There is an old saying in English, “Laughter is the best medicine”. Until recently, few people took the saying very seriously. Now however, doctors have begun to study laughter and the effects (作用) it has on the human body. They have found evidence that laughter really can improve people’s health.
Tests were carried out to study the effects of laughter on the body. People watched funny films while doctors checked their heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and muscles. It was found that laughter has similar effects to physical exercise. It increases blood pressure, the heart rate and the rate of breathing. It also works several groups of muscles in the face, the stomach and even the feet. If laughter exercises the body, it must be helpful.
Other tests have shown that laughter appears to make the effect of pain on the body less. In one experiment doctors produced pain in groups of students who listened to different radio programs. The group which could bear the pain for the longest time was the group which listened to a funny program. The reason why laughter can make pain less seems to be that it helps to produce endorphins (内啡肽) in the brain. These are natural chemicals which make both stress and pain less.
There is also some evidence to suggest that laughter helps the body’s immune system that is the system which fights infection (感染). In an experiment, one group of students watched a funny video while another group served as the control group — in other words, a group with which to compare the first group. Doctors checked the blood of the students in both groups and found that the people in the group that watched the video had an increase in the activity of their white blood cells that is the cells which fight infection.
As a result of these discoveries, some doctors and psychiatrists (精神病学) in the United States now hold laughter clinics, in which they try to improve their patients’ condition by encouraging them to laugh. They have found that even if their patients do not really feel like laughing, making them smile is enough to produce good effects similar to those caused by laughter.
We learn from the first paragraph that laughter           .

A．is good for one’s health

B．has strong effects to do with some illness

C．has been studied long since

D．has no effect on the body

Doctors have found that laughter           .

A．keeps down blood pressure

B．has similar effects to physical exercise

C．decreases the heart rate

D．increases stress and pain

Which of the following statements is NOT true of laughter according to the passage?

A．It makes pain less.

B．It exercises the body.

C．It improves the body’s immune system.

D．It can cure cancer.

Smiling can produce _________.

A．about the same effects as laughter

B．more effects than laughter

C．fewer effects on the human body

D．no effects on the human body

The main idea of this passage is that _________.

A．the doctors should learn how to make people laugh

B．there are several ways of studying the advantages of laughter

C．tests show that laughter can produce positive effects on human body

D．laughter and physical exercise have the same effects on human body

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