医学考博士英语阅读理解讲解【5】

 

Smoking causes wrinkles by upsetting the body' s mechanism for renewing skin, say scientists in Japan. Dermatologists say the finding confirms the long-held view that smoking ages skin prematurely.

 

Skin stays healthy and young-looking because of a fine balance between two processes that are constantly at work. The first breaks-down old skin while the second makes new skin. The body breaks down the old skin with enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases, or MMPs, They chop up the fibers that form collagen(胶原质)—the connective tissue that makes up around 80percent of normal skin.

 

Akimichi Morita and his colleagues at Nagoya City University Medical School suspected that smoking disrupted the body' s natural process of breaking down old skin and renewing it. To test their idea, they first made a solution of cigarette smoke by pumping smoke through a saline (盐的) solution. Smoke was sucked from cigarettes for two seconds every minute. Tiny drops of this smoke solution were added to dishes of human fibroblasts, the skin cells that produce collagen.

 

After a day in contact with smoke solution, the researchers tested the skin cells, to see how much collagen-degrading MMP they were making. Morita found that cells exposed to cigarette smoke had produced far more MMP than normal skin cells.

 

Morita also tested the skin cells to see how much new collagen they were producing. He found that the smoke caused a drop in the production of fresh collagen by up to 40 percent.

 

He says that this combined effect of degrading collagen more rapidly and producing less new collagen is probably what causes premature skin ageing in smokers, in both cases, the more concentrated the smoke solution the greater the effect on collagen. "This suggests the amount of collagen is important for skin ageing, " he says. "It looks like less collagen means more wrinkle formation".

 

Morita doesn't know if this is the whole story of why smokers have more wrinkles. But he plans to confirm his findings by testing skin samples from smokers and non-smokers of various ages to see if the-smoking has the same effect on collagen. "So far we're only done this in the lab. " He says. "We don't know exactly what happens in the body yet that might take some time.

 

Other dermatologists are impressed by file work. "This is fascinating, " says Lawrence Parish. Director of the Centre for International Dermatology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. This confirms scientifically what we've long expected, he says. "Tobacco smoke is injurious to skin. "

 

81. Healthy skin lies in ________ .

A. a well-kept balance between two working processes

B. the two processes of breaking down skin cells 

C. a fine balance in the number of cigarettes

D. the two steps of forming collagen

82. For the Japanese scientists, to test their idea is ________ .

A. to verify the aging of human beings

B. to find out the mechanism of renewing skin

C. to prove the two processes of wrinkle formation

D. to confirm the hazards of smoking proven otherwise

83. The Japanese scientists tested their idea using ________ .

A. MMPs to form fresh collagen

B. cigarette smoke to contaminate skin cells

C. human fibroblasts to produce fresh collagen

D. non-smokers to be exposed to cigarette smoke

84. As inferred from Morita's results, smoking ________ .

A. could stimulate tile production of fresh collagen

B. is unlikely to promote the production of MMP

C. tends to cause skin to age prematurely

D. may cause collagen to die by 60%

85. Monrita implies that his findings ________ .

A. took less time than expected

B. were hard to accept in dermatology

C. were not exclusively based on the lab

D. need to be further verified in the human body

 

81. A  文章第二段第一句提到了Skin stays healthy and young-looking because of a fine balance between two processes that are constantly at work. 即皮肤不断地进行着新陈代谢，故保持健康和年轻的状态。

82. D文章第二段提到：MMP是分解老化皮肤的，文章第三段提到"To test their idea，they first made a solution of cigarette smoke…”结果在第四段中提到“…Morita found that cells exposed to cigarette smoke had produced far more MMP than normal skin cells. ”也就是说吸烟会产生更多的MMP分解皮肤组织，故加速皮肤老化，故选项D正确。

83. B  文章第三段提到了将tiny drops of this smoke solution滴到dishes of human fibroblasts正面，即选项B所说的“用烟去污染皮肤细胞”，故选B项。

84. C  文章倒数第三段提到：Morita说collagen老化快而产生的又少，所以causes premature skin ageing in smokers，即吸烟会导致皮肤衰老加快，选项C正确。

85. D  文章倒数第二段提到Morita不知道if this is the whole story of why smokers have more wrinkles. 但他决定进一步研究smokers and non-smokers of various ages to see if the smoking has the same effect on collagen. 所以选项D“他的发现需要在人体里进行进一步的验证。”是正确的。