Teenager with liver failure warns of the harm done by binge drinking

Binge drinking caused teen's liver failure at 14

Extract from the Telegraph:

"A teenager has told how her binge drinking caused her liver to fail at the age of 14.

Natasha Farnham, who is now 18, is believed to be the youngest person in Britain to be diagnosed with alcohol-related liver failure, claims the charity British Liver Failure.

She started drinking at 12 and within a year was consuming up to six bottles of wine a day.

Two years later she was taken to hospital after drinking 16 bottles of wine, cider and spirits in three days.

Doctors diagnosed liver failure - usually suffered by middle-aged alcoholics - and told her to stop drinking. But she ignored the warning and has gone into rehabilitation at the age of 18.

Doctors tell her that she will die if she drinks again.

Miss Farnham now has memory loss problems."

Britain is in the grip of a binge drinking epidemic...

Epidemic of drunk teenagers in hospital - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Britain is in the grip of a binge drinking epidemic, according to two official studies yesterday that showed alcohol-related hospital admissions have doubled in a decade while a third of teenagers regularly drink to excess.

The number of drunk teenagers admitted to hospital in England increased by more than a third in the past 10 years, from 3,870 in 1995/96 to 5,280 in 2005/06.

In the same period, the number of adults admitted to hospital after drinking excessively more than doubled -from 89,280 to 187,640.

The statistics, from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, which collates data for the Department of Health, also showed that alcohol consumption among children aged between 11 and 13 has reached a record high."

"The figures came as doctors called for action on binge drinking. Delegates at the British Medical Association's conference in Torquay, voted for a ban on consuming alcohol in the street.

They also backed a call for a reduction in the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

Alcohol abuse is estimated to cost the country £20 billion a year through crime and damage to health.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of ethics at the BMA, said that too many children did not understand that alcohol was "an acute poison" when consumed excessively.

"We are not just talking about liver disease," she said. "People become violent, fall unconscious and become seriously dehydrated.

"We are seeing dehydrated people in their twenties who have had major strokes because they have drunk too much."

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, accused the Government of ignoring the dangers of binge drinking."


Lose weight, lower your risk of stroke, lower your high cholesterol level, reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack, and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
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Doctors call for measures to reduce heavy drinking.

Doctors call for ban on drinking in street - Telegraph

Extract:

"A national ban on drinking in the street should be introduced to help defeat the binge-drinking culture, senior doctors will say next week.

Laws to increase the legal age for buying alcohol to 21 - except in pubs and hotels - and increases in tax on alcohol and advertising restrictions will also be proposed.

Delegates at the British Medical Association's annual conference will debate the suggestions on Tuesday.

There are already restrictions on drinking in the street in some parts of the country after councils were given powers in 2001 to designate public areas in which it is an offence to consume alcohol if asked not to do so by a police officer.

The BMA motion calls for total national prohibition.

This follows growing concern about the impact of binge drinking on the nation's health and the financial implications for the NHS and the taxpayer of alcohol-related disease.

A Government report this month to accompany its new alcohol strategy suggested that Britain has eight million problem drinkers. Liver disease is the fastest growing illness and hospital admissions have doubled in the past decade."

Alcohol is not the only, and not the main, cause of liver disease. - Prescribed drugs, frequently prescribed inappropriately, in far too high a dose and for far too long a period, cause massive damage to the liver and other organs of the body. The most harmful tend to be those which cause sodium and water retention - that is steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, most notably amitriptyline, other psychotropic drugs and, to a much smaller extent, many painkillers and other drugs. The most dangerous of these sodium retentive drugs - the steroids, HRT and tricyclic antidepressants - should never be prescribed without a warning to avoid eating salt/sodium while on the medication. This warning is seldom, if ever, given...)o: The effect of the sodium retention is to turn sodium in food (usually encountered as salt) into a very slow poison for the unfortunate victims/patients of the negligent prescribing. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

You can protect your liver by only taking drugs if they are absolutely necessary, taking them at the lowest dose necessary, and taking them for the shortest period of time necessary, and by avoiding salt and salty food. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Binge-drinking harms women's brains more than it does men's brains.

Women's brains hit hardest by alcohol - Telegraph

Extract:

"Binge-drinking harms women's brains more than it does men's, according to research published yesterday.

Tests suggest that excessive drinking undermines cognitive abilities such as memory, problem solving and planning more rapidly in women.

Previous studies have shown women who become dependent on alcohol suffer more rapid damage to the liver, heart and muscles than men. The new research, published in the May issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, found female alcoholics may also sustain greater brain damage than male alcoholics.

James Garbutt, professor of psychiatry and research scientist at Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, University of North Carolina, said: "Our study reveals that excessive alcohol can reduce one's intellectual abilities. "

Do your brain - and your liver and your heart - a favour! - As well as avoiding excessive drinking, cut down on your salt intake. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

More babies - one in 100 - are born with foetal alcohol syndrome than all the major genetic disorders combined.

'The brutal fact is that Dominic looks like this because he was so drunk while in the womb' - Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"More babies - one in 100 - are born with foetal alcohol syndrome than all the major genetic disorders combined, yet the public know almost nothing about it. With alcohol consumption increasing among women, Olga Craig uncovers the appalling consequences for the damaged children. "

"About 28 babies with the most severe form are born each week. Yet the woeful lack of diagnostic expertise within the medical profession and the lack of publicity given to the syndrome means that thousands of women drink, and drink heavily, during pregnancy, oblivious to the risk to their unborn child.

Last Friday, backed by women such as Mrs Head, Lord Mitchell, the Labour peer, introduced the Alcohol Labelling Bill in the House of Lords, calling for it to be made compulsory for all alcohol containers to carry labels warning about the dangers of drinking while pregnant - as is already the case in France, America and Chile.

The backbench bill, which is backed by the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS), gained an unopposed second reading. But it may face a rocky ride through the Commons, since many MPs believe it is yet another example of a nannying state. Without Government backing it is unlikely to become law.

As Britain's binge-drinking culture becomes ingrained in our psyche, all too few pregnant women are aware of the enormous risks to which they expose their unborn child if they continue to drink."

"Raj Mukhjejee, a leading expert in FASD, from St George's hospital medical school, in south London, says we now know that the problem is much greater than was previously thought, and it needs more publicity. "The uncertain levels of risk to the developing foetus, coupled with the possibility of misinterpreting a health-promotion message means the only safe message in pregnancy is abstinence," he says.

His view would seem to be at odds with Department of Health guidelines, which are also followed by the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. They suggest that it is safe to drink one to two units, once or twice a week."

It seems clear that pregnant mothers will give their baby a healthier start in life by avoiding alcohol during pregnancy. And it would be a heavy burden of guilt to bear if, by binge-drinking in pregnancy, a mother caused her child to be born seriously disabled. - Pregnant mothers will also give their baby a healthier start in life if they avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy. - This would safeguard their own health too, lowering their risk of high blood pressure and undue weight gain. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pregnant_mothers.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)