In March 2000, some of the USA’s top psychologists and neuroscientists came to India for a research collaboration – with the Dalai Lama. They wanted to find ways in which people can better control their destructive emotions. Some results of that research have begun to emerge.
Prolonged stress weakens the immune system, strains the heart, damages memory cells and deposit fats at the waist, says Dr. Bruce McEwen of the neuroendocrinology laboratory, Rockefeller University, and author of a new book, The End of Stress as We Know It.
A variation in a gene that is supposed to help the brain break down cholesterol may play a role in some cases of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers say.