Anti-Aging Remedies

Alcohol is not an essential body fluid, although for some guys you would think so. Yet certainly no discussion of disease in men over 40 can exclude the stuff, said to be responsible for roughly 200,000 deaths in the United States every year. Reasons for alcohol abuse vary from mental and emotional stress to heredity. Either way, the effects are unmistakableseizures ("rum fits"), hallucinations, delirium tremens (the "DT's"), nutritional disorders, and retrograde amnesia, not to mention increased odds of contracting cancer. Smoke and alcohol equals cancer of the mouth or of the lung.

Such outcomes are certainly bad enough, but perhaps there are also more insidious signs of abuse. A steady, far-less-than-toxic diet of alcohol can still alter personality (if you happen to have the right genes) and can also induce paranoia or aggression, interrupt sleep patterns, interfere with concentration and creativity, lead to mood disorders, and generally create a situation that can end jobs, break marriages, or destroy relationships. Because the afflicted one does not have to be a drop-down, staggering drunk, the disease can be that much harder to recognize.

I'm not one for total abstinence, because a glass of red wine (Oh, damn, I like a dry light white now and then) has proven beneficial to the heart and circulatory system. To quote the late Mr. Jay Phillips on his liquor bottles, "drink in moderation." Remember, each body is different: Some show the effects of alcohol more readily and, unfortunately, more erratically than others, just because your buddy can drink a six-pack and play three rounds of tennis on a 90-degree day doesn't mean that you can. Listen to your body...and remember what William Shakespeare warned: "Drink provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance."