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Study: No "Safe" Level of Alcohol Consumption

posted by chromas on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-news-is-terrible-and-I'm-gonna-need-a-drink dept.

takyon writes:

No alcohol safe to drink, global study confirms

A large new global study published in the Lancet has confirmed previous research which has shown that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. The researchers admit moderate drinking may protect against heart disease but found that the risk of cancer and other diseases outweighs these protections. A study author said its findings were the most significant to date because of the range of factors considered.

The Global Burden of Disease [open, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31310-2] [DX] study looked at levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries, including the UK, between 1990 and 2016.

Analysing data from 15 to 95-year-olds, the researchers compared people who did not drink at all with those who had one alcoholic drink a day. They found that out of 100,000 non-drinkers, 914 would develop an alcohol-related health problem such as cancer or suffer an injury. But an extra four people would be affected if they drank one alcoholic drink a day. For people who had two alcoholic drinks a day, 63 more developed a condition within a year and for those who consumed five drinks every day, there was an increase of 338 people, who developed a health problem.

One of the study authors, Prof Sonia Saxena, a researcher at Imperial College London and a practising GP, said: "One drink a day does represent a small increased risk, but adjust that to the UK population as a whole and it represents a far bigger number, and most people are not drinking just one drink a day."

Related: The Truth We Won't Admit: Drinking is Healthy
Study Shows 3 Drinks a Day May Cause Liver Cancer
Even Moderate Drinking Linked to a Decline in Brain Health
American Society of Clinical Oncology: Alcohol Use Increases Risk of Cancer

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @06:48PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @06:48PM (#726297)

    That's a pretty ignorant way of putting it. It's standard practice to just use a topical anesthetic when performing brain surgery as the surgeon has to have the patient awake and functioning during the procedure to reduce the risk of complications. And the brain itself doesn't feel pain anyways as there are no nerves inside the brain to sense pain.

    In the case of babies, it is very tough to determine the amount that's necessary without being too much as there's no way of conducting the research into the matter.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:18PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:18PM (#726314)

    In the case of babies, it is very tough to determine the amount that's necessary without being too much as there's no way of conducting the research into the matter.

    Yep, that doesnt mean you can conclude babies don't feel pain though. Thats what they did... until some mom found out on accident and made a fuss about it. Then all of a sudden papers got published showing babies did feel pain.

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:29PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:29PM (#726317)

      To the Editor:
      Dr. John Scanlon spoke at a recent meeting
      sponsored by BIRTH protesting the barbarism of
      surgery without anesthesia for newborn babies and
      has written on the subject ( I ) .

      Ten years ago our prematurely born son,
      Edward, was shunted for hydrocephalus while paralyzed
      with curare. Although he could not move,
      cry, or react in any way, he could see, hear, and feel
      as large incisions were cut in his scalp, neck, and
      abdomen; as a hole was drilled in his skull; as a tube
      was inserted into the center of his brain, then
      pushed down under the skin of his neck, chest, and
      abdomen and implanted deep in his abdominal cavity.
      It is a source of great anguish to me that my
      husband and I signed a form allowing such an operation
      to take place, but we were told Edward might
      die or become brain damaged without the operation
      and that anesthesia might kill him. “Besides,” the
      doctors assured us, “these babies don’t really feel
      pain.” I suspected then, and now know, that this is
      just not true.

      To this day, our severely retarded son will allow
      no one to touch his head, neck, or abdomen. Even
      heavily tranquilized, he reacts to the simplest medical
      procedures or the mere sight of the hospital with
      violent trembling, profuse sweating, screaming,
      struggling, and vomiting. I can’t help feeling that on
      some level he still remembers the hideous pain inflicted
      on him during his unanesthetized surgery and
      throughout the course of his neonatal intensive
      care.

      Shortly after Edward came home from the hospital,
      I began work on a book for parents of premature
      babies. Several doctors and nurses I interviewed
      admitted that surgery without painkillers was sometimes
      necessary for those babies “too weak to survive
      anesthesia.” However, the majority of parents
      I interviewed seemed unaware of this practice. AIthough
      I now regret it, I decided against mentioning
      surgery without anesthesia in my book. At the time,
      I was unable to document its occurrence or determine
      its extent, and I was concerned about upsetting
      parents, perhaps needlessly. In any event, what
      could parents do with this information? One mother
      I spoke with who realized anesthesia would not be
      used for her daughter’s surgery refused to sign the
      consent form. The operation was performed anyway
      and the mother was reported to local authorities
      as an abusive parent.
      Since the publication of my book in 1983, I have
      learned that premature infants are commonly subjected
      to major surgery and other excruciating procedures
      without any pain relief whatsoever, and
      that the reasons used to justify these practices are
      of dubious validity.

      Other parents are also finding out what was done
      to their children and they are outraged. At the 1985
      national conference of Parents of Premature and
      High-Risk Infants, I joined a group of mothers and
      fathers who were discussing their children’s painful
      NICU care: major surgery, chest tube insertions,
      cutdowns (all performed without painkillers); gangrene
      and amputations from infiltrated IVs; bones
      broken during chest physiotherapy; skin pulled off
      with adhesive tape; burns from the monitors; 24-
      hour-a-day bombardment with bright light and loud
      noise; and numerous iatrogenic afflictions from improperly
      evaluated therapies. “If this were going on
      in any other setting,” one mother exclaimed, “it
      would be called torture!” Another parent noted the
      similarity between the aversive behavior of some
      NICU babies and the psychologic problems of adult
      torture victims. Another added that if these procedures
      were carried out on kittens and puppies instead
      of human babies, antivivisectionists would
      close down the nurseries. None of us believed that
      we had been adequately informed about the immediate
      or long-term suffering our children would endure.
      Most of us doubted that we would consent to
      such medical ordeals to save our own lives.
      In the past two decades, a great deal has been
      written about parents as abusers of their premature
      babies. The time has now come for a long, hard look
      at the medical abuse of newborns, especially of
      those babies unfortunate enough to be born prematurely.

      Lawson, J. R. (1986). LETTERS. Birth, 13(2), 124–125. doi:10.1111/j.1523-536x.1986.tb01024.x

      To the Editor:
      Imagine that your baby needs major surgery.
      You admit him to a major teaching facility with a
      solid reputation. Feeling foolish for even asking,
      you question several doctors about anesthesia. The
      surgical resident who brings you consent forms
      promises your baby will be put to sleep, and you
      sign. Imagine finding out later that your son was cut
      open with no anesthesia at all.

      This is not a cut-and-slice horror movie. This is
      my life; the hospital is Children’s Hospital National
      Medical Center; and, as I have since discovered, it
      is a common practice at Children’s and elsewhere.
      My son, Jeffrey, was a very tiny, very sick premature
      baby, born Feb. 9, 1985, at a gestational age
      of 25-26 weeks. During the almost two months of
      his life, he was on a respirator, with several lung
      diseases, a heart problem, kidney problems, and a
      brain bleed. He sometimes became unstable and difficult
      to manage clinically. In the United States each
      year, thousands of preemies with identical medical
      profiles are born and kept alive, and many of them
      have the same surgery.

      Jeffrey had holes cut on both sides of his neck,
      another hole cut in his right chest, an incision from
      his breastbone around to his backbone, his ribs
      pried apart, and an extra artery near his heart tied
      off. This was topped off with another hole cut in his
      left side for a chest tube. The operation lasted 12
      hours. Jeffrey was awake through it all. The anesthesiologist
      paralyzed him with Pavulon, a curare
      drug that left him unable to move, but total1-v c o n
      scious.

      When I questioned the anesthesiologist later
      about her use of Pavulon, she said Jeffrey was too
      sick to tolerate powerful anesthetics. Anyway, she
      said, it had never been demonstrated to her that
      premature babies feel pain. She seemed sincerely
      puzzled as to why I was concerned. It turns out that
      such care, or lack thereof, is possible because, as a
      neonatologist explained, babies, unlike adults,
      don’t go into shock no matter how much agony they
      suffer. Anesthesiologists take advantage of this,
      coupled with the patient’s inability to complain.
      Many surgeons who perform this operation on
      preemies (including Jeffrey’s surgeon) are not
      aware that he or she is operating without anesthesia.
      Yet I have found references to it in three articles
      in medical journals. John Scanlon, a neonatologist,
      wrote a newspaper article about a similar case
      and received feedback from other doctors uneasy
      about the same lack of pain control at their hospitals.
      The head of a national group of bereaved parents
      was upset by Jeffrey’s story and questioned the
      nurses at the intensive care nursery in her own hospital.
      The nurses confirmed that many doctors believe
      that preemies don’t feel pain and act accordingly.
      A nurse in a local intensive care nursery told me
      that she sometimes has to nag surgeons to use anesthesia
      and gets ridiculed for her efforts. The nurse
      assured me, as did two of the three medical journal
      articles, that sodium pentathol can be used to anesthetize
      all preemies no matter how small and ill.
      I have tried to convince medical authorities to
      take steps to prevent such abuse of other babies.
      But the Washington, D.C., Medical Society reviewed
      the case and concluded that, though there is
      significant controversy among physicians and in
      medical literature about pain and premature infants,
      they support the anesthesiologist. The Washington,
      D.C., Commission on Licensure to Practice the
      Healing Arts is also studying the case. But the anesthesiologist
      evidently followed the standards of
      practice, so she will inevitably be exonerated.
      An attorney with whom I consulted thought
      there was little money in the case and was reluctant
      to take me as a client. He thought we could win, but
      his experience was that juries don’t perceive premature
      babies as quite human. Staff at the federal
      hotline set up after the Baby Jane Doe case, whose
      avowed purpose includes investigating inhumane
      medical practices, were not interested once they
      learned the infant was dead. Likewise for the Washington,
      D.C., Child Protective Services Agency.
      The head of the American Association of Anesthesiologists,
      while calling my letter “certainly the
      most unusual I have received,” said he is powerless
      to respond. The American Board of Anesthesiology
      said that such cases are none of its business.
      I’m convinced that Jeffrey was paralyzed for the
      convenience of the surgeon. Once paralyzed, he
      couldn’t distress the operating team by demonstrating
      his pain, so they didn’t give it any further
      thought.

      For our pets there are protective organizations
      and dedicated proponents to guard against surgery
      without anesthesia. There appear to be none for
      premature babies. There should be, because they
      scream as loud as we do.

      Harrison, H. (1986). LETTERS. Birth, 13(2), 124–124. doi:10.1111/j.1523-536x.1986.tb01023.x

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @11:54PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @11:54PM (#726400)

        This is references for the prior posts, so either they should all or none be offtopic.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @06:22AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @06:22AM (#726457)

          Use <spoiler>text</spoiler> next time.

          text
          text
          text
          text

          text

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 26 2018, @11:36AM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 26 2018, @11:36AM (#726514) Journal
        The weird thing about your story is that there's no reason for concern there. You describe surgeons doing a good job. For example:

        When I questioned the anesthesiologist later about her use of Pavulon, she said Jeffrey was too sick to tolerate powerful anesthetics.

        Ok.

        But the Washington, D.C., Medical Society reviewed the case and concluded that, though there is significant controversy among physicians and in medical literature about pain and premature infants, they support the anesthesiologist.

        Ok.

        I’m convinced that Jeffrey was paralyzed for the convenience of the surgeon.

        Which let us note was the guy keeping Jeffrey alive. That surgeon needs those conveniences in order to do the job.

        In summary, too bad you and Jeffrey had a lot of bad luck. Blaming surgeons for it though is a waste of your time and money.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:33PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:33PM (#726574)

          You just ignored the entire point of those letters, which is the doctors came to the conclusion that babies dont feel pain because it was hard to observe it and that was the most convenient interpretation for them.

          Also, they are letters to the journal "Birth" from 1986, reflecting the medical establishment's position at the time. You can see they were so confident babies dont feel pain that one mom got reported for being abusive for not allowing a surgery without anesthesia. There is a long history of very confident and horribly wrong pronouncements from the healthcare industry.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:28PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:28PM (#727526) Journal

            You just ignored the entire point of those letters, which is the doctors came to the conclusion that babies dont feel pain because it was hard to observe it and that was the most convenient interpretation for them.

            If that were the point to the letter, then it's not much of a point. We already know medicine is very, very imperfect. I think however the real point was that the author of the letter felt the need to publicly blame others for misfortunes that were beyond anyone. Whether or not Jeffrey felt pain was irrelevant to the primary outcomes - that Jeffrey was alive and that he was retarded. Many of our medical procedures cause permanent damage when successfully performed. Perhaps instead it would be better to let Jeffrey die than to perform an imperfect medical procedure by imperfect people? I leave that up to you to decide.