ways to help the oil burned by cars from making fumes. Waste may be burned in the sand on ocean floors.
These changes might keep our air clean in the years to come. But until then, many scientists are looking for ways to make air cleaner now.
Scientists are now working on ways to ______.

A:keep planes from :flying B:bury sand on ocean floors C:stop air pollution D:burn leaves without smoke

Is there anything more important than health I don’t think so. "Health is the greatest wealth," wise people say. You can’t be good at your studies or work well when you are ill.
If you have a headache, toothache, backache, earache or bad pain in the stomach, if you complain of a bad cough, if you run a high temperature and have a bad cold, or if you suffer from high or low blood pressure, I think you should go to the doctor.
The doctor will examine your throat, feel your pulse, test your blood pressure, take your temperature, sound your heart and lungs, test your eyes, check your teeth or have your chest Xrayed. After that, he will advise some treatment, or some medicine. The only thing you have to do is to follow his advice.
Speaking about doctor’s advice, I can’t help telling you a funny story.
An old gentleman came to see the doctor. The man was very ill. He told the doctor about his weakness, memory loss and serious problems with his heart and lungs. The doctor examined him and said there was no medicine for his disease.
He told his patient to go to a quiet place for a month and have a good rest. He also advised him to eat a lot of meat, drink two glasses of red wine every day and take long walks. In other words, the doctor advised him to follow the rule: "Eat at pleasure, drink with measure and enjoy life as it is." The doctor also said that if the man wanted to be well again, he shouldn’t smoke more than one cigarette a day.
A month later the gentleman came into the doctor’s office. He looked much more cheerful and much happier. He thanked the doctor and said that he had never felt a healthier man.
"But you know, doctor," the man went on saying, "it’s not easy to begin smoking at my age./
From the last sentence of the passage, we learn the man ______ before the doctor told him not to smoke more than one cigarette a day.

A:was a heavy smoker B:didn’t smoke so much C:didn’t smoke D:began to learn to smoke

Air pollution is caused by many things. Great clouds of smoke come from factories. Cars send smoke and fumes into the air. Burning waste fills the air with bits of dirt. Even burning leaves add smoke to the air. Sometimes, planes cannot find their landing spots through smoke. Smoke of all kinds is bad to breathe and can do great harm to the body.
Still, we cannot live without air. We must find a way to clean the air we have.
In time, we may have factories that are run by atomic energy. Our cars may run on smoke-free electric power. Scientists are also working on new ways to help the oil burned by cars from making fumes. Waste may be burned in the sand on ocean floors.
These changes might keep our air clean in the years to come. But until then, many scientists are looking for ways to make air cleaner now.
Why would electric cars cut down on air pollution

A:They go only a short way. B:They are easier to keep clean. C:Electric power has no smoke. D:Electric cars need no energy.

In general, the oil mist detectors include a built-in heating unit and a compact plug for electrical connectionThe function of heating unit is to ____.

A:avoid false alarms as a result of condensing water vapor B:avoid danger of frost under very cold weather C:reduce the viscosity of the crankcase atmosphere in order to improve the fluidity D:keep the temperature of the oil mist detectors in an appropriate range

What type of fire detectors is the first to go of in case of a fire?

A:Smoke detectors B:Flame detectors C:Heat detectors D:Gas detectors"