Sloth may be seen as a sin, but some of history's most accomplished men were fond of lounging around. Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed napping. So did Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. Richard Buckminster Fuller advocated taking 30-minute naps every six hours. He is reported to have abandoned the practice only because “his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men.”
No one has yet proved a correlation between napping and artistic brilliance or professional success, but an intriguing study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine claims to find a link between daytime siestas and good health. A team of researchers led by Androniki Naska of the University of Athens Medical School and Dimitrios Trichopoulos of Harvard's School of Public Health followed over 23,000 Greek patients with no history of coronary disease, cancer or stroke, for an average of six years. Their conclusion: napping just might save your life.
The study found that the group of adults who took siestas (defined as 30-minute naps) at least three times a week had a third fewer deaths from heart disease than an equivalent group who did not sleep at all during the day. The benefit was greater for men than for women. (Whether women benefited at all was hard to estimate as there were too few deaths among them during the course of the study.) It was also greater for working men than for those who had retired. However, a number of previous studies done in the Mediterranean and in parts of Central America (where siestas remain common) have come up with conflicting results, but Dr Naska and Dr Trichopoulos argue that those studies have often been flawed. The subjects in some, for example, had survived heart attacks and may therefore have benefited more from napping than healthy individuals do.
Given that all of the subjects of this new study were Greek, could the much-celebrated Mediterranean diet deserve credit, rather than the siestas? The firm answer from Dr Trichopoulos is “No”. And he is in a good position to say so, for it was he who did the pioneering research that put olive oil and a plant-based diet on the scientific map in the first place. Unlike some other siesta studies, his was controlled for diet, smoking, exercise and other relevant variables. The earlier findings about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet are confirmed, he says, and napping seems to help on top of that.
Before buying a sofa for the office, however, it might be wise to consider the possibility of selection bias. Dr Trichopoulos concedes that “Type A” personalities, whose hard-working lives may make them prone to heart attacks, are also much less likely to take naps during the day. That bias might be skewing the study's results. Even so, he advises, “Take a nap if you can.”
注（1）：本文选自Economist, 02/15/2007
注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象为2004年真题Text 1。
1． What do scientists expect to achieve in the study of daytime siestas?
[A] They want to prove that siestas help people become smarter.
[B] They want to prove that siestas can make people happier.
[C] They want to prove that sietas may prolong people’s life.
[D] They want to prove that seitas help cure some diseases.
2． Which of the following is advantage of taking nap regularly?
[A] One’s possibility of dying from heart diseases is smaller.
[B] One is surely to enjoy a long life.
[C] Men can outlive women in general.
[D] Men can survivie heart attacks better than women.
3． The expression “lounging around” (Line 1-2, Paragraph 1) most probably means _______.
[A] sleeping a lot
[B] taking a nap every few hours
[C] relaxing oneself
[D] being lazy
4． Why is Dr Trichopoulos in a good position to deny the benefit from Mediterranean diet in this case?
[A] Because the research Dr Trichopoulos has done on napping is more convincing.
[B] Because Dr Trichopoulos is a forerunner of research on Mediterranean diet.
[C] Because Dr Trichopoulos knows nothing about the nutritious value of Mediterranean diet.
[D] Because Mediterranean diet is notorious for its unhealthiness.
5． Which of the following is TURE according to the text?
[A] Taking naps helps people to become smarter and more brilliant.
[B] Most of those who have great achievements usually take siestas.
[C] People who work under great pressure benefit more from napping than the retired.
[D] Dr Trichopoulos’s siesta study conflicts with his previous study on diet.
篇章剖析
本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了午睡和健康关系上的最新科学研究。第一段介绍了主要论题，并举例说明了一些名人的午睡特点；第二段介绍了纳斯卡和特里克伯罗斯进行的实验，说明午睡可以延长人们的生命；第三段继续讨论研究结果；第四段反驳了地中海饮食可能影响实验结果可信度的说法；第五段中特里克伯罗斯博士建议人们尽量午睡。
词汇注释
sloth [slEuW] n. 怠惰, 懒惰 stroke [strEuk] n. 中风
lounge [laundV] vi. 闲荡 equivalent [i`kwivElEnt] adj. 相等, 相当
nap [nAp] n./v. n. (白天)小睡, 打盹 flaw [flC:] vt. 使有缺陷, 使无效
correlation [9kCri`leiFEn] n. 相互关系, 相关 bias [`baiEs] n. 偏见
siestas [sjE:] n. 午睡 prone [prEun] adj. 倾向于
coronary [`kCrEnEri] adj. 冠的, 花冠的, 冠状的 skew [skju:] v. 曲解；歪曲