2014考研英语：阅读理解高分强化训练(一)
Medical Science and Health
医学与健康
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Something about the treatment of Diabetes
One recent study that was published in the January 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that just 12 percent of people with diabetes have met the doctors' recommended guidelines for blood glucose, lipids and blood pressure levels. Those people, failing to meet these goals, are at an extremely high risk for heart disease, which is the leading cause of death for people with diabetes.
According to data released at the American Diabetes Association's (ADA's) 64th Annual Scientific Sessions in June, most diabetes specialists worldwide do not regard diabetes as a "coronary equivalent". That is, they don't treat problems such as high cholesterol as aggressively in people who have diabetes as they do in people who have heart disease, even though people who have diabetes are as much at risk for a coronary event as someone without diabetes who has already had a heart attack.
Other studies show that doctors fail to treat high blood pressure aggressively enough in people who have diabetes, and that nearly half of all people with diabetes who are treated for high blood pressure cannot succeed in keeping their blood pressure levels "at goal". More than 70 percent of all people with diabetes have high blood pressure, though many of them do not even know it.
What makes this more complex is the reality that many other obstacles hold people from keeping their own blood pressure, lipids and blood glucose levels in check. These problems might include the patient's failure to stick to a treatment plan, a lack of social support and the fact that many people who have diabetes face various disease conditions that can become overwhelming.
Because diabetes is such a complex disease, it is often difficult for people to see how to take a few simple steps to vastly improve their health. That's why the American Diabetes Association has developed a new tool, known as Diabetes Personal Health Decisions (Diabetes PHD), which can immediately show people the specific benefits they would achieve by losing a specific number of pounds, or by lowering blood glucose, cholesterol or blood pressure levels by varying amounts.
This tool allows people who have diabetes-and even those who are at risk for developing it-to enter personal health information such as age, sex, height, race, weight, family history, medications and a variety of blood values onto a Web site. The program then gives back an accurate risk profile that spells out what that person can do to lower his or her risks by changing specific health parameters such as weight, blood pressure or cholesterol. People will have free access to the Diabetes PHD on the ADA's Web site later this year.
But retrieving a report from Diabetes PHD is only the first step. The information provided can help emphasize the benefits of different health and lifestyle changes, but it is up to health care providers and the people they treat to follow through on Diabetes PHD data with action.
Diabetes is a serious and life-threatening disease, but it is one that we know how to treat, how to delay or prevent it. And that's a goal worth working towards in the future.
