Voa Science Report - Obesity as a Social Disease? How Friendship Could Be Fattening

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is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. Barbara Klein. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember. This , we will tell how friendship could be fattening. We will tell about allergic reactions and their treatments. And, report on a computer program that has solved a game. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Researchers say they have found fatness can spread from person to person in social . When one person gains weight, close friends often gain , too. The study was published last month in the England Journal of Medicine. The researchers looked at records the Framingham Heart Study. It gathered health information about than twelve thousand people from nineteen seventy-one to two three. The information was very detailed. It listed changes the body-mass index for each individual. The body mass measures a person's body fat. The Framingham study also information about changes in family and events like marriages deaths. There was also contact information for close friends the subjects in the study. As a result, the were able to examine more than forty thousand social . VOICE TWO: The study showed that when a person severely overweight, there is a fifty-seven percent increased chance one of their friends will be, too. A sister brother of the overweight person has a forty percent chance of becoming fat. The increased risk for a or husband is a little less than that. Nicholas of Harvard Medical School was a lead investigator in study. He says his research showed that fat people not choosing fat friends. He says there is a causal relationship between a person getting fat and being in weight gain by a friend. VOICE ONE: The found that the sex of the friends is also influence. In same-sex friendships, a person has a seventy-one increased risk of getting fat. The same was true brothers and sisters separately. A man has a forty-four increased risk of becoming obese after a weight gain his brother. In sisters, the increased risk is sixty-seven . The study also showed that physical closeness of family and friends did little to increase a person's risk. other lead investigator was James Fowler of the University California at San Diego. Mister Fowler says a friend lives a few hundred kilometers away has as much as one in your neighborhood. He says the study the need to consider that a major part of persons health is tied to his or her social . VOICE TWO: Doctor Christakis and Mister Fowler say close probably influence what a person finds acceptable and unacceptable. if a friend gets fat, the condition becomes more . Both investigators agree their research shows that obesity is just a private medical issue, but a public health . The researchers say more studies into the idea of spread obesity could provide new ways to fight fat. friends help make fatness acceptable, then they might also influential in the fight against obesity. The researchers note support groups are already an effective tool in dealing other socially influenced health problems, like alcohol dependence. (MUSIC) ONE: An allergy is an unusually strong reaction to substance. Many things can cause allergies. The most common is pollen. Trees usually produce pollen in the spring part of their reproductive process. Pollen also comes in in the summer and weeds in the fall. Other include organisms such as dust mites and molds. Chemicals, and dead skin particles from dogs and cats can cause allergic reactions. So can insect bites and some . The most common kind of allergic reaction is itchy, eyes and a blocked or watery nose. Allergies can cause red, itchy skin. Some reactions can be life-threatening - - for example, when breathing passages become blocked. VOICE TWO: whatever causes an allergy may not always be easy. drugs may offer an effective treatment. Another treatment is immunotherapy. A patient is injected with small amounts of allergy-causing substance. The idea is that larger and larger are given over time until the patient develops a to the allergen. In the United States, experts estimate up to four percent of adults and up to percent of young children have food allergies. Every year allergies cause about thirty thousand cases of anaphylaxis, a reaction that requires immediate treatment. It can result in breathing and in some cases death. The National Institute Allergy and Infectious Diseases says one hundred to two people die. It says most of the reactions resulted peanuts and tree nuts such as walnuts. VOICE ONE: can also be allergic to medicines. The American Academy Allergy, Asthma and Immunology says about five to ten of bad reactions to commonly used medicines are allergic. , a person's natural defense system overreacts and produces an reaction. The most common reactions include skin rashes, itching, problems and temporary enlargement of areas such as the . But the academy estimates that allergic reactions to drugs one hundred six thousand deaths each year in the States alone. It says antibiotics such as penicillin are the drugs more likely than others to produce allergic . So are anticonvulsants and hormones such as insulin. Other include some anesthesia medicines, vaccines and biotechnology-produced proteins. (MUSIC) TWO: The game of checkers is popular in many . In Britain, the game is better known as draughts. you feel like playing a game now? But do plan on winning if you play against a computer named Chinook. Scientists in Canada developed the computer program. one has ever defeated Chinook. At best, a player makes no mistakes would tie the computer program. Chinook an important development in computer programming and the area study known as artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence uses science understand and create systems of thought and behavior in . VOICE ONE: The Chinook project began in nineteen eighty-nine-. Schaeffer is a computer scientist with the University of . He wanted to create a program that could defeat World Checkers Champion. To do this, he talked to checker players about their methods for winning. Professor Schaeffer a computer program with information about the rules of game, and successful and unsuccessful moves. Then, he and team carefully corrected and improved the program. For eighteen , about fifty computers worked without stop on the five billion-billion possible positions in a game of checkers. VOICE : In nineteen ninety-two-, Chinook played against the World Checkers Marion Tinsley. Mister Tinsley won against the computer program. played again two years later, but he had to because of poor health. Mister Tinsley is thought to the greatest checkers player who ever lived. He only three games in forty-one years of competition. Experts will know if the earlier version of Chinook could have Mister Tinsley. But he was a human being, and make mistakes. Chinook, in its latest version, has avoided possibility of mistake. VOICE ONE: Chinook is not the program to solve a game. For example, there are that have yet to lose at the games of Four and Awari. But checkers is by far more . Checkers is about one million times more complex than Four. Chinook must make complex decisions in a large complex space with many possible positions. Professor Schaeffer says team has taken the knowledge used in artificial intelligence to an extreme level. He says he has replaced decision making with perfect knowledge. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: This IN THE NEWS program was written by Dana Demange, Ritter and Caty Weaver. Brianna Blake was our producer. Steve Ember. VOICE ONE: And I'm Barbara Klein. Read listen to our programs at voaspecialenglishcom.. Join us again this time next week for more news about science Special English on the Voice of America.

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