2024届新高考阅读理解完形填空难题专练

阅读理解+完形填空难题专项练习 A Depending on whom you listen to, diet soft drinks are either nutritional science’s greatest achievement or its most magnificent Trojan horse. Yes, you can drink them without adding much to your energy intake, but are you playing tricks on your appetite or insulin levels? Insulin is a hormone that helps your body to use sugar for energy. It has been proposed for a while that your body has just as much trouble distinguishing between regular and diet soft drinks as your tastebuds (味蕾), leading to overproduction of insulin that could cause everything from increased blood pressure to diabetes or stroke. However, it looks as if the potential concerns may not be as much of a problem as nutritionists once thought, with a systematic review of studies published last year finding that exposure to sweeteners “did not conclusively induce change in subjective appetite ratings and insulin response”. Good news for the diet drink lobby, then. But hold on: at least one observational study that looked at people’s habits over an eight‑year period found that drinking more than 21 artificially sweetened drinks a week almost doubled their risk of becoming overweight. So what else could be going on? One answer may be that diet soda drinkers are more likely to be doing something that increases their obesity risk, such as regularly eating processed food or overeating because they believe they are “saving” on the calories they drink. Another may be that something else is happening. “Sucralose, which is often found in diet drinks, is thought to be one of the most common causes of bloating in the body,” says the nutritionist Lisa Richards. “But there’s also some evidence that it can cause gastrointestinal (胃肠的) irritation and affect the bacteria that promote good overall gut health.” So, how much should you worry? Well, if you are drinking diet drinks instead of water, multiple times a day, it is probably a good idea to cut back: whatever the mechanism, it could be making yo