Journal Scan

Richard Lehman’s Journal Review – Late Links

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BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 6 December 2010

BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 29 November 2010

BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 22 November 2010

Sorry for the late links.  But better late than never.

As an enthusiastic regular drinker of wine, I am delighted to note the PRIME study which confirms that by doing so I halve my chance of myocardial infarction. I suppose I also increase my chance of pancreatitis, cancers of the GI tract and stroke. Perhaps liver disease too, though the literature is surprisingly obscure at levels of intake below about 100u/week. The thing not to do is binge drink, which is a common pattern in Northern Ireland, and probably increases your baseline risk of MI. I think the further north you travel, the more dysfunctional alcohol use becomes, as warm oblivion becomes ever more desirable. As if to illustrate this point, a review of frostbite finds that nearly half of it is associated with alcohol use. I bet that means vodka or whisky in most cases, and wine alone hardly ever.

Lehman’s Journal Review 10.4.2010

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BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review, 4 October 2010

Like about 40% of adults of my age in Western countries, I have a fatty liver, though I don’t qualify for having nonalcoholic fatty liver disease because I drink too much. If I wanted to know what is really happening to my liver I would have to have serial biopsies, as would several million people in the UK. This non-disease correlates with a number of other non-diseases such as asymptomatic reduced left systolic ejection fraction and pre-diabetes, and some real risk factors such as actual diabetes and high blood pressure. So I might die of vascular disease; or liver failure if I really overdo the wine; or else from cancer or general crumble or whatever else awaits me and everyone else. This paper on the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease goes through the data and leaves me none the wiser: and by the way, these people are not patients and they don’t have a disease.

 

General crumble?