考研英语时文阅读17ab

考研时文阅读（17A）

(2009-04-04 21:21:15)

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本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了两位博士对午睡和健康关系的一项最新研究。第一段提出了有关午睡的话题，并以一些名人的午睡特点来加以例证，接着介绍了纳斯卡和特里克伯罗斯所进行的研究，说明午睡可以延长人的生命；第二段进一步详细地阐述其研究的结果；第三段作者驳斥了地中海饮食可能影响实验结果可信度的说法；在第四段里，特里克伯罗斯博士建议人们为了健康尽量午睡。Sloth(怠惰, 懒惰) may be seen as a sin, but some of history's most accomplished men were fond of lounging around. Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed napping. So did Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. Richard Buckminster Fuller advocated taking 30-minute naps every six hours. No one has yet proved a correlation between napping and artistic brilliance or professional success, but an intriguing study published this week claims to find a link between daytime siestas and good health. A team of researchers led by Androniki Naska and Dimitrios Trichopoulos of Harvard's School of Public Health followed over 23,000 Greek patients with no history of cancer or stroke, for an average of six years. Their conclusion: napping just might save your life.

The study found that the group of adults who took 30-minute siestas at least three times a week had a third fewer deaths from heart disease than an equivalent group who did not sleep at all during the day. The benefit was greater for men than for women. It was also greater for working males than for those who had retired.

However, a number of previous studies done in the Mediterranean and in parts of Central America (where siestas remain common) have come up with conflicting results, but Dr. Naska and Dr. Trichopoulos argue that those studies have often been flawed. The subjects in some, for example, had survived heart attacks and may therefore have benefited more from napping than healthy individuals do.

Given that all of the subjects of this new study were Greeks; could the

much-celebrated Mediterranean diet deserve credit, rather than the siestas? The firm answer from Dr Trichopoulos is “No”. And he is in a good position to say so, for it was he who did the pioneering research that put olive oil and a plant-based diet on the scientific map in the first place. Unlike some other nap studies, his was controlled for diet, smoking, exercise and other relevant variables. The earlier findings about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet are confirmed, he says, and napping seems to help on top of that.

Before buying a sofa for the office, however, it might be wise to consider the possibility of selection bias. Dr Trichopoulos concludes that “Type A” personalities, whose hard-working lives may make them prone to heart attacks, are also much less likely to take naps during the day. That bias might be distorting the study's results. Even so, he advises, “Take a nap if you can.”

参考译文

懒惰也许会被人们认为是一种罪过，但是历史上一些最成功的人士却喜欢悠闲懒散的生活。列奥纳多·达芬奇喜欢午睡，阿尔伯特爱因斯坦和温斯顿丘吉尔也一样喜欢午睡。里查德巴克明斯行福勒提倡每隔6个小时就小睡30分钟。没有人能够证明午睡与杰出的艺术才能或者事业上的成功有相互关系，但是本周一份引人入胜的研究报告声称发现了日间午睡与健康之间的一种联系。一个由安德罗尼基·纳斯卡和哈佛公共卫生学院的特里克伯罗斯所领导的研究小组对23,000名没有癌症或者中风记录的希腊病人，进行了长达6年的研究，该研究结果表明：午睡有可能延长人的生命。

这项研究发现，那些每周至少午休3次，且每次午睡至少30分钟的成人组与日间从不午休的成人组相比，患心脏病致死的概率低了1/3。男性从午睡中的