27 April, 2015

Even 1 drink a day can increase the risk of liver cirrhosis in women

If you like to believe that one alcoholic drink a day would not harm you, read this carefully. New research has found that moving from moderate to heavy daily drinking – up to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men – increases liver cirrhosis risk.  Read: Why is alcohol bad for your liver? 

The researchers analysed the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health, which included parameters of alcohol consumption and drinking patterns from 193 countries.

The data showed that the cirrhosis burden caused by alcohol increased by 11.13 percent when moving from the moderate to heavy daily drinking classification.‘The presence of heavy daily drinkers in a population most significantly and independently influences the weight of alcohol in a country’s cirrhosis burden,’ said one of the researchers Eva Stein from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
According to the WHO, excessive alcohol drinking is the most common cause of cirrhosis worldwide. Most studies assessing the prevalence of alcohol abuse as a risk factor for alcoholic cirrhosis focus on total annual amount drunk per person.

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However, the researchers highlight that clinical studies suggest that it is a high daily consumption which is the strongest predictor of alcoholic cirrhosis. According to WHO’s ‘Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health’, around six percent of global deaths are caused by drinking alcohol, the majority from alcoholic cirrhosis – scarring of the liver as a result of continuous, long-term liver damage. Half of all cases of cirrhosis are caused by alcohol.

The study was presented at The International Liver Congress 2015 in Vienna, Austria.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

27.04.2015

Street children most impacted by tobacco, alcohol and cannabis

 

As per the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, contraband substances like cannabis, heroin, sedatives , opium etc along with alcohol find their way mostly in street children. Often marked by poverty and joblessness these children are the easiest victim to the drug menace. However, the raise in the tobacco tax are going to save our children.

Some of the findings of the study were that over 50 percent children living on streets reported bad or very bad relationship or no relationship with the family. The percentage of inhalant users (lifetime, last one year and last one month) was higher in the children living on streets than in children living at home and the lifetime and last one year usage of opium was higher in the children living on streets than in children living at home.

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She said her ministry is about to implement a centrally-sponsored scheme, namely Integrated Child Protection Scheme from 2009-10 for children in difficult circumstances, including children who are victims of substance abuse.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

27.04.2015

We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present

Marianne Williamson