Public health minister takes health warnings with pinch of salt

DutchNews, April 13, 2018 

Photo: Health Ministry 

If every excess glass of wine shortens your time on earth by 30 minutes, is the sum total a joyless life? 

Dutch public health minister Hugo de Jonge suggested on Friday that he was taking new reports on the damaging effects of alcohol and sunbeds with a pinch of salt. 

Speaking to reporters on the way to a cabinet meeting, he said that health secretary Paul Blokhuis was best placed to comment on a new report in The Lancet suggesting that 12.5 units of alcohol a week – or five glasses of wine – is the upper safe limit. 

‘It’s his area, and I am always glad of that when I read reports that say something else is bad for your health,’ he reportedly told NOS. ‘That’s often the case with the joys of life.’ 

He added that he was not planning to stop using sunbeds himself, despite safety warnings earlier this week from the KWF cancer charity. ‘I have become a minister, not a monk, which means that I have my foibles,’ he said. ‘I like to use a sunbed every now and then. Otherwise you lot will tell me I look bad.’ 

His own maxim was: all things in moderation, he added. ‘With all of these things, be aware and be moderate. That is the best advice you can give anyone.’ 

The Lancet story, widely reported in the international and Dutch press, suggested excess drinking was more damaging than previously thought, at lower levels. 

But the Dutch health council has already, for the past three years, recommended that people do not drink alcohol at all or limit themselves to a glass a day.

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Homeless Hungarian man hits lottery jackpot with his last few coins

László Andraschek plans to use his lottery winnings of £1.7m to set up foundation for addicts and abused women

The Guardian, Dan Nolan in Budapest, Sunday 16 February 2014

László Andraschek, a homeless Hungarian man became a lottery millionaire.
Photograph: H Baranyai Edina/BorsOnline

Unemployed, in debt and facing another year living on the streets in Hungary, László Andraschek spent his last remaining coins on a lottery ticket. Now the formerly homeless man has a choice of accommodation around the world after becoming one of Hungary's biggest lottery winners, with a prize of about £1.7m.

Andraschek, whose 630m Hungarian forint win last September went unnoticed until he made a significant donation to a hostel for the homeless this month, said buying the ticket was a chance decision at a railway station on his way to Budapest for a workshop for recovering alcoholics.

"I had only picked six numbers and the female shop assistant reminded me that I needed to pick a seventh," he said. "I told her to make it 24 – it doesn't matter, anyway."

But he was wrong and now plans to use his winnings to establish a foundation for addicts and women abused by their husbands.

The 55-year-old resident of Gyor, north-west Hungary, said his first act was to repay his debts, before cycling to a car dealer. "When the car salesman asked me how much I would be willing to spend, I held up three fingers. As I had arrived on a bike he assumed this meant 300,000 forints, but actually I meant 3m."

As neither he nor his wife can drive, the car will be driven only by his children.

Andraschek has since bought flats for each of his three children, paid off the debts of his relatives and is planning to travel to Italy, having not previously held a passport.

He and his wife, Anikó, said they will invest their money cautiously and avoid the ruinous spending splurges of many a lottery winner. "I have become rich but I have not become a different person. I could buy a large-screen TV because I can afford it, but I won't buy three because I can afford it."

Having struggled with alcoholism, Andraschek finally quit five years ago and says he "now has no need to return".

The news of Andraschek's dramatic upturn in fortunes came as human rights activists organised a wave of protests worldwide against a new Hungarian law that bans sleeping rough, in a country that has 30,000 homeless people. Last week alone, demonstrations were held in front of Hungarian embassies and consulates in London, Paris, New York, Vienna, Lisbon, Dublin, Brussels, Essen and Istanbul. Next weekend a Hungarian NGO run by homeless people, A Város Mindenkié (The City is for All), will stage another protest in Budapest against the law, which threatens those living on the streets with a fine or imprisonment.

Moscow death rates 'up 50% in heatwave'

RNW, 30 August 2010

Russia's health ministry on Monday confirmed that mortality rates rose 50 percent in Moscow during the country's worst ever heatwave, the first official confirmation of a spike in deaths.

"July 2010 in Russia was characterized by abnormally high temperatures that immediately affected growing death rates," the health ministry said in a statement.

"The highest mortality rate -- 50.7 percent -- was registered in Moscow," it said comparing the city's death rates to other regions.

Federal authorities have so far steadfastly refused to give details about any national death toll, although one Moscow official has said there have been hundreds more deaths each day in the capital alone due to the country's worst ever heatwave.

Alcohol abuse kills around 500,000 Russians annually
and greatly impacts male life expectancy

Related Articles:

Russians urged to smoke, drink more

U.S. scientists: Russians rapidly die out

Cutting social welfare in UK could cost lives, experts warn

Daily Mail, By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 25th June 2010

Recent cuts to social welfare spending could cost lives, British experts warned today.

Researchers from Oxford University analysed levels of social spending throughout Europe and its impact on risks of death.

They found that just a £70 reduction in welfare spending per person is associated with a 2.8 per cent rise in alcohol-related deaths and 1.2 per cent rise in deaths from heart disease.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, the UK researchers argue that, although the Government may think they are protecting health by safeguarding healthcare budgets, social welfare is just as important to population health.

A study in the BMJ has revealed that a £70 reduction in welfare spending per person is linked with a 2.8 per cent rise in alcohol-related death

The researchers wrote: 'This report reveals that ordinary people may be paying the ultimate price for budget cuts - potentially costing them their lives.'

The study comes after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced sweeping budget cuts, including reductions in tax credits for families, housing benefit and maternity grants.

The researchers evaluated data on social welfare spending in 15 European countries, including the UK, from 1980 to 2005. They found that when social spending was high, mortality rates fell, but when they were low, mortality rates rose substantially.

They found that even modest budget cuts had an effect. For every £70 drop in spending per person there was a 1.19 per cent rise in overall deaths.

However, they discovered that reducing spending on non-welfare sources such as on prisons, had no such negative impact on public health.

'This result indicates that some aspects of population health are sensitive to spending on social support,' the authors said.

'If we want to promote a sustainable recovery in Britain, we must first ensure that we have taken care of people's most basic health needs.'

U.S. rehab centers see bankers driven to drink

By Claudia Parsons, Reuters, Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:05am EDT

A bartender at Suspenders bar in New York's as a television screen flashes the Dow Jones industrial average, March 18, 2009. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

NEW CANAAN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Cocaine and martinis On Wall Street? Nothing new there. Masters of the Universe admitting they have an alcohol problem? Not so common.

Experts say more and more people in finance are seeking treatment for addiction as the global economic crisis sinks its teeth into a high-stakes industry where confidence is the name of the game and nobody wants to admit to a weakness.

"We absolutely do see more people coming in naming either a job loss or huge financial reversals or big investments with Bernie Madoff," said Sigurd Ackerman, medical director at Silver Hill Hospital rehabilitation facility in New Canaan, Connecticut.

"They're being admitted with depression or increases in substance abuse, or both."

Ackerman said there was a high concentration of financial professionals in the town, 40 miles from New York, whose main streets are lined with high-end boutiques catering to the well-heeled wives of hedge fund managers and bankers.

"You're supposed to be a master of the universe, you're supposed to be on top of everything," said one financial services executive who began alcohol rehab in August.

"There's not a lot of sensitivity training or meetings where you sit around and ask how everyone is feeling," said the Connecticut executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "No one walks around saying 'I feel your pain.'"

Alcohol has long oiled the wheels of commerce on Wall Street, where bankers working long hours will entertain clients over dinner and drinks, or let off steam at late-night clubs with hard liquor and drugs.

Robert Curry, founder of Turning Point for Leaders, a coaching and consulting firm in New Canaan that creates treatment programs for senior executives, said the financial crisis was a factor in more drink and drug use.

"We've got more than 50 homes in foreclosure in this town and that's unheard of," Curry said. "Domestic violence incidents have spiked, and that is very closely tied to substance abuse."

Struggling with a divorce, the Connecticut executive sought help at Turning Point. A residential rehab program will be just the first step in a program that would last at least a year and include follow-up counseling, therapy and support groups.

Curry is a former financial executive who started working with substance abusers two decades ago, around the time his alcoholic father died and he realized he had a drinking problem of his own. Despite the recession, demand is growing.

"Companies are downsizing," he said. "Budgets are being trimmed, and yet we're seeing an increase in our business."

Clients include bankers, businessmen and doctors and are overwhelmingly male.

ADRENALIN JUNKIES

Harris Stratyner, a psychologist with Caron Treatment Centers, a leading non-profit addiction treatment foundation with offices in Manhattan, said stars of the financial world were by nature more prone to risky and extreme behavior.

"There's an adrenalin rush that's connected to economics," he said. "Why are so many people attracted to that world? Not all, but many, already are adrenalin junkies, and are looking for the high highs and the low lows."

Stratyner said economic anxiety can push people over the edge, but also allows addicts to rationalize their behavior, blaming stress or claiming they can't afford treatment.

"There's a lot of people out there who are unconsciously ... grateful that there's a problem going on, so that someone really and truly has an excuse to get high," he said.

Stratyner said mental illness and addiction, which often occur together, cost the United States $171 billion a year in lost workplace productivity.

Joseph Califano, a former U.S. secretary of health who founded the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse in 1992, said anxiety clearly raised the risk of substance abuse in all socio-economic groups.

People drink more in hard economic times, Califano said, but banks and other financial firms have traditionally not done enough to help employees cope.

"There's still tremendous stigma and shame," he said. "This is not a moral failing, it's a disease."

Another recovering alcoholic, aged 64, who works on Wall Street also requested anonymity because of the stigma.

"It's not so easy to get somebody to recognize their problems," he said. "If you have a series of occasions where you don't remember parts of the evening, that is a bit of a warning sign that maybe you should be seeking some help. The other is if embarrassing things happen to you."

A month in rehab costs from $25,000 at Caron up to around $60,000 at high-end private facilities. Curry said most of his clients pay out of pocket for privacy reasons.

The Connecticut-based executive was paying his own way.

"It's more than I'd like," he said. But "it's less expensive than losing your job ... less expensive than losing a client or losing your family, or losing your home or getting in trouble with the law."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

One in five men at risk of drinking problem

By Julie Steenhuysen, Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:32pm EST 

 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - At least one in five men in developed countries are at risk of abusing or becoming dependent on alcohol during their lifetimes, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

 

The risk is about half that for women, who have an 8 to 10 percent chance of becoming dependent on alcohol.

 

And despite the popular belief that nothing works, there is help in the form of several effective treatments, they said.

 

"This is a serious problem," Dr. Marc Schuckit of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California said in a telephone interview.

 

He said men have roughly a 15 percent lifetime risk for alcohol abuse, and a 10 percent risk for alcohol dependence.

 

"Once you carry one of these diagnoses regularly, you tend to cut your life short by 10 to 15 years," he said.

 

His findings, published in the journal Lancet, are meant to guide doctors on how to spot and treat their patients for alcohol dependence disorder.

 

This includes a range of problem drinking behaviors such as spending too much time drinking, having trouble stopping once started, skipping important life events to drink or recover from a binge, and setting and exceeding a self-imposed limit on the number of drinks a person plans to consume.

 

The definition also includes more classic signs of alcohol addiction such as withdrawal.

 

They said repeated heavy drinking increases the risk of a temporary bout of depression by 40 percent. And 80 percent of people who are dependent on alcohol are regular smokers.

 

Some 40 to 60 percent of the risk of problem drinking can be explained by genes, and the rest by environmental factors, Schuckit said.

 

That may explain why women have a lower lifetime risk.

 

"This is a cultural issue. More women than men are lifelong abstainers. A higher proportion of women than men never open themselves to the possibility of alcoholism because they never or very rarely drink," Schuckit said.

 

He said heavy drinking raises the risk of heart disease and cancer, even in those who do not smoke.

 

And despite perceptions that treatments do not work, he said most patients with alcohol use disorders do well after treatment.

 

About 50 to 60 percent of men and women with alcohol dependence abstain or show substantial improvement in a year after treatment, which can include drugs such as Forest Laboratories Inc's Campral or acamprosate, naltrexone, also known as Revia and Depade, and disulfiramacamprosate or Antabuse.

 

Schuckit said these should be used in combination with therapy aimed at helping people change their behaviors.

 

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

Binge-drinkers 'risking dementia'

BBC

Urgent action is needed to prevent Britain heading for a dementia epidemic caused by the nation's binge-drinking culture, experts have warned.

Research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links excessive drinking and a loss of brain tissue.

Dr Susham Gupta and Dr James Warner said people are drinking almost double what they were in the 1960s and claimed cheaper alcohol could be a cause.

They said the problem might only be curbed by introducing tough laws.

Binge-drinking is associated with a higher risk of dementia.

While Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of the disease, alcohol is said to account for around a tenth of all cases, while heavy drinking to believed to contribute to almost a quarter.

The report writers pointed out the price of alcohol relative to average UK income has halved since the 1960s.

Between the early part of that decade and 2000, alcohol consumption per head was said to have nearly doubled from less than six litres a year to more than 11.5 litres.

The pair said that if trends continued, within 10 years, the UK population would be drinking more alcohol than any other country in Europe.

They wrote: "Given the neurotoxic effects of alcohol and the inexorable increase in per capita consumption, future generations may see a disproportionate increase in alcohol-related dementia."

'Brain damage'

They said the association of "moderate drinking" with health benefits, binge-drinking was potentially "highly destructive".

At high intake levels, the benefits of alcohol were reversed leading to high blood pressure, raised levels of harmful blood fats, and brain damage.

They admitted any "public health initiatives" warning people about the risk could be "unpopular and ineffective" but felt legislation could be an option.

The issue was also discussed in September by psychiatrists at a conference hosted by Dementia Services Development Centre at the University of Stirling.

Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said that one in three people over 65 die with dementia.

She said: "Binge drinkers hitting the town on a Saturday night are becoming a familiar sight, but we don't yet understand how it will affect the numbers of people with dementia."

She said previous research had focused on alcoholics who had an increased risk of dementia because they did not eat enough for long time-periods.

She said: "In contrast, binge drinkers drink heavily at certain times but may still eat well and therefore do not have the same type of risk.

"As drinking habits change, it is vital we understand more about the relationship between alcohol and this devastating condition."

Spears hospitalized; loses right to see kids

CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Britney Spears was derailed yet again in her struggle to get her life back on track, losing custody of her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline.

Spears appeared conscious as she was taken from her home.

A court commissioner Friday gave sole physical and legal custody of the former couple's two little boys to Federline and suspended the troubled pop star's visitation rights.

Spears was hauled away from her home to a hospital by paramedics a day before, after police had to intervene when she refused to return the children to Federline after a court-monitored visit.

Commissioner Scott Gordon ordered another hearing January 14.

Federline had previously been awarded temporary custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James because Spears has defied court orders, resulting in limitations on her visitation.

"I'm not happy about any of these events," Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said when he left a closed-door emergency hearing Friday afternoon. "There's no winners here."

Federline was not in court for the hearing, Kaplan said.

The attorney had said he did not expect the ruling to be released until Monday, but it was issued shortly after the hearing concluded.

Law professor Steve Cron, who is not involved in the Spears-Federline matter, predicted Spears will face sanctions from the court for her behavior.

"My guess is that she won't be seeing her kids for a while," said Cron, who teaches at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

Gordon has little option other than to further reduce the time Spears can legally spend with her children, Cron said, "at least for the time being until she gets some help. She's obviously a very troubled person."

The 26-year-old pop star remained hospitalized Friday.

Her latest troubles began around 8 p.m. Thursday when officers were called to her home to help resolve a dispute over her refusal to turn the children over to Federline, as dictated by their custody agreement.

It took two to three hours to resolve the conflict, said Los Angeles Police Officer Ana Aguirre.

"There was a time where she was within the residence and wasn't available to be speaking to the officers, apparently," she said. "There was no threat to the children."

"Police resolved the conflict," Aguirre said. "Both children were turned over to her ex-husband Kevin Federline for custody, and she was in fact taken to a local hospital for medical treatment."

Early police reports said officers thought Spears might have been under the influence of some substance, but Aguirre said there was no evidence of that.

"Our understanding is that was not the case," she said.

Officers at the scene determined that paramedics "needed to be called" but it was unclear why, she said.

"We're not aware of any type of injuries that she sustained" and she was not combative with authorities, Aguirre said.

Spears wasn't arrested in connection with the custody dispute, Aguirre said.

"There was no actual crime that was involved," the police spokeswoman said.

Kaplan said he went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after Spears was admitted there, but he declined to provide details about the pop star, her ex-husband, or their two sons.

Spears' mother, Lynne Spears, also would not disclose information about her daughter's condition. "Just say prayers," she told the celebrity news show "Access Hollywood" by phone Friday.

Hospital spokeswoman Simi Singer wouldn't confirm or deny reports in entertainment media that Spears would be held for 72 hours for psychological evaluation. The reports didn't identify their sources.

Spears "needs an enormous amount of help to find out why the erratic behavior," said Ruth Schreibman, a marriage and family therapist who does not treat the pop star.

"Is she bipolar? Is she depressed? Is it postpartum depression? Is it drugs and alcohol?" she said. "There's just so much attention and it's such an accelerated speed of life that how can there be any normalcy?"

Spears and Federline were married in October 2004. Her life has spiraled downward since their divorce in July. She has been photographed without underwear and appeared to be drunk and out of control in public. She shaved her head, beat a car with an umbrella and spent a month in rehab.

She had hoped to regain her pop crown with a much-hyped performance at MTV's Video Music Awards in September, but it was universally panned by fans and critics.

Still, Spears' latest album, "Blackout," earned positive reviews when it was released in October and brought Spears her first No. 1 hit in years, "Gimme More."

However, Spears remains a paparazzi target for her bizarre antics, which include frequent stops at gas-station bathrooms and holing up in a hotel room with a paparazzo.

Her 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, made headlines last month when she announced that she is pregnant.

Aboard the 'Booze Bus'

A "drunks-only" ambulance is mobilised on occasions of widespread drunkenness in central London. What's it like aboard the "Booze Bus" on one of the busiest party nights of the year?

By Alexis Akwagyiram, BBC News

"I love the job - I like being able to make a difference. No two days are ever the same," says paramedic Brian Hayes with a jovial grin as he describes his job.

Over the course of a 12-hour shift on Friday night, he and his two colleagues on the Alternative Response Vehicle - or Booze Bus, as it's more commonly known - draw on their reserves of composure, ingenuity and stoicism to treat more than 20 dazed drunks.

At St Thomas' Hospital, where some of these patients are taken, a visibly-frustrated doctor speaks despairingly of dealing with a tide of alcohol-related problems, instead of people who are seriously ill.

"Everyone I've treated tonight has been drunk - this is ridiculous," he says.

At about 0200GMT, he predicts things are only going to get worse as the night goes on.

"I have no beds in my observation units as we're full already. This is the calm before the storm - it'll go ballistic."

One drunk patient had assaulted him, he says, and the waiting room was full of people being sick or aggressive.

"Twenty-four hour drinking has made a huge, huge difference. The problem is that staff are dealing with people who are drunk and don't know what they're doing," he says.

"Doctors are run off their feet and in the vast majority of cases it is just alcohol. It is binge drinking. We don't see people who've had just two drinks. People have had 20 shots of vodka.

"They're generally 18 to 25, but it's all sorts - including lawyers and people in their 60s."

An hour later the stench inside the ambulance is thick and overpowering after three patients have been picked up.

The smell of stomach bile, excrement and stale urine fills the enclosed space as the vehicle speeds through the West End streets.

Drink-drugs cocktail

A scantily-clad 21-year-old woman lies motionless with one arm attached to a saline drip. She was found lying unconscious near a West End club and taken inside by a doorman.

Her stockings sag limply around her ankles and she occasionally stirs to vomit into a tray, her eyes opening briefly and rolling towards the ceiling.

On a seat next to her a man in his early 30s is being attended to. He was found unconscious in a corner of the same nightclub suffering from the effects of a cocktail of drink and drugs.

Another seat is occupied by a 60-year-old man, found outside Holborn Tube station, whose silver hair is matted with a layer of thick, crimson blood. He is slumped, with a steady trickle of saliva dribbling down his chin. The man has soiled himself.

The Booze Bus - or Vomit Comet, as it has also been dubbed - was Mr Hayes's creation three years ago. The three paramedics take the alcohol ambulance out at times of heavy drinking, such as the World Cup, Gay Pride and the festive season. On a busy night it treats more than 20 people.

"The idea was to make everyone's life easier and make handling Christmas drinking more manageable," says Mr Hayes, 37.

"Normal ambulances are freed up to do work that matters and can save lives. It also means there's a hospital bed free."

Unlike other ambulances, it does not carry an ECG machine because it won't need to treat chest pains and the extra space can be filled by a patient.

Office parties

It can take up to five patients to hospital in one trip - if no-one is seriously injured - rather than sending multiple ambulances.

On a Friday night in mid-December, with Christmas office parties in full flow, Leicester Square and Soho are packed with revellers, increasing the demand on London Ambulance Service by 10 to 15% compared to a normal Friday.

Mark, a civil servant manager in his 40s who had been drinking since 12 noon, found himself slumped over his Chinese meal due to one such party - prompting his colleagues to tie him to a chair and carry him out of a restaurant.

And there was Sally, a 24-year-old accountant, who was struck by a glass which was either dropped or thrown at her firm's festive celebration and left a shard embedded in her forehead.

Meanwhile, Stephan, a Swedish special effects technician broke and dislocated his ankle after climbing over railings to get into Soho Square Gardens after drinking at least seven pints at his work party.

But 18-year-old James bucked the party trend and was instead a victim of pure violence. He was found wandering around Leicester Square shirtless, with one shoe and a bloodied face after being set upon by more than a dozen youths.

Throughout the night and early hours, the three crew members exchange rapid-fire banter and remain upbeat when faced with a procession of bleary-eye patients in all shapes, sizes and ages.

"It's about being tolerant. Most of the people we deal with have been vomiting on themselves," explains Mr Hayes.

But he adds: "It scares me that these young girls are getting into nightclubs. There is a massive problem with underage drinking.

"I don't know what's happening to society as a whole. It's scary - it's not just the kids. It's also adults. People in their 40s and 50s who you would think know better.

"But then you get a job where you make a massive difference, and you feel much better."

Alcohol disease 'hits young hard'

By Branwen Jeffreys, Health correspondent, BBC News

Doctors are seeing rising numbers of patients in their late teens and early twenties with severe alcohol-related disease, many of them women.

Of 115 specialists who replied to a BBC questionnaire, 77 said they had treated at least one patient aged under 25.

Many said the social acceptability of heavy drinking was the most important influence on young people.

The warning comes as a new alliance calls for a rise in alcohol taxes, and a bar on TV advertising before 9pm.

Twenty-four organisations, representing doctors and charities, have joined together to form the Alcohol Health Alliance.

It wants the government to make alcohol misuse a higher priority.

Public health minister Dawn Primarolo said the government had already drawn up a plan for concerted action.

The drink industry says alcohol consumption is falling, and that increasing the cost would hit the majority of people who enjoy a drink in moderation.

Generational shift

The comments of the specialists who responded to the BBC reveal a generational shift on hospital wards around the UK.

Whereas before most hospital consultants would have seen patients in their fifties or sixties in the past, they now describe seeing patients in their early twenties with alcohol-related hepatitis, and women whose livers are permanently damaged with the scarring known as cirrhosis by the time they are 30.

Dr Jonathan Mitchell, a consultant hepatologist in Plymouth, is one of the specialists who contacted the BBC.

He said many of his patients did not realise the permanent damage to their health caused by regular heavy drinking.

Until it reaches a critical stage most liver disease is virtually without symptoms.

Dr Mitchell said: "I've seen patients who've been admitted with pretty catastrophic bleeding from stomach and oesophagus with no prior warning of a problem of their liver.

"Others may present with jaundice or swelling of the abdomen because there's a lot of fluid in the abdomen.

"All these three things are signs of quite advanced liver disease and can come out of the blue."

Heavy drinking 'normal'

Fatty deposits gradually build up on the liver as alcohol interferes with the way it would normally be processed.

What follows is an inflammation within the liver which often leads to low grade hepatitis.

Although the liver has a remarkable capacity to regenerate the damage eventually reaches the stage where the scarring permanently alters the structure of the liver.

For some patients this will lead to an agonising wait on the liver transplant waiting list before they are forty.

He is not alone in his concerns that the normalisation of heavy drinking is putting a generation at risk from a silent killer.

Of the 115 consultants who contacted the BBC 101 said there had been an increase in the number of patients they were seeing for alcohol-related disease.

The shift in the age profile of their patients is also very marked, with 77 saying they had treated a patient under the age of 25.

Worrying snapshot

The doctor's responses are a depressing snapshot of the ages and condition of the patients they see:

• 24-year-old woman with advanced cirrhosis who died
• 25-year-old with advanced alcoholic cirrhosis
• 19-year-old female with end stage liver disease
• 21-year-old who died from acute alcohol poisoning.
  
  

While attention is often focused on the social disorder caused by binge drinking, many doctors say the serious health effects are not given enough attention.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, is one of the leading figures in the new campaign.

He said: "If you look at the burden of damage to society, it's hugely greater for alcohol than for drugs, but the majority of money has always gone on drugs, partly because of the strong link to crime."

Government view

The government has recently beefed up its Home Office target for reducing harm from alcohol.

It has also introduced a cross-departmental Alcohol Strategy.

This includes a public information campaign to promote sensible drinking, an independent review of alcohol pricing and promotion, toughened enforcement of underage sales by retailers and plans to introduce more help for people who want to drink less.

Dawn Primarolo, the public health minister, said the government had introduced a comprehensive strategy to tackle problem drinking.

She said tax on alcohol in the UK was already the second highest in Europe, and only about 1% of pubs had extended opening hours since extended licensing laws were introduced.

A bigger problem was the discounting of prices by supermarkets and off licences.

She said: "We're looking at where it's available, who it's available to, how it's being marketed, what the targeting is and what we can do to give clear messages and to make those who are selling it responsible."

Alcohol Problems Plague 1 Out of 3 Americans

Abuse, Dependency Affect Many but Few Seek Treatment

By Dan Child, ABC News Medical Unit. July 2, 2007


Whether it's binge drinking or addiction to alcohol, Americans have a real problem with the bottle.

So says new research released Monday, which found that nearly one out of three Americans can expect to have a problem with alcohol at some time during their lives.

"We found that 30.3 percent of the U.S. population at some time in their lives -- though maybe not currently -- has had an alcohol use disorder," said study author Bridget Grant of the Division of Biometry and Epidemiology at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

But the nature of this problem can vary widely -- from a sustained streak of binge drinking behavior all the way to serious physiological addiction to alcohol.

The findings, generated from face-to-face interviews with more than 43,000 U.S. adults, appear in the July issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

To find out whether subjects had experienced problems with alcohol, interviewers questioned them looking for the symptoms of alcohol abuse and dependence listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.

What researchers found was that 17.8 percent of those interviewed reported that they had abused alcohol at one time or another, and 12.5 percent reported alcohol dependence.

But perhaps most sobering was the fact that few with alcohol problems ever reached out for help.

"What we found was that very few people who have lifetime disorders ever seek treatment," Grant says, adding that only 24 percent of those suffering from alcohol dependency seek help. The percentage of those seeking treatment for alcohol abuse is even lower, at 7 percent.

"This is a big problem in our society, and every time we write a paper it becomes more clear," says Dr. James C. Garbutt, medical director of the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Nearly 100,000 people die every year of alcohol-related causes. Alcohol carries a $200 billion or more cost to society. These are huge statistics."

Read More ....