Pre-reading task. I. You are going to read about the maladies of the 21st century.

I. You are going to read about the maladies of the 21st century.

- What do you think are the main maladies?

- Why are they dangerous?

II. Read the text to see how close your predictions were.

We entered the 21st century with such maladies as heart and vascular system diseases, environmental diseases, cancer, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The risk factors causing these diseases are poor environment (especially after Chernobyl disaster), constant stress and bad habits. We witness more and more cases when people suffer from such environmental diseases as food allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, asthma, thyroid gland. They all have a huge impact on the quality of life, darken our prospects for future. Alcohol, drugs, smoking, AIDS have also become the reality of our life, especially among young and middle-aged people. Today we will read the text about the diseases which have come as result of people’s ignorance and lack of healthy habits.

Smoking is very dangerous. Most young people smoke because their friends pressure them to do so. They may be copying their parents who smoke, or other adults they respect. At one time this would have been accepted as normal. But in the past 30 years attitudes about smoking have changed. Smoking is now banned in many places so that other people do not have to breathe in smokers’ shocking tobacco smoke.

Passive smoking, when you are breathing someone else’s smoke, can damage your health just like smoking can. Smoking becomes addictive very quickly, and it’s one of the hardest habits to break.

What is it in cigarette smoke that is harmful? A chemical called nicotine is a substance that causes addiction. It is a stimulant that increases the pulse rate and a rise in the blood pressure. Cigarette smoke also contains tar – a major factor for causing cancer.

Gases in cigarette smoke increase your blood pressure and pulse rate. This can contribute to heart disease. Smokers as twice as non-smokers are likely to have heart trouble.

If you have ever watched an adult try to give up smoking, you know how hard it can be. It is easier, healthier and cheaper never to start.

Another poison of many young people is alcohol. Remember, alcohol is a drug. It can make you sick, and you can become addicted to it. It is a very common form of drug abuse among teenagers. Do not let anyone at a party pressure you into drinking if you do not want to, especially if you are legally under age.

For years we have been told not to drive after we have drunk alcohol, which weakens our sense and clouds our judgеment. And yet people still do. Young people, who are drunk are less likely to wear their seat belts, and are less experienced when a problem occurs. The alcohol makes them think they are brilliant drivers and can take risks without getting hurt. But, more importantly, they become a risk to other drivers and pedestrians – potential killers.

Alcohol is a drug. In fact, it is a mild poison. It is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream, within four or 10 minutes of being drunk. Absorption is slower if there is food in the stomach. Once inside the body it passes through the bloodstream to the liver, where poisons are digested. But the liver can only process 28 grams of pure alcohol each hour.

This is a small amount – just over half a glass of beer. Anything else you drink is pumped round the body while it waits its turn to enter the liver.

When alcohol reaches your brain, you may immediately feel more relaxed and light-hearted. You may feel you can do crazy things. But after two or three drinks, your actions are clumsy and your speech is slurred. If you over-drink, you might suffer from double vision and loss of balance, even fall unconscious, hangover.

In facts, all medicines are drugs. You take drugs for your headache or your asthma. But you need to remember that not all drugs are medicines. Alcohol is a drug, and nicotine is a drug. There are many drugs that do you no good at all.

There is nothing wrong with medicinal drugs if they are used properly. The trouble is that some people use them wrongly and make themselves ill. Most of the drugs are illegal but some are ordinary medical substances that people use in the wrong way.

People take drugs because they think they make them feel better. Young people are often introduced to drug-taking by their friends.

Many users take drugs to escape from a life that may seem too hard to bear. Drugs may seem the only answer but they are no answer at all. They simply make the problem worse.

Depending on the type and strength of the drug all drug-abusers are in danger of developing side effects. Drugs can bring on confusion and frightening hallucinations and cause unbalanced emotions or more serious mental disorders.

First-time heroin users are sometimes violently sick. Cocaine, even in small amounts, can cause sudden death in some young people due to heartbeat irregularities. Children born to drug-addicted parents can be badly affected.

AIDS is sickness that attacks the body’s natural system against disease. AIDS itself does not kill, but because the body’s defence system is damaged, the patient has a reduced ability to fight off many other diseases including flu or common cold.

It has been reported that about 10 million people worldwide may have been infected by the virus that causes AIDS. It is estimated that about 350 thousand people have the disease and that another million (!) may get it within the next five years. Africa and South America are the continents where AIDS is most rampant although in the States alone about 50 000 people have already died of AIDS.

So far there is no cure for AIDS. We know that AIDS is caused by a virus which invades healthy cells including the white blood cells that are part of our defence system. The virus takes control of the healthy cells genetic material and forces the cell to make a copy of the virus. The cell then dies and the multiplied virus moves on to invade and kill other healthy cells.

The AIDS virus can be passed on sexually or by sharing needles used to inject drugs. It also can be passed in blood products or from a pregnant woman with AIDS to her baby.

Many stories about the spread of AIDS are false. One cannot get AIDS by working with someone who has got it or by going to the same school, or by touching objects belonging to or touched by an infected person. Nobody caring for an AIDS patient has developed AIDS and, since there is no cure for it at present, be as helpful and understanding as possible to those suffering from this terrible disease.

III. Look through the text and note down:

a) the reasons for smoking, drinking and taking drugs;

b) harmful consequences of these hard habits;

c) the most likely diseases caused by smoking;

d) the examples showing the effect of drugs on a human being;

e) the way the virus that causes AIDS can be passed on.

IV. Here are some answers about hard habits. Ask the questions.

a) Why _______? Because their friends pressure them to do so.

b) What _______? A chemical called nicotine causes addiction.

c) Why _______? Because they become a risk to other drivers and pedestrians.

d) When _______? Absorption is slower if there’s good in the stomach.

e) How _______? You may feel you can do crazy things.

f) Why _______? People take drugs because they think they make them been better.

g) How many _______? About 10 million people worldwide may have been injected by the virus that causes AIDS.

h) What ________? AIDS is a sickness that attacks the body’s natural system against disease.