雅思课外读物--Is alcohol actually bad for you? - 雅思(IELTS)-全程雅思学习-雅思中国网

摘要：给大家带来雅思课外读物“Is alcohol actually bad for you?”过量饮酒对身体有坏处，这已是共识。但适度饮酒呢(moderate alcohol)?是不是对身体有好处?好像我们喝酒的人都这么说。但这也许只是喝酒人的自我安慰罢了。如果你也不确定到底是不是有好处，那就看看本文怎么说的吧！

Meanwhile,another team of researchers studied people whose bodies cannot process alcohol properly – and therefore who generally don’t drink alcohol at all – and found those with this genetic marker had better cardiovascular health and a lower risk of coronary heart disease than those without it.(与此同时，另一个研究队伍考察了那些身体不能处理酒精—因此根本就不能喝酒—的人，他们发现，有这种基因特征的人与没有这种特征的人相比，心血管更健康，患冠心病的风险也低一些。)

And then there’s the really bad news. Whatever the effects that alcohol does or doesn’t have on your heart disease risk, it can still hasten your death in a myriad of(各种各样的)other colourful ways.

The World Health Organization reported last year that drinking can increase your risk of depression and anxiety, liver cirrhosis(肝硬化), pancreatitis(胰腺炎), suicide, violence, and accidental injury.

Alcohol is also linked to cancer of the mouth, nose, larynx, oesophagus, colon, liver, andbreast cancer in women. Between 4% and 30% of cancer deaths worldwide could be attributed to alcohol use (for breast cancer, the most common, the figure was8%). Importantly, even moderate drinking confers(给与)some increased risk: just one glass a day increases the risk of breast cancer by 4%, while heavy drinking can increase the risk by 40-50%.

Heavy drinking weakens the immune system(免疫系统)and is therefore linked with pneumonia(肺炎) and tuberculosis(结核). It also encourages risky sexual behaviour which increases the chance of acquiring sexually transmitted infections such as HIV.And drinking during pregnancy can cause damage to the foetus, leading to Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

In total,there are more than 200 diseases and injuries that can be linked to alcohol consumption, including 30 that are caused only by alcohol.

But the idea that moderate alcohol consumption might be beneficial has not entirely gone away, and even organisations dedicated to combating the problem of alcohol grudgingly(不情愿地)say that small amounts of alcohol may have a protective effect against heart disease and some types of stroke.(然而，适度饮酒对身体有好处的观点并未完全消失，即使是那些致力于解决酒精问题的组织也心不甘情不愿地认为，少量饮酒对心脏病和其他类型的中风具有保护作用。)

Confused?You’re not the only one. Perhaps the best summation(概括)of how alcohol affects our health comes from a critical analysis published in early 2013. Its author concluded that, while the evidence of alcohol’s harmful effects was solid, there were plenty of reasons to take evidence of alcohol’s health benefits with agrain of salt(一粒盐;打折扣)– but not,perhaps, a slice of lemon(一片柠檬;舒服惬意).

Vocabulary

Disproportionate 一边倒的;不成比例的

Alcohol inmoderation 适度饮酒

Deposit 沉淀物

Blood vessel 血管

Ply sb. with… 给某人提供……

Speculate 假想;假设

Coronary arterydisease 冠心病

Physiology 生理机能

Herald 预示……的到来

Mechanism 机制

Replicate 复制