January 17, 2012 blog

January 17, 2012 Blog

Maybe wine isn’t that good for you after all.

THE PRINCIPAL RESEARCH LINKING ALCOHOL, PARTICULARLY RED WINE, TO GOOD HEART HEALTH DECLARED FRAUDULENT!

The University of Connecticut has begun dismissal proceedings against Dipak Das, Ph.D., the principal investigator who promoted the idea that red wine and one of its chemicals, resveratrol, were beneficial for heart health. According to investigators for the university and the U.S. Center for Research Integrity, Dr. Das fabricated the results of twenty-three papers he published from 2005-2009 demonstrating these findings. The alterations were, in every case, made to enhance red wine and resveratrol’s roles in heart health.  Knowing that alcohol is a $40 billion a year industry, the next logical question is:  who funded Dr. Das’ research? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

jh

1/4/12 blog

January 4, 2012 blog

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Cindy Sagon, a staff writer for the AARP bulletin, wrote an article dismissing the increased risk of breast cancer in women who drink.

For those who missed it, the study out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston showed that women who drink 3-6 drinks per week increased their risk of breast cancer by 15%. Those drinking two or more drinks per day had an increase of 51%.

Cindy belittled these numbers showing that the increase was from 12.0% to 13.8%, a trifling 1.8%, not worth worrying about for a woman who needs her wine to relax in the evening after a hard day at work.

1.8% seems like nothing.

But multiply that by the 100,000 women in the study and you get 1,800 breast cancers that would not have happened without that evening glass of wine. 1.8% seems like a tiny number, unless you are part of it.  Then it’s not 1.8%; it is 100%.

Cindy reveals her diminutive knowledge of the subject. She is not aware of the ten additional cancers definitely linked to alcohol consumption. For the record, they are cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, prostate, and most recently, lung.

She is probably not aware that although alcohol is not a carcinogen (cancer causing chemical), its first metabolic break down product is acetaldehyde which is a potent carcinogen. Wherever you find acetaldehyde, cancer is not far behind.

She probably knows of the study comparing the French who drank a lot to Americans who drank less. It’s conclusion:  the French had less heart disease. Yet, if she had read the study in depth she would have found that though the French died less often from heart disease than the Americans, they had higher death rates from (you guessed it) cancer and suicide.

I am sure she is not aware that alcohol is the number two cause of osteoporosis, another epidemic disease in women.

I doubt that she considered that breast cancer is a killer of young women, women with school-age children and promising careers.

To say that her reassurance to the drinking women of America was ill-advised is a monumental understatement.

I am not opposed to moderate drinking. I am opposed to ignorance regarding its consequences.

jh

12/1/2011 blog

December 1, 2011 Blog

RE-EXAMINING OUR PRIORITIES

Today is World AIDS Day.

All over the world people are celebrating inroads in treating a disease which two decades ago was a death sentence.

A miracle of modern medical science and political will.

Meanwhile a disease that has been around for centuries continues to leave death and destruction in its wake.

According to the World Health Organization, it will kill 2.5 million people worldwide this year.

That is more than AIDS, Tuberculosis, and War.

An entire generation of young men in Russia is dying from it.

This year in the US it will kill 125,000 people, with only heart disease and cancer causing a higher toll.

President Obama today pledged 50 million dollars to decrease the number of new US cases of AIDS this year.

But there was no pledge to fight an even bigger killer.

That killer is alcohol.

Wake up!  Alcohol is in every household, on every doorstep.  We continue to allow it to kill our young people, to emotionally scar families with the abuse it causes, and we tolerate billions of dollars in lost work and medical expenses to treat its victims.

The day is coming when the truth will be known about alcohol’s damage to our health and to the social fabric of our culture, when we spend as much for alcohol education in our middle school classrooms as we do for retrovirals in Africa.

If we continue to spread the word, it will happen.

jh

November 12, 2011 blog

November 12, 2011 Blog

Wise beyond their years.

They filed in to the library as I hurriedly substituted my projector for the school’s malfunctioning one:  sixty fresh-faced children from the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program at Mesa Middle School.  Their teacher is a long time patient and friend and after reading my book, she asked if I would speak to her students.  In my studies, I have come to the conclusion that this is the ideal age group we need to reach if we are going to have any success educating children about alcohol.  Most have not tried it yet and they have open minds and are receptive to learning about it.

They were wonderful:  alert, attentive, and very courteous.  Hispanic, Filipino, Caucasian, and Asian, they made a wonderfully heterogeneous group.

I started by asking their ages. “Any twelve-year olds?”

“I used to be twelve,” a bespectacled redhead in the front row chimed in.

“I hope so,” I answered, and the children all laughed.

I started by telling them of the drunken nineteen-year-old girl that died in the hot tub at the upscale Shell Beach, CA hotel a month before.  I gave her a name, Dana, and they were shocked that the hot water could accelerate her alcohol poisoning.

I had their attention.

I explained how alcohol is a poison and how easy it is to kill yourself with it if you drink hard liquor fast and pass out before you get sick enough to throw up.

I explained in terms they could understand that alcohol makes people feel good because it increases a chemical called dopamine in their brains.  I then showed them how drinking all the time lowered the dopamine, and made the alcoholic want to drink more to raise it. They understood that this was the cause of addiction.

I taught them how alcohol makes some people angry and mean, how some people act crazy when they drink, how drunk people sometimes black out and wake up in bed with someone they don’t know.

I showed them how alcohol is a depressant and is the absolute worst thing to drink when a person is depressed.  They understood when I related that one-third of all alcoholics die of suicide.

I told them about the pain that teens suffer because they drink: the rape of the girl passed out at the party, the unintended intercourse, the sexually transmitted diseases, the unwanted pregnancies, and the arrests for DUI and MIP.

I presented the many health risks of alcohol: cancer, osteoporosis, hepatitis, insomnia, reflux disease, fetal alcohol syndrome, and many more.

I related how alcohol prevents teens’ brains, principally the pre-frontal cortex, from maturing. That is the area of the brain important for judgment, decision-making, and impulse control.

I told them that they had to watch out for each other when there was alcohol present, that they should always go to parties with a friend, and each should commit to keeping the other safe.

The redhead in the front row began to cry.  “How do you get someone to stop?” she almost sobbed.

I explained that the person drinking had to be willing to stop and then told her about the intervention process.

I told them that we have ordered bracelets stating, “I’ve got your back” and that they could have one to wear if they promised to look out for each other when they were at a party.

When finished speaking, I asked for questions.  There were many good ones.  The best one came from a bronze-skinned girl in the back.

“If alcohol is so bad, how come it is legal?”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Oct 31, 2011 Blog

OCTOBER 31, 2011 BLOG

AMY’S TRAGIC END

Amy Winehouse, popular singer-songwriter, was found dead in her home by a security guard on July 23. Empty vodka bottles were strewn about. Paramedics arriving on the scene described her as “beyond help.”

Last week, coroner Suzanne Greenaway announced that Winehouse suffered a “death by misadventure”; the “unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels (of alcohol) was her sudden and unexpected death.”

Dr. Greenaway obviously excels in double speak.

A “misadventure”?

“unintended consequence”?

“Potentially fatal”?

“Unexpected death”?

Amy Winehouse had a serious and recurring problem with alcohol. She had recently relapsed after a brief time of sobriety. As so often happens in a relapse, the disease rapidly progresses.

In June, she abruptly canceled her European come back tour. Swaying and slurring her way thorough barely recognizable numbers, she was jeered and booed off the stage in Belgrade.

Amy reached the point of no return on July 23.

Her personal physician, Dr. Christina Romete, talked with her on the phone the night before her death. While Amy was slurring her words, Dr. Romete asked when she would quit. Amy told her they would talk that week end.

She never made it.

Her blood alcohol was 0.40. Not a “potentially fatal” level, an indisputably fatal level. The small amount of Librium in her system (used to prevent seizures in people withdrawing from alcohol) may have hastened her respiratory arrest.

At 0.40 percent, the brainstem, the center of all vital functions, shuts down. Temperature control, blood pressure, and breathing are suppressed.

Once the breathing stops, the heart can only last a minute or two. A fatal arrhythmia or cardiac standstill is the terminal event.

The beverage of choice for alcohol poisoning is some form of distilled spirits. Vodka is a favorite. The high alcohol content (80 proof/40%) allows the blood alcohol to rise very quickly, taking the victim through the stages of intoxication without the body being able to eliminate it. If the level reaches 0.40 % before the victim vomits, the end soon follows.

Unfortunately, alcohol poisoning is a common cause of death in teens in the U.S.

Parents, please educate your kids on the dangers of alcohol poisoning. Don’t wait. They may not appear to be listening, but they will remember what you say. Better yet, read Chapter 5 “Dying of Acute Alcohol Poisoning” in The Sobering Truth together with them. The vivid description of the process of death by acute alcohol consumption will make an impression.

Alcohol kills 2.5 million people worldwide each year.

You only read the high profile stories.

They are all as tragic as Amy’s.

jh