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如何保护心脏健康——眼见为实

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report. When it comes to having a healthy body, seeing may be believing.

Experiments suggest that people who see detailed pictures of their clogged arteries may be more likely to stay healthy than people who do not. The latest experiment was done in Sweden.

Researchers there studied just over 3,500 people. These individuals were between 40 and 60 years of age. Each person had at least one risk factor for heart disease, but no signs of the disorder.

The researchers divided these subjects into two groups. One group received what was called usual carelike taking medicine or talking with health care workers about heart disease.

However, the members of the other group got to see pictures of their arteries. Researchers also gave them personalized guidance on why those pictures might be a sign of future health problems.

One year later, the people who saw the images of their own arteries had fewer risk factors for heart disease than those who did not see pictures. The researchers reported their findings in The Lancet.

The lead writer of a report on the study was Ulf Naslund of Umea University. In an email to the Reuters news agency, he explained that the best ways to keep your arteries healthy is to follow a healthy lifestyle.

He said that means do not smoke, drink less alcohol, eat healthy food, exercise and take the right medications to lower cholesterol and high blood pressure. There are plenty of treatments, Naslund noted. That is not the problem.

The problem, he said, is that people do not take steps to improve their condition or take their medicines. That is where the seeing part may help.

Doctors warn that many people think they have healthy hearts but, actually, they do not. Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, can be a silent killer.

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