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  3. The month of your birth influences your risk of developing dementia. Although the effect is small compared to risk factors such

The month of your birth influences your risk of developing dementia. Although the effect is small compared to risk factors such

admin2022-10-23  81
问题     The month of your birth influences your risk of developing dementia. Although the effect is small compared to risk factors such as obesity, it may show how the first few months of life can affect cognitive health for decades to come.
    Demographers Gabriele Doblhammer and Thomas Fritze from the University of Rostock, Germany, studied data from the Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse—Germany’s largest public health insurer—for nearly 150000 people aged 65 and over. After adjusting for age, they found that those born in the three months from December to February had a 7 percent lower risk of developing dementia than those born in June to August, with the risk for other months falling in between.
    There’s nothing astrological about the effect, however. Instead, the birth month is a marker for environmental conditions such as weather and nutrition, says Gerard van den Berg, an economist at the University of Bristol, UK, who studies the effects of economic circumstances on health. Summer-born babies are younger when they face the respiratory infections of their first winter, for example. And in the past, babies born in spring and summer would have been in late gestation when the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables from the autumn harvest would have largely run out. Pollution from wood fires or coal heating might also have played a role.
    An estimated 37 million people worldwide suffer from dementia, and that number is expected to double every 20 years, say the researchers. But although you can’t change your birth month, as far your individual dementia risk is concerned, " it also matters what you do during the rest of your life", Doblhammer says.
    The researchers say the study can’t tell us anything directly about the mechanisms underlying the correlation between birth month and later dementia risk—but they point to several possibilities. For example, poor nutrition might impact directly on brain development at a critical time. It’s also known that infections brought on by poor nutrition or experienced very early in life—for instance, in a baby’s first full winter—might cause epigenetic changes that affect metabolism and inflammation levels throughout life. This would increase the risk of chronic conditions such as obesity and high blood pressure, which are known to increase the risk of dementia.
    Lifestyle changes aimed at lowering dementia risk are often aimed at people in mid or later life. But Doblhammer says tackling the rising incidence of dementia may require early-life interventions too—for example, programmes to improve the nutritional health of young mothers. Tom Russ, a psychiatrist at the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre in Edinburgh, UK, agrees. "It is never too early to start thinking about reducing the risk of developing dementia, " he says.
What kind of suggestions do the experts make?
选项 A、To choose the birth month more carefully.
B、To provide better nutrition for children.
C、To change lifestyles in mid or later life.
D、To take preventative measures earlier.
答案D
解析 由题干中的suggestions和the experts make定位至最后一段。推理判断题。定位句指出，人们往往在中老年阶段才开始注意转变生活方式，以降低罹患痴呆症的风险，但专家提示，早期从孕妇营养等方面加以干预，是非常有必要的，实际上，控制痴呆症风险越早越好，故答案为D。
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