Red Meat Links to Higher Risk of Breast Cancer¹

    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, hormone replacement therapy² 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.

    New findings show that younger women who eat a lot of red meat have higher rates of breast cancers called hormone-receptor positive³. The growth is fed by the levels of estrogen or another hormone, progesterone, in the body.

    Researchers at Brigham 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 90,000 women from 1991 to 2003. Those who ate the most red meat ate more than one and one-half servings a day. A serving was defined as roughly 84 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 hormones 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 — resveratrol. We discussed a study in theUnited Statesthat 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 inFrancesay resveratrol also improves muscle performance — again, at least in mice. They were able to run two times as far in laboratory treadmill tests⁴ as mice normally could. The study at theInstituteofGeneticsand Molecular and Cellular Biology⁵ appeared in the journal Cell.

词汇：

breast  /brest/ n. 胸；乳房 

breastfeed /ˈbrestfi:d/ n. 哺乳，喂奶
hormone /"hɔ:məʊn/ n. 激素，荷尔蒙 

therapy / "θerəpɪ/ n. 疗法，治疗
receptor /rɪˈseptə(r) / n. 接收器，感受器；受体 

estrogen / "i:strədʒən/ n. 雌激素
progesterone / prə"dʒestərəʊn/ n. 黄体酮，孕酮（孕激素类药)

serving  /ˈsə:viŋ/ n. 一份饭菜　

process /prə"ses/ n .处理；加工

resveratrol / rez"vɪərɪˌtrɔ:l/ n.白藜芦醇（抗肿瘤药)
compound / "kɒmpaʊnd, kɑmˈpaʊnd/ n.混合物；化合物；复合物 treadmill / ˈtredmɪl/ n .(古时罚囚犯踩踏的）踏车；（喻)单调的工作
genetics / dʒəˈnetɪks/ n. 遗传学

molecular /mə"lekjələ(r) / adj. 分子的
cellular /"seljələ(r) / adj.细胞的 

cell /sel/ n. 细胞

注释：

1.breast cancer：乳腺癌
2.replacement therapy：补充疗法，补偿疗法（应用机体天然产物或合成代用品补充机体的形成或缺陷）
3.hormone-receptor positive：激素受体阳性
4.treadmill test：单调乏味的实验
5. Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology：遗传学、分子生物学及细胞生物学研究所

Any kind of iron in the food is a contributor to the development of breast cancer

A:Right B:Wrong C:Not mentioned

Eating Potatoes Gives Your Immune System a Boost

    Eating potatoes is not only good for bowel health，but also for the whole immune system， especially when they come in the form of a potato salad or eaten cold. In a study on an animal model，researchers in Spain found that pigs fed large quantities of raw potato starch (RPS)¹ not only had a healthier bowel, but also decreased levels of white blood cells, such as leucocytes and lymphocytes in their blood. White blood cells are produced as a result of inflammation or disease， generally when the body is challenged.
    The general down-regulation of leucocytes observed by the Spanish researchers suggests an overall beneficial effect, a generally more healthy body.² The reduction in leucocyte levels was about 15 percent. Lower lymphocyte levels are also indicative of reduced levels of inflammation ’ but the observed reduction in both lymphocyte density and lymphocyte apoptosis is surprising.
　　In what was the longest study of its kind，pigs were fed RPS over 14 weeks to find out the effect of starch on bowel health. "The use of raw potato starch in this experiment is designed to simulate the effects of a diet high in resistant starch, ” said study leader Jose Francisco Perez at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona³，Spain.
　　Humans do not eat raw potatoes，but they do eat a lot of foods that contain resistant starch， such as cold boiled potatoes，legumes，grains，green bananas，pasta and cereals. About 10 percent of the starch eaten by human is resistant starch 一 starch that is not digested in the small intestine and so is shunted into the large intestine where it ferments. Starch consumption is thought to reduce the risk of large bowel cancer and may also have an effect on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)⁴.
　　Immunology expert Lena Ohman"s team previously found that the overall lymphocyte levels do not vary for IBS patients, but that lymphocytes are transferred from the peripheral blood to the gut, which support the hypothesis of IBS being at least partially an inflammatory disorder. She says the decrease in lymphocytes observed by the Spanish is therefore interesting, and a diet of resistant starch may be worth trying in IBS patients. Ohman is currently at the Department of Internal Medicine, GoteborgUniversity, Sweden⁵. The study is published in the journal Chemistry and Industry, the magazine of the SCI⁶.