Helping Hands

NEW BIOCHEMICAL TESTS give some promise of indicating whether a child is likely to grow up with a craving for alcohol, so that diet could be prescribed to prevent alcoholism, declares Dr. Roger J. Williams, Director of the University of Texas Biochemical Institute. Dr. Williams believes that craving for alcohol is due to a biochemical difference in the alcoholic, and says that dietary supplements can be prescribed to reduce or eliminate the craving in many alcoholics. Research spelling out the "earmarks" of potential alcoholics in childhood will be published soon, he said in his presidential address to the American Chemical Society.