考研英语时文赏读（125）：吃巧克力能让人心情愉悦？

　　A bite of dark chocolate can help brighten your mood

　　吃一口黑巧克力可以让你心情愉快

　　Scientists have found that eating dark chocolate appears to lower the risk of depression by four fold.

　　科学家发现，食用黑巧克力或许可以将抑郁症的患病风险降低4倍。

　　While 7.6 percent of the 13,000 people surveyed reported depressive symptoms, just 1.5 percent of the chocolate eaters did.

　　在对1.3万人的调查中发现，7.6%的人曾患有抑郁症，而其中食用巧克力的人只有1.5%患有抑郁症。

　　The study by University College London (UCL), the University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services Canada, also found that the people who consumed the most of any chocolate were also 57 percent less likely to report depressive symptoms.

　　这项由伦敦大学学院、卡尔加里大学以及加拿大阿尔伯塔省卫生服务中心共同开展的研究还发现，食用巧克力最多的人患抑郁症的概率要低57%。

　　Lead author Dr Sarah Jackson, of UCL’s Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care, said: “This study provides some evidence that consumption of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, may be associated with reduced odds of clinically relevant depressive symptoms.”

　　该研究的主要作者、伦敦大学学院流行病学与卫生保健系的萨拉·杰克逊博士说：“这项研究提供的一些证据表明，食用巧克力（尤其是黑巧克力）可能会降低临床相关抑郁症状的患病风险。”

　　Should a causal relationship demonstrating a protective effect of chocolate consumption on depressive symptoms be established, the biological mechanism needs to be understood to determine the type and amount of chocolate consumption for optimal depression prevention and management.

　　如果能够建立起食用巧克力对抑郁症状具有保护作用的因果关系，那么就必须了解其生物学机制，以确定巧克力的种类和摄入量，从而找到预防和治疗抑郁症的最佳方法。

　　The study is the first to examine the association with depression according to the type of chocolate consumed. The team assessed data from 13,626 adults from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

　　这是首个探究食用巧克力种类与抑郁症患病关系的研究。研究小组评估了来自美国国家健康和营养调查的13626名成年人的数据。

　　A range of other factors including height, weight, marital status, ethnicity, education, household income, physical activity, smoking and chronic health problems were also taken into account to ensure the study only measured chocolate’s effect on depressive symptoms.

　　此外，研究人员还考虑了身高、体重、婚姻状况、种族、教育程度、家庭收入、体育锻炼、吸烟和慢性健康问题等一系列其他因素，以确保该研究仅衡量了巧克力对抑郁症状的影响。

　　After adjusting for these factors, it was found that individuals who reported eating any dark chocolate in two 24-hour periods had 70 percent lower odds of reporting clinically relevant depressive symptoms in the previous two weeks than those who reported not eating chocolate at all.

　　在对这些因素进行调整后，研究人员发现，相比于那些完全不吃巧克力的人，那些在前两周内两个24小时段内吃过黑巧克力的人出现临床相关抑郁症的可能性要低70%。

　　(全文共282个词，纽约邮报)

　　重难点词汇：

　　depression  n. 沮丧；忧愁；抑郁症；洼地；不景气；低气压区

　　symptom  n. 症状；征兆

　　clinically  adv. 临床地；门诊部地；不偏不倚；通过临床诊断

　　ethnicity  n. 种族划分

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