节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-07-13
难易度:High
关键字:cactus; cacti, inflammation, nutrient, cholesterol, suppress, nopal
cactus, antioxidant
Welcome back.
Well, it's a vegetable.
It's an ornament.
It's good medicine.
The cactus is a strange-looking desert plant that has many surprising benefits.
In today's lesson, we're focusing on some of the many reasons why it is
considered to be healthy.
Let's get back to the reading and discover what else this amazing plant can do
for the human body on line 15.
(Music).
The Benefits of Cactus.
The nopal cactus has been the subject of many tests and offers a variety of
health-related uses.
The plant is said to be the most frequently used treatment for lowering blood
sugar among Mexican patients with type 2 diabetes.
In addition, it is also used effectively as a treatment for obesity and high
cholesterol.
The stems and fruits of the Nopal cactus are rich in antioxidants and hold great
promise as anti-cancer agents.
According to researcher Zou Da-ming, their juice may fight cancer by suppressing
cancer cell growth, but more study is needed to confirm this benefit.
So we're talking about the benefits of cactus and how it can help our healthy.
Exactly. So we've seen that cacti were used by Native Americans and Mexicans as
a common vegetable and medicine.
And cacti was also used in China uh, in order to eat it as well.
And they used it to treat things like inflammation and snake bites.
That's right.
Now even though cactus has been recognized as a good medical treatment by
traditional tribes and peoples,
it's only recently that science is recognizing it as a very useful part of
medicine.
Right. It's actually very healthy.
To eat it offers you a lot of nutrients.
Now the nopal cactus has been the subject of many tests, and it offers a variety
of health-related uses.
So we've been talking about cactus in general.
Now we're going to look at specifically "nopal cactus." Now nopal cactus is
found most commonly in northwest Mexico or southeastern of the United States.
So still in that very desert area.
But that's where it is native to.
That's where this specific type of cactus comes from.
That's right.
And so this would be a cactus that would have been eaten by Native Americans and
Mexicans, or also used as a medicine as we learned.
And so we're now we're just... we're just now finding about some of its
health-related uses.
Well, the plant is said to be the most frequently used treatment for lowering
blood sugar among Mexican patients with type 2 diabetes.
That's right.
So this is actually used as treatment.
Now what is treatment?
Treatment is how we take care of something.
If you are sick, your treatment is how you are going to be getting better.
If you injure your leg or your arm, you go through treatment to build the
strength in that again.
So treatment is how you take care of a sickness.
Right. And in this case, the nopal cactus is being used to lower blood sugar in
people who have type 2 diabetes.
Now what is diabetes?
Diabetes is a blood disorder that you can develop for multiple reasons where you
have an imbalance of sugar and another part of your blood called insulin.
And really, Ryan, it comes down to diabetes is bad for your heart, really bad
for your entire body.
And it can be life-threatening.
OK. So you can actually eat this cactus, and it will help regulate, or maintain,
your blood sugar levels.
Well, in addition, meaning also, not just what we have mentioned before but in
addition, it has other treatments we can use.
Yeah, it can be used effectively as a treatment for obesity and high
cholesterol.
Now obesity is defined as being very, very large, very fat.
So if you are obese, that means you need to lose weight for health reasons, not
for just to... not just to look better but actually because it's bad for your
health.
Right. There... sometimes people can be overweight. And that's OK.
But once it starts become a health problem, that's when you need to start
treating it.
Now what is it... what does it mean if you have cholesterol?
Well, we all have cholesterol.
You just hope you don't have high cholesterol.
Now "cholesterol" is a substance that is found in the fat of animal tissues and
can cause heart disease.
You do need some cholesterol in your diet.
But if you have high cholesterol,
that means the part of your body where the blood is running through can begin to
get built up and can cause you problems with your bloodstream.
OK. So you want to make sure you're getting enough fat in your diet but not too
much.
That will give you high cholesterol.
That's right.
But we see that this cactus can help both with the treatment of obesity and high
cholesterol.
OK. Now the stems in the fruits of the Nopal cactus are rich in antioxidants,
and they hold great promise as anti-cancer agents.
Now "anitoxidants" are substances which can slow down the rate of which
something is decaying or falling away because of how it is exposed to something.
So you need to make sure that like the anitoxidants, it's helping keep down the
bad and letting in the good.
Exactly. Now it's also an anti-cancer agent.
And that means that it can prevent cancer.
An "agent" simply means that that's something that helps something else happen.
That's right.
Well, according to researcher Zou Da-ming, their juice may fight cancer by
suppressing cancer cell growth,
but more study is needed to confirm this benefit.
OK. And to "suppress" something means to stop it using force.
Now we've learned a lot about the cactus today.
And we're going to learn even more tomorrow.
So join us.
But right now, let's visit the Chat Room.
Hey, Bryan.
Can you help me check this book out?
Hi, Ken.
Uh, can you hold on a minute?
I just installed some antivirus software on my computer, and I'm waiting for it
to restart.
Antivirus software?
I know a computer virus is a program that harms your computer.
so what does "antivirus" mean?
Antivirus software helps protect your computer from viruses.
You might notice that it starts with the prefix "anti-".
It's actually a very common prefix that means against.
So antivirus software works against viruses?
That's correct.
Hey, can you give me some other examples of words with this prefix?
Sure. Anti-cancer drugs are drugs designed to fight cancer.
And antidepressants are drugs that treat depression.
"Anti-" can also be used when talking about politics.
For example, did you hear about that antiwar protest last weekend?
Yes, I did.
If someone is antiwar, that means they're opposing war, right?
That's right.
I think you've got the idea.
So what's the opposite of "anti-"?
What do you call someone who is protesting in favor of something?
That would be "pro-".
So someone who thinks a certainly war is right would be pro-war.
Or someone could be called pro-reform, pro-education or pro-democracy.
I see.
Thanks for the interesting lesson, Bryan.
You welcome, Ken.
And it looks like my computer finally started again.
So I can check that book out now.
Oh, great! Thanks.
(Chinese).
(Chinese).
And time really flies.
Don't forget to come back tomorrow for more Language Tips.
Thank you, Michelle.
We appreciate that.
Cactuses are popular house plants that are easy to grow because they don't
require a lot of maintenance.
Having said that, you can easily kill a cactus by... that's right - over
watering it.
Friends, don't forget to take advantage of this lesson's and every lesson's
activity sheet.
It's a good way to reinforce what you learn, and it's especially helpful for
high-level articles like this one.
You can find this resource and more at our StudioClassroom.com website.
Now please join us tomorrow for more benefits of cactus.
Take care.