A chronic illness(慢性病) is a long-lasting health condition. 【小题1】 . However, usually someone still has the potential danger even though he or she was properly treated. Living with a chronic illness can be challenging.

People who have just been diagnosed with（被诊断为）a chronic illness show different reactions. 【小题2】. Others feel sad or disappointed about their bodies, and even feel angry with themselves and those they love. These feelings are the first stage of the coping process.（应对过程）

【小题3】. As the saying goes, “Knowledge is power.” You may need to ask a doctor or nurse to repeat things to be sure that you understand everything. The more you find out about your condition, the more you feel in control and the less frightening it is.

The final stage of dealing with a chronic illness is taking it calmly. At this stage, people feel comfortable with their treatment. 【小题4】.

There’s no exact time limit in the coping process. 【小题5】. People living with chronic illnesses find that when they play an active role in taking care of their bodies, they grow to appreciate their strengths and to adapt to their weaknesses.

There’s no single known cause for autism (自闭症), but researchers now point the finger at higher lithium (锂) levels in drinking water. Their new study found that pregnant women in Denmark whose household tap water had higher levels of lithium were more likely to have kids with autism, compared to pregnant women living in areas where tap water had lower levels of this element.

“Maternal prenatal (妊娠期) exposure to lithium from naturally occurring drinking water sources in Denmark was associated with an increased autism spectrum disorder risk in the offspring,” said study author Dr. Beate Ritz, a professor of neurology. “This suggests a potential fetal neurotoxicity (神经毒性) of lithium exposure from drinking water that needs to be further investigated.”

For this latest study, researchers analyzed lithium levels from about half of the country’s water supply. When the investigators compared children with autism to those without this developmental disorder, they found that when lithium levels increased, so did the risk of autism.

Kids born to moms who lived in areas with the highest lithium levels in the water were 46% more likely to be diagnosed with autism than those born in areas with the lowest amount of lithium in drinking water, the study showed. Lithium levels increased the risk for all types of autism in this study.

Lithium leaches into drinking water from soil and rocks, but these levels could rise in the future from waste in lithium batteries. While more research is needed to confirm this association, Ritz suggested using filtered water and testing it for lithium levels while pregnant. Bottled water isn’t necessarily the answer. “A lot of bottled water is not tested either,” she said. “Some bottled water is just filled up from regular drinking water sources.”

Dr. Max Wiznitzer, director of the Rainbow Autism Center, urged caution before jumping to conclusions, though. “It’s an interesting association, but causation is definitely not proven,” Wiznitzer told CNN. “We have to see if there’s a workable and biologically plausible (似乎合理的) mechanism by which a small amount of lithium in the water supply can somehow do this, yet pharmacologic (药理学) dosing of lithium in women with bipolar disorder has not been reported to be causing increased risk of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).”

A vaccine (疫苗) that protects against one of the main common cold viruses has been shown to be safe and effective in a clinical trial and could be available by 2024.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) spreads so easily that more than 90 percent of people have experienced their first infection (感染) by the age of 2. It usually causes cold-like symptoms but can lead to severe illness in young children and older people. All around the world, about 60,000 children under the age of 5 and 14,000 people over the age of 65 die each year after developing the virus.

Developing vaccines against RSV and other respiratory viruses has been difficult because the respiratory tract (呼吸道) is a surface exposed directly to the outside world, says Kirsten Spann at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

“It’s harder for antiviral antibodies (抗病毒抗体) in the blood to reach viruses in the respiratory tract, or even know they are there, because there is some physical separation,” she says.

In recent years, however, there has been rapid progress in finding new ways to improve immunity against respiratory viruses.

Several RSV vaccines are being tested in clinical trials, including one made by German company Bavarian Nordic. Its vaccine is designed to build immunity against RSV by exposing me body to five small fragments of the virus.

In a clinical trial involving 420 adults aged 55 and older, a single injection (注射) of the vaccine in the upper arm increased the levels of RSV-fighting antibodies inside the nose by three times and caused no serious side effects.

This immune response lasted for six months ---- enough to cover a winter cold season ---- and was restored with a booster shot at 12 months.

The results are promising, but more research is needed to see if the immune response is strong enough to prevent RSV infections, says Spann.

Bavarian Nordic is now planning a bigger clinical trial of its RSV vaccine that is scheduled to begin in 2021 and will involve more than 12,000 adults. If the results are positive, the company hopes to make the vaccine available by 2024. The firm plans to offer the vaccine to children too, but not until it has passed clinical trials involving people in this age range