Diabetics Need Exercise by Pat Warbrouck

 Diabetics Need Exercise by Pat Warbrouck

For Chris Carter, exercising is as simple as a lunchtime walk. Carter, a software developer, knows it's vital to find ways to do so during work days that require sitting for long stretches of time. 

His life literally depends on it. 'Exercise is like the one trump card I have,' Carter said. 'I realise that I have a lot of control over my condition.'

His condition, Type 1 diabetes, robs his body of the ability to produce insulin -- a hormone needed to convert glucose (blood sugar), starches and other food into the necessary energy for daily life. This puts him at risk for a host of serious complications that includes heart disease, blindness, and nerve and kidney damage.

Though Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented, it can be controlled through a regimen of monitoring, diet and exercise. Carter keeps careful track of his glucose level, takes daily insulin shots, and keeps juice and energy bars close at hand.

Most importantly, he said, he takes care to get enough exercise. Carter will stroll outside during lunch breaks, or hike up and down the stairs of the company parking garage.

It's a good example of the types of activity busy diabetics should be doing, said Dr. Arnold Asher, director of the Diabetes Health Center at Michigan Health and Science University (MHSU).

Physical activity helps control blood sugar in three ways, according to Dr. Asher.

First, it burns glucose, ensuring energy is delivered to the body and that glucose does not build up in the blood. Second, it increases bodily sensitivity to insulin. As fitness increases, the body needs less insulin to move glucose into cells.

Finally, exercise helps reduce weight. For overweight patients, losing about 7 percent of body fat will lower blood sugar.

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Editor:

Thank you for running the article on Chris Carter in last week's issue. As a diabetic myself, it renewed my determination to make sure I get up from my desk and exercise a few minutes every day.

I also hope your story will open the eyes of supervisors, and remind them of the importance of exercise -- not only for employees who have diabetes, but also everyone else in their office. When you're sitting at a computer all day, it's sometimes hard to tear yourself away from the screen and move around.

I would love to see more companies encouraging employee exercise by giving them free gym classes, taking group stretching or walking breaks, and subsidizing those who walk or bike to work.

Robert Fuda
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Go skating in Sweden this winter

 Part 4.- Gapped text

 

You are going to read a magazine article about outdoor ice skating. Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G, the one which fits each gap (55-60). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

 

Go skating in Sweden this winter

Forget crowded indoor ice rinks. Once you’ve skated on natural ice, there’s no going back.

 

It was the question on all of our minds, but I asked it. ‘How do you know when the ice isn’t safe to skate on? Niklas, our calm Swedish guide, rubbed his chin, though for a moment, then offered up the wisdom of a lifetime spent playing around on frozen winter. ‘When it breaks,’ he said with a broad smile.

 

The comment wasn’t exactly reassuring, but his easy confidence was. As long as it was just jokes being cracked, maybe we’d be all right after all. Niklas, a maths teacher when having breaks from pursuing his favourite hobby, was not entirely joking about his attitude to ice. 55.-_____ The fact that strong ice makes a deeper sound under one’s feet than thin ice does is a useful clue.

 

Our group of beginners was feeling rather nervous as we stood at the edge of a vast frozen day. Niklas tried his best to graduate us to move forward but, like hesitating penguins on an iceberg, no-one wanted to take the first stage. 56.-____ ‘Look at your faces,’ shouted Niklas to the happily smiling group, racing along behind them.

 

Our expressions had been far less joyful the previous evening on being told that a five-hour dinner would follow our flights into Sweden’s Arlanda airport. That hadn’t been the plan; but then, in the world of natural ice skating, no-one expects very much from plans. With its 100,000 lakes and continuous sub-zero winter temperatures. Sweden has no shortage of ice. 57.-____ For instance, too much overlying snow and you get a bumpy, uncomfortable ride, a sudden thaw and vast areas become unusable.

 

Perfect conditions must be sought out, and don’t last. 58.-___ Niklas had received a message via social media about Stigfjorden, a shallow, island-studded bay around 50 kilometres north of Gothenburg on the west coast.

 

 There we quickly discovered skating in the open air is a wonderfully leisurely activity. Push off with one skate and you can go 10 metres with ease. Two or three quick kicks at the surface and you accelerate like a top-class sprinter. 59.-___ We weren’t yet ready to skate that kind of distance, but we certainly had a wonderful sense of freedom.

 

Our best day was at Vattern, one of Europe’s biggest lakes and also one of its clearest. In ideal conditions, this clarity creates a phenomenon known as ‘glass ice’. The rocky lake bottom stretched beneath us, three metres below a surface so perfect it was unseen. My tentative first steps left scratches: it felt like vandalizing a classical sculpture. As my confidence grew, so did my speed. The sensation as I raced across the invisible ice was astonishing, somewhere between floating, falling and flying. Then there was a sharp noise from all around us. 60.-___ No one had to say it. We were skating on very thin ice.

 

A.- That was the reason for our unscheduled journey from one side of the country to the other.

B.- Ten minutes later we laughed at our earlier caution as we slid across the smooth surface, our joy as limitless as our surroundings.

C.- The skates consisted of removable blades that fastened to the toes of our specialist boots like cross-country skis.

D.- At first I ignored it, but when thin cracks began to appear I thought it wise to return to solid ground.

E.- After our first season on the ice had ended, we were not surprised to be told that covering 250 kilometres in a single day is quite possible.

F.- The Swedes adopt a common-sense approach: they are cautious, they test as they go, and they use ears – as well as eyes – to check it.

G.- This is not always suited to skating, however.

A lot can happen in a year abroad

 Part 3.- Multiple choice

 

For questions 31-36, read the text ‘A lot can happen in a year abroad’ on and answer the questions below choosing the correct option A, B, C or D.

 

A lot can happen in a year abroad.

Like many students before her, studying abroad had a profound affect on Sarah Morrison.

 

As I sat staring out at California’s spectacular Big Sur coastline, I felt fortunate to have a sister who had persuaded me to spend a year of my degree abroad. It seems that there are not enough older siblings explaining just how easy it is to take part in an international exchange.

 

While most universities offer worldwide exchanges, where students swap places with others from all over the world for a semester or a year during their degree, the number and quality on offer, together with the cost and time spent abroad, vary dramatically.

 

A deciding factor for me in choosing to study at the University of Edinburgh was the fact it offered more than 230 exchange places at overseas universities in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and South America.

 

Despite all this choice, I still found that deciding to spend a year abroad was something of a novelty, with most of my friends giving more thought to embracing Edinburgh than packing theiir bags to leave a city that had only just become their home. Yet, fortified by my sister’s advice and a Californian friiend who told me I would love the coast, II applied to spend my third year the University of California, Berkeley – never guessing that this would affect almost every future decision I would make.

 

From the start of your exchange, you are aware that the time you have in your new country is limited and not to be wasted. Your experience is shaped by a predetermined start and end, which immediately increases the significance of the time in between.

 

From the first week I arrived, I started to work at The Daily Californian, Berkeley’s student newspaper. I moved from an international house with more than 600 students from all over the world into a co-operative house where 60 of us shared responsibility for management of the building. I met people from Calcutta, Cairo and Chile, and learnt that holding on to any stereotypes I might have about Americans would be about as useful as  assuming that all European people lived on farms.

 

The grades I earned at Berkeley didn’t actually count towards my degree classification at Edinburgh. However, I studied under a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, signed up for student-led seminars and took an African American literature class that shaped my dissertation in Edinburgh. Whether I was learning about contemporary poets on a tour of San Francisco or reporting on the President’s speech in San Francisco for the next day’s newspaper, my stay there enabled me to return to Edinburgh with an increased sense of awareness about what I wanted to gain from my English literature degree.

 

While the expertise might seem like an initial barrier to international exchanges, in reality they can actually save some student money. Visas, health insurance and flights to the chosen country will have to be bought, but a student will usually only be charged 25 to 50 per cent of their home university’s annual fees. A student travelling abroad is entitled to a larger student loan, and grants are available at many institutions for students going on an exchange.

 

Taking part in an exchange may no appeal to all students. We have to research the options independently, apply almost a year before you go away and be aware of the grades required in the first year to qualify for a place on one. Even so, Edinburgh’s international exchange offer, Helen Leitch, says: ‘If I had a pound for every time that students told me it was the best experience of their life, I would be a very wealthy woman indeed.’

 

31.- One reason Sarah became a student at Edinburgh University was that…

A) she could first study abroad and then move to Edinburgh.

B) her sister had previously studied at Edinburgh.

C) she could do part of her studies at a suitable university abroad.

D) most of the students at Edinburgh spend a year at an overseas university.

 

 

32.- How did Sarah feel when she went to Berkeley?

A) She was pleased to find the people were exactly as she had expected.

B) She knew she wanted to make the most of her stay there.

C) She wanted to get a job rather than begin studying immediately.

D) She began to wish her stay there could be a little shorter.

 

33.- What does Sarah feel she achieved at Berkeley?

A) She formed a clearer idea of what her long-term aims were.

B) She took the first steps towards becoming a teacher.

C) She developed her poetry-writing skills significantly.

D) She ensured that she would graduate with a first-class degree.

 

34.- What does Sarah say about the cost of an international university exchange?

A) As a student you can get reduced rates for health insurance.

B) Your fees may be cut by half for every year for your course.

C) It can be cheaper overall than studying in your own country.

D) Taking cheap flights abroad can save you a lot of money.

 

35.- What does ‘one’ refer to in line 64?

A) an international exchange as part of a university course.

B) a research degree at a university in another country.

C) a university course that is paid for by the government.

D) the first year of a university course in your own country.

 

36.- What does Helen Lietch suggest in the final paragraph?

A) Students who do international exchanges often go to become extremely rich.

B) Most students who’ve done an international exchange believe it was highly worthwhile.

C) Only standards from rich families can afford to do an international exchange.

D) She should be paid a far higher salary for organizing international exchanges.