Rumi Nations

Dr. Dipak Sarkar has recently received a $3.5 million MERIT award from the NIH "to continue researching the damaging effects of alcohol on the nervous systems of the unborn." Alcohol consumption during pregnancy is a significant public health problem and may result in a wide range of adverse outcomes for the child," Dr. Sarkar says. "Many Fetal Alcohol Syndrome patients have problems coping with stress; they have learning disabilities, infections, and increased susceptibility to diseases," Dr. Sarkar adds. These problems stem from the alcohol-induced destruction of neurons in the part of the brain known as the hypothalamus. These beta-endorphin neurons produce the endorphin hormone and are particularly vulnerable during the early development of the fetus. Sarkar's research has shown that a seemingly irreversible reduction in the number and function of beta-endorphin neurons results in a permanent impairment of stress and immune system functions throughout ...

Researchers have found a connection between excessive drinking of alcohol and the incidence of bowel cancer in that population — apparently, more than seven drinks per week leads to a 60 percent greater probability of acquiring the disease. The ill-effects of smoking are of course too well known to need any repetition whatsoever. One is likely to acquire — or the probability of one's acquiring increases — about 50 different types of cancer on account of smoking. With all the links that researchers have found between smoking and disease in particular, one would have thought that non-smokers would be immortal. But that doesn't seem to be the case apparently . . .