Alcohol Causes Brain Damage

Alcohol can cause brain damage. If you are a heavy drinker of beer and been lately noticing some inefficiency in doing things you have been used to before, then don't be surprised because drinking only three glasses of beer a day is enough to damage the human brain. So claims Australian neurologist, Dr. Lesley Cala in a research project she has undertaken and published in HR, the management magazine.

"To stay young, drink plenty of water. The older one gets, the more important it is to drink water," said Dr. Bernhard Steinmann at a geriatric convention in Hamburg, Germany.

"Increasing one's liquid intake prevents dehydration and premature aging; nonetheless, older people become less thirsty than younger people,'' he added.

"Lack of water in the body results in exhaustion, heart trouble and other upsets. Older people should drink from one up to one-and-a-half liters of water a day,"

concluded Dr. Steinmann.

"To prolong life, stress is also necessary," said gerontologist Erhard Olbrich. Experiments with animals in Russia have shown that too little stress and too much of it, shortens one's life. Olbrich however did not explain how much stress a person can take. Moreover, persons react differently to stress. He cited the example of a couple undergoing divorce. One could come out of the tense divorce proceedings a better person, while the other may just crumble under the strain.

Another gerontologist, Erich Lang, reported that low blood pressure in elderly patients is just as dangerous as having high blood pressure. Both increase the risks of having a heart attack.

"When an elderly patient has high blood pressure, it must be lowered through medication gradually, not drastically," Lang added.

Tidbits. Do you know that "heartburn," blighting the life of many elders, is better controlled not with antacid but with acid--hydrochloric acid--which when deficient permits food to ferment and putrefy, producing those "burpy" acids that can bubble up in the throat?