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Hey! While you're here, check this out!
Interesting Fact One! "By 1988, research studies also showed that the younger the age at which children had had their first tipple, the more they would drink in later life; and males drinking more than 4 units of alcohol per week at 16 were more likely to drink 50 units per week at 23 compared with those who did not drink at 16. Furthermore, it had been shown through research that drinking at a younger age and drinking in a licensed premises before the age of 18 are both linked to development of heavy drinking in later life." A few notes on the info/research provided on youth in the book "A lot of bottle" by Derek Rutherford (Institute of Alcohol Studies, UK, 1988)
Over 20 years ago, we had clear indicators that early onset drinking was causing some grief, but was 'buried' by the so called geniuses of the day who didn't want to be wowsers! I'm betting that the now 40 year olds who are struggling with the alcohol now were wishing that was diffrent!
Interesting Fact Two! In one of the latest issues of 'The Globe' "Alcohol is responsible for 1 in 25 deaths world wide!" Unbelievable! But when you look at the following spin you can begin to understand why.
"Comments of senior brewing industry figures well illustrated the conern of the Industry. One such director noted... "Young people seem less prepared to sip beer for hours, culturally they like short sharp fixes...five years ago there were less alternatives to getting abuzz or getting high. The challenge for the [alcohol] industry is to make alcohol part of that choice". Chairman of the huge company Allied Liesure in UK said this... "Youngsters can get Ecstasy for $20 or $25 and aget a much better buzz than they can from alcohol...it is a major threat to alcohol-led business." So faced with losing its traditional market and losing out in the psychoactive youth consumer markret, commentator and author of Institute of Alcohol studies paper 'Youth, Alcohol and the Emergence of the Post-Modern Alcohol Order' made the following observations... "The industry's response was to accelerate the rpocess of recommodifiying alcohol products that it had begun in the eighties. The term re-commodification is deliberately chosen to capture the fact that alcohol was being redeveloped as a 'new' consumer product. In effect, the brewing industry created a post-modern alcohol market."
The key transformations were as follows:
a) A whole new range of alcohol products - ice larges, spirit mixers, white ciders, alcopops and buzz drinks. They have become know as designer drinks.
b) The strength of alcohol products were increased in a direct attempt ot compete in the psychoactive market adn appeal to the new generation of psychoactive consumers.
c) Alcohol products have been increasingly advertised as lifestyle markers in sophisticated campaigns to appeasl to adn develop market niches."(The Globe Issue 2, 2009 pp 6)
Wow! So, it's global, not just Oz! What is completely distrubing for us, is the complete shameless set up of emerging, and for the most part clueless, young people. We don't mean they are stupid, just a combination of post-modern confusion, poorly defined values and consequently boundaries, and being ignorant to the spin that they are caught in... That's why it's so important that we 'get a clue and give a damn!"
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BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE--Heavy alcohol consumption (three drinks or more/day for women and four drinks or more/day for men) is linked to alterations in immune function among people with HIV.
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) looked at biological markers of innate immune function, a kind of immune response that acts quickly and non-specifically to new infections and pathogens. They investigated biological markers of three specific immune processes: systemic inflammation, monocyte activation and altered coagulation. Higher levels of biological markers for these processes have previously been associated with higher risk of death. In the current study, the researchers assessed self-reported alcohol use over time (three times over two years) and also measured alcohol use using a blood-based marker of alcohol consumption called PEth (phosphatidylethanol) that detects alcohol consumption up to about 21 days after drinking. Additionally they measured other behaviors and health conditions that could obscure the true relationship between alcohol consumption and these biomarkers.
"We found that people who reported drinking more alcohol or had high PEth had higher levels of these biomarkers of immune function. The fact that heavy alcohol consumption was linked to elevated levels of these biomarkers, which are linked to mortality, suggests that alcohol may be contributing to mortality risk through immune dysfunction among people with HIV," said corresponding author Kaku So-Armah, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at BUSM.
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SBS 27/2/18
Nearly 6000 Australians are dying from alcohol-related diseases each year. (AAP)
Nearly 6000 Australians died as a result of a disease linked to alcohol in 2015, the National Drug Research Institute has found.
Alcohol-related diseases are being blamed for causing the deaths of nearly 6000 Australians each year.
A study by the National Drug Research Institute at Western Australia's Curtin University has found an estimated 5,785 people aged over 15 died from alcohol-attributable causes in 2015.
Just over a third died from alcohol-attributed cancer, with injuries, cardiovascular disease and digestive diseases linked to 17 per cent of deaths.
"This research shows that in Australia, one person dies every 90 minutes on average, and someone ends up in our hospitals every three-and-a-half minutes, because of preventable conditions caused by alcohol," NDRI alcohol policy team leader Professor Tanya Chikritzh said.
Breast cancer and liver disease were the main causes of death for women, while most men died from liver disease and bowel cancer.
As well as the 2000 people who died from alcohol-attributable cancer, another 13,000 were hospitalised with cancers linked to low or moderate drinking levels.
Terry Slevin, education and research director at Cancer Council WA, said many people would be shocked to learn that more than one third of alcohol-related deaths were linked to cancer.
"We rarely see people with a cancer diagnosis link their drinking to the disease," he said.
"We have a long way to go to embed the notion that drinking alcohol genuinely increases risk of cancer and death."