Australian doctors declared Monday that a
cocktail of simple antihypertensive drugs can lower the risk of patients
suffering a repeat stroke by more than a third. This is the result of their
research. The research, presented at a medical conference in Italy over the
weekend, has been valued highly as a major breakthrough in stroke
prevention. Strokes kill 5 million people a year, and more than
15 million suffer nonfatal strokes that often leave them with useless limbs,
slurred speech and other serious disabilities. One in five stroke survivors goes
on to have a second, often fatal, stroke within five years of the
first. An international six-year study of 6,100 patients
directed from Sydney University found that by taking two blood pressure-lowering
drugs, the risk of secondary strokes can be reduced by up to 40 percent. Even
taking one of the commonly available drugs can cut the risk by a third, the
study said. The drugs are the diuretic indapamide and the ACE inhibitor
perindopril, better known by its brand name Coversy. The combination was
effective even in patients who did not have high blood pressure, the researchers
said. They even found that the risk of another stroke could be cut by three
quarters among the one-in-ten patients who had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage,
the worst type of stroke, where there is direct bleeding into the
brain. Stephen McMahon, who presented the research at the Milan
congress of the European Society of Hypertension, said about 50 million people
were alive who had suffered at least one stroke. "If most of those patients were
able to get access to this treatment, it would result in maybe the avoidance of
half a million strokes a year," the professor told Australia's ABC
Radio. McMahon said doctors had long known that lowering the
blood pressure of those with hypertension could help prevent strokes. "What we
have shown for the first time is that it does not really matter what your blood
pressure is; if you have had a stroke, then lowering blood pressure will produce
large benefits, to begin with—even for people whose blood pressure is average or
below average," he said. McMahon said the Milan gathering had
heralded the research as a "major breakthrough in the care of patients with
strokes—perhaps the biggest step forward that we have made in the last couple of
decades".
单选题
How many people surviving the first stroke may suffer another attack
during the following five years?
A.More than 33% of them.
B.Up to 40% of them.
C.20% of them.
D.10% of them.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
Taking two blood pressure-lowering drugs may produce ______ less risk
of secondary strokes than taking only one such drug.
A.three quarters
B.nearly tour tenths
C.one fifth
D.about one fourteenth
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】
单选题
Which of the following is NOT a symptom left by strokes?
A.Habitual sleeplessness.
B.Losing the function of one or more extremities.
C.Speaking unclearly.
D.Serious disabilities such as facial paralysis.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】
单选题
How many strokes may be reduced in a year if most of stroke patients
can be treated in the way as the article recommends?
A.5,000,000.
B.500,000.
C.50,000,000.
D.15,000,000.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】
单选题
What patients among those who have had a stroke will benefit greatly
from taking blood pressure-lowering drugs?