News Plus慢速英语:中年过量饮酒加速智力下降 轮状病毒疫苗或增加肠病风险

This is NEWS plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Now from the U.S. to the U.K. New research suggests that middle-aged men risk a faster mental decline as they age if they've been drinking heavily for years.
The study of about 5,000 British civil servants found that over a decade, the added decline was the equivalent of about two extra years of aging for a combined measure of mental abilities like reasoning, and about six years for memory.
It's no surprise that heavy alcohol consumption can affect the brain, but the study focuses on an age range that has received much less attention from alcohol researchers than the elderly and college students.
Researchers found no such effect in women, but the study included too few female heavy drinkers to test the effect of drinking the same amount as in men.
Severine Sabia, a study author from University College London, says it was not possible to identify a specific minimum level of consumption at which the risk begins in men.
Her study used data from over 20 years. Using questionnaires, researchers calculated the men's average daily intake of alcohol for the decade up to when they were an average of 56 years old. Then, they tracked decline in mental abilities over the following decade from tests administered every five years.

New studies show newer vaccines against rotavirus, a severe diarrheal disease in children, slightly raise the risk of a rare bowel problem that doomed an earlier vaccine.
But researchers say the modern vaccines are much safer and well worth this very small risk.
Rotavirus kills more than 400,000 young children a year, mostly in poor countries. In the United States, good medical care usually keeps it from being fatal, but it used to cause as many as 1 in 10 hospitalizations of young kids.
The first rotavirus vaccine came out in 1998 but was withdrawn a year later after it was linked to a rare and serious twisted bowel condition. Doctors hoped that two newer versions would avoid that problem. The two newer versions are Merck's Rota-Teq which came out in 2006 and Glaxo-Smith-Kline's Rotarix that came out in 2008.
Research in other countries suggests that some risk persists, though.
It's not known how the vaccines might raise the risk of the bowel problem.
Twisted bowel can occur naturally, and the peak age is 6 to 10 months.
Doctors say parents need to be alert about signs and symptoms which can include severe crying because of abdominal pain, vomiting, and blood in the stool, or listlessness.