SEX, DRUGS & ROCK 'N' ROLL
The Damage Done:
A HEALTH REPORT

DO YOU EVER WONDER IF YOUR DAILY HUNT for your glasses has anything
to do with those magic mushrooms you took in 1971? Or whether the
painful years of infertility you endured could be linked to the
stranger you went home with after a party one night when you were 22?

For most of us, the days of multiple sex partners, fistful of drugs
and cranking Led Zeppelin up to maximum decibels are long gone.
Today, we try to at least exercise and take vitamins and, most of the
time, feel we're holding our own against mortality.

So what became of the dire predictions that drugs would demolish our
brain cells, that changing sexual partners would harm us and that
rock music would blow out our eardrums?

We're not the only ones wondering. Across the country -- in
universities and hospitals, in cancer labs and neurobiology centers
- -- medical and social scientists are examining the alleged fallout of
sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll on our brains, organs and well-being.

The results are complex, sometimes influenced as much by politics as
by science. The short answer: If you did it then but don't do it now,
you're probably fine. "The human body is amazing in its ability to
heal over time," says Richard Seymour, managing editor of the Journal
of Psychoactive Drugs. The longer answer, though, is often not as
optimistic. Below is the latest information on the potential
lingering effects of your crazy, hazy youth.

SEX: The sexual revolution brought some important gains, notably the
birth of the women's health movement, with its emphasis on sexual, as
well as reproductive, well-being. But that freedom came at a price.
Baby boomers have lived through numerous medical disasters as a
result of their sexual habits-including injuries and pelvic
inflammation from contraceptives such as the Dalkon Shield IUD and
from epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Many of these
STDs have contributed to serious illnesses that are surfacing only
now.

For example, women who contracted the human papillomavirus (HPV) are
at higher risk for developing cervical cancer, which strikes some
12,800 women a year. This disease often develops when women are
between the ages of 40 and 60, and HPV is now recognized as its
leading cause, says Dr. Richard Rothenberg, a physician at Emory
University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Fortunately, an annual Pap
smear can detect abnormal cervical cells before they become malignant.

Experts strongly suspect that the rise in chlamydia, a common
bacterial STD, may have contributed to the increase in couples who
suffered fertility problems in the 1980s.

"Women were also postponing having children at that time [and
fertility declines with age], so there were other causes," says Dr.
Ward Cates, president of Family Health International, a nonprofit
health research and information organization in North Carolina. "But
we know that there was suddenly a time in the mid-eighties when
visits to infertility specialists went up. A lot of women in their
thirties were trying to get pregnant and couldn't."

Far worse, many physicians believe that the powerful infertility
drugs women took may have increased their risk of ovarian cancer.
Fertility drugs cause ovulation, and the more a woman ovulates, the
greater her risk of developing cancerous cellular changes in her
reproductive organs, according to the National Cancer Institute. The
drugs also raise certain hormone levels that may heighten the cancer
risk. The data are still inconclusive, but there is evidence that
women who used fertility drugs but didn't conceive have an increased
chance of ovarian cancer. (Women who became pregnant show no higher
incidence of the disease.)

"I have come to believe there's a link [between fertility drugs and
ovarian cancer], though in my circles, it's not politically correct
to say so," concludes Dr. Mitchell Essig, a New York City
gynecologist and infertility specialist. If you underwent infertility
treatment, inform your doctor and be vigilant about having regular,
thorough gynecological examinations.

DRUGS: Marijuana, LSD, speed, cocaine, mescaline, mushrooms,
Quaaludes ... they made us high, they changed our perception, they
blew our minds. But did they do lasting harm?

It's difficult to say, because all drug studies are to some degree
political. Many are funded by parties with their own axes to grind,
such as pharmaceutical companies or the National Institute on Drug
Abuse. Other studies were conducted on animals or very small groups,
which makes them unreliable. But certain conclusions have emerged.

HEROIN: If you experimented with heroin in your youth, get a blood
test to make sure you're not carrying a potentially deadly souvenir:
hepatitis C.

About four million Americans-many of them over 45-are estimated to be
harboring this sometimes-fatal virus. The symptoms, which include
lethargy, jaundice and abdominal pain, may take up to three decades
to appear. As many as 70 percent of cases result in chronic liver
disease, and nearly one in four of those patients will develop
cirrhosis.

Hepatitis C can be spread through sex, but its main transmission
routes are syringes shared during IV-drug use. Blood transfusions
were also a culprit until a new screening test finally flagged
tainted blood in 1992. A staggering 90 percent of IV-drug users may
have contracted hepatitis C-even if they shot heroin infrequently.
"Most don't know they have it," says Seymour. "I fear that within the
next decade, this disease will outstrip AIDS as a public health
crisis."

LSD: In the four decades since LSD appeared on the street, between 1
and 1.5 million "teens, Deadheads and hippies" have tried it,
estimates Seymour. While some people saw God on acid, others glimpsed
madness.

There's disagreement about how long the effects of LSD may linger. A
1993 study, published in the journal Addiction, reported that
hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder (HPPD) could occur for as
long as five years after using the drugs. But Seymour claims that
he's seen almost no lasting problems from psychedelic-drug use as the
first generation to try them reaches 60 and beyond. "Most middle-aged
people seem to have left the experience behind long ago," he says. Of
course, see your doctor if you have any symptoms oddly akin to those
vibrantly colored journeys of yesteryear.

COCAINE: For a few reckless years starting in the late 1970s, cocaine
became the drug of choice: chic, sharp and addictive. Today, our
generation seems to be over that love affair. According to the 1998
National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, cocaine use has dropped by
90 percent since its peak in 1985.

The immediate risks of snorting coke, such as a stroke or heart
attack, are well-known. But new studies suggest that some of
cocaine's effects on the brain may be irreversible and lead to
chronic problems later on.

"Cocaine causes long-term, possibly irreversible, alterations in
brain blood flow," says Dr. Jonathan Levin, an assistant professor at
Harvard Medical School, who has been studying cocaine's effect on
blood flow and brain function for almost a decade. Brain scans of
cocaine users show distinct areas where blood flow is diminished, and
this may be related to the problems associated with long-term cocaine
use: memory loss, shortened attention span, sleep disorders and
depression, among others.

Does this brain damage repair itself in the years after you stop
sniffing cocaine? "Abstinence does repair some of the abnormalities,
but it's not clear to what extent," says Levin. Luckily, researchers
haven't found any concrete proof that casual cocaine users who did a
few lines at parties 20 years ago caused lasting harm to their brains.

SPEED: For many, speed was the first drug -- the one they started
taking as students simply to pull a few all-nighters -- -and new
findings show it was likely the most dangerous. Methamphetamine, or
speed, has become fashionable again among young drug takers, so
there's been a glut of new research on the substance. Frighteningly,
it shows that speed might be more destructive to the brain than
heroin or cocaine.

In a series of studies at the government's Brookhaven National
Laboratory, the lead investigator, Dr. Nora Volkow, found that speed
causes "significant changes" in the brain's dopamine transporters,
and abusers still experienced reduced cognitive abilities, memory
loss and slowed motor function one year after use.

"The drug's assault on the brain's dopamine [system] makes things
slow down, just as aging makes things slow down," says Volkow.
"Effectively, it accelerates the aging process of the brain."

Are the effects permanent? "We don't yet know, but we're doing the
studies to find out," says Volkow. There is speculation that having
used methamphetamine may predispose people to neuro-degenerative
diseases like Parkinson's. So if you spent junior year whirling at
80 mph, share this news with your physician.

MARIJUANA: Marijuana is one of the most studied substances in
science, yet the verdict on whether it's harmful or not is still
quite inconclusive.

While one set of scientists is bent on proving marijuana's medical
benefits (research suggests that the substance can stimulate appetite
and relieve chronic pain), another is documenting its health risks.
The studies pile up on both sides, but the jury is still out --
especially on the long-term effects of smoking pot.

On the optimistic side, a study from the Biological Psychiatry
Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, found that
when long-term marijuana tokers stopped toking -- even after years of
continued use -- their mental acuity returned in full force. "In a
full battery of neuro-psychological tests, our preliminary data
showed that while smoking, all these activities were impaired,"
explains substance-abuse researcher Dr. Amanda Gruber. "But
twenty-eight days later, the long-term smokers did as well on all the
tests as nonsmokers. There seemed to be no irreversible effects."

On the gloomy side, a study done by Dr. Zhang Zuofeng of UCLAs
Jonsson Cancer Center found that past marijuana smoking could sharply
increase the risk of developing head and neck cancers. Zhang puts the
risk at 2.6 times higher for former occasional pot smokers than for
nonsmokers, and 4.9 times greater for those who smoked more than once
a day.

"In the sixties, we had very high numbers of people in their twenties
smoking [marijuana]," says Zhang. "Our study suggests those people
are just now getting to the ages at which they will get head and neck
cancers."

And perhaps lung cancer, too. At the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr.
Donald Tashkin is midway through a 2,400-person, five-year study
investigating marijuana's long-term link to lung cancer.

"Can the microscopic, premalignant changes smoking [marijuana] causes
in the lung be repaired? Is a former smoker's lung-cancer risk
eventually eliminated?" asks Tashkin. "I suspect the answer will be
no, not completely."

Importantly, those of us who still indulge should know that smoking
pot causes a sharp increase in heart rate, and that could be
dangerous for people over 50 with other health problems. In fact, one
recent study found that people who smoke marijuana have a five times
greater risk of heart attack during the first hour after use -- the
same degree of cardiac risk brought on by strenuous exercise. The
short-term risk is considerable, especially for patients with other
risk factors, such as high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol,
says researcher Dr. Murray Mittleman, director of cardiovascular
epidemiology at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

ROCK 'N' ROLL: You can almost hear Ted Nugent's mother saying, "I
told you so." Unfortunately, Ted can't. He's nearly deaf in one ear,
the archetypal victim of noise-induced hearing loss.

Yes, all that loud music damaged our eardrums. "We are beginning to
see a lot of high-frequency hearing loss in forty- and
fifty-year-olds," says Dr. Kenneth Einhorn, an Abington,
Pennsylvania, otolaryngologist who treats many musicians for degrees
of deafness. "Years ago, we didn't see these kinds of hearing
problems till people entered their sixties or seventies."
Noise-induced hearing loss happens gradually, as loud sounds blast
the delicate cells of the inner ear and cause cumulative, irreparable
damage.

After one loud concert, there may be a muffled quality to the ambient
sound. After a few years of concerts, the muffle might not go away.
By age 45, there may be some permanent high-frequency hearing
loss-the kind that causes you to miss parts of conversations,
particularly when there's competing background noise. Some people
also develop tinnitus, or ringing in the ears.

There's no cure, but you can slow the damage and protect what hearing
remains. Wear earplugs during any noisy activities, such as mowing
the lawn, running an electric saw -- or listening to loud music,
recommends Einhorn.

If your hearing has been damaged, consider getting a hearing aid.
Don't think they're just for fogies; Bill Clinton wears one. The
latest models now use digital sound, a refinement that has noticeably
improved their quality.

WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF ALL THIS information? Listed together, it
makes for sobering reading. What it means, the professionals tell us,
is that if we're still tempted to go home with strangers or to roll a
joint when the kids are out, we shouldn't. There may be consequences
we don't expect.

Although there's little we can do about the past, the most important
prevention for the future, say medical researchers, is to give up (or
limit) the two drugs we may have kept using all along: nicotine and
alcohol. "These kill more people than all the illegal substances
combined, particularly with prolonged use," says Seymour. Consider
that about 434,000 people die of tobacco-related disease every year,
and more than 100,000 are killed by alcohol.

Still, there's plenty of room for optimism. Sex and drug-taking -- to
the extent they went on in the '60s and '70s -- are now just a
distant memory to the boomer generation, says Rothenberg. "In fact,
given all the healthy habits the baby-boomer generation has adopted,
it's likely they'll achieve unparalleled longevity."

So forget the past, deal with the present and stop worrying. After
all, Keith Richards is still alive and -- despite any rumors to the
contrary -- doing remarkably well.