4. When reporting
the news, the author seemed to be a little ______.
A. angry
B. surprised C. shocked
D. worried
B
Why do men die earlier than
women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men's
hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age.
The largest study of the
effects of ageing on the heart has found that women's longevity may be
linked to the fact that their hearts do not lose their pumping power with age.
"We have found that the
power of the male heart falls by 20--25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,”said the head of the study, David
Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.
"Within the heart there
are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70,one-third of those cells die and are
not replaced in men,”said Goldspink. "This is part
of the ageing process."
What surprises scientists is
that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A
healthy 70-year-old
woman's heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one's.
"This gender difference might just explain why women live longer
than men,”said Goldspink.
They studied more than 250
healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80,focusing on healthy persons to remove
the confusing influence of disease.
The team has yet to find why
ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart, said Goldspink.
The good news is that men
can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed
that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming
smaller and weaker as they age.