Liver diseases caused by alcohol.

[Lou Barron]

Off to The boozer this afternoon

[Charlie Hannah]

same here Lou. Cheers.

[Captain Kong]

This is a news item in the Bolton News, so it appears to be a national problem.
Obviously many of us are unaffected by too much ale but some are and are dying needlessly and all the trauma it brings to the families.
It is mostly younger people now.
Cheers
Brian.
.



People are dying needlessly from liver disease, warns top Bolton doctor


MORE needs to be done to tackle liver disease and stop people dying prematurely, a top Bolton doctor has said.

Royal Bolton Hospital gastroenterologist Dr Kieran Moriarty has co-authored a paper calling on the government and NHS chiefs for more equipment and support to treat liver disease.

The research, published in medical journal The Lancet, shows that the number of people dying with liver problems has rocketed over the decades in cases which, if caught early, can be treated.

Dr Moriarty said: “Liver disease has always been the poor relation in this country.

“It has a stigma because of its relationship to alcohol, and is seen as a self-afflicted condition that doesn’t carry the same emotional appeal of cancer or heart disease.

“It means there is a 500 per cent increase in the number of liver deaths in the last 40 years, whereas the death rate from virtually all other main conditions — heart disease, cancers and strokes — has decreased over that time
“The average age for people dying from those conditions is in their early eighties, but with liver disease it is 59.

“People are dying in the prime of their working life, and losing years of quality of life.”

The paper makes 10 recommendations which if implemented, Dr Moriarty argues, could mean more people living longer.

Suggestions include health warnings on alcohol packaging, implementing a minimum price for alcohol and supporting screening services at GPs and in the community so liver problems are identified quickly.

“Our hope is that firstly the government and secondly all of the major parties will take note of this report and decide to do something about it immediately, and certainly include their manifesto for the next election”, Dr Moriarty added.
“Royal Bolton Hospital is an internationally recognised alcohol care centre.

“There is tremendous work been done in the hospital on alcohol and liver disease, and excellent work done in primary care by Dr Stephen Liversedge and Lesley Hardman.

“We now need to work hard to detect liver disease at an early stage of primary care, and in particular have the equipment to investigate fatty liver disease — related to obesity — in primary care and in hospital.”

[happy daze john in oz]

Some doctors will tell you that some people are more susceptable to probvlems with alcohol than others. It is believed to be a genetic mistake that causes someoen to become an alcoholic.
My grandmother, who died aged 91, was the biggest soak I ever met, for most of her life up to about mid 80's at least half a bottle of Gin a day along with two or three Guiness.
I am only thankfull she was burried and not cremated.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Whilst I admire all the research and advice, sometimes it makes no difference, as my very fit, slim, hard working wife died at a young age from cancer in both lungs and liver and she didn't smoke or drink, if your numbers up, you're numbers up. I know people who have smoked and drank all their lives, now in their nineties and still doing it.

[Neil Morton]

It is definitely all in the genes. Some of us are all born with what was once called "rude good health." Read that as you may. I honestly believe that the years spent at sea breathing pure, fresh salt laced air, were most beneficial to our youthful metabolisms. Whether you were a drinker, mostly of beer, or smoker all was temporised by excersise and clean air. On the other hand officers had access to hard grog and wine and they used to hang about giving orders. I wonder has anyone conducted the research on the longevity or otherwise of their habits.
Now here is the rub I have been ashore for 51 years, ( damn and blast ), and have been awash with beer, scotch and wine taken judiciously, ( not all at once you must understand), and my wife and I consume a litre of wine daily with lunch and dinner, we are of an age 75 years. Never a smoker I watch the asthmatic problems of my wife and curse the tobacco industry but never the vintners, brewers, and distillers.
Sunday tomorrow and a medicinal Guinness at the club before lunch, cheers one and all.

[John Pruden]

niel we are now told salt is deadly to us we breathed the stuff in for years I live by the sea? I had the miss fortune to visit clatter bridge that is a village built for cancer victims big hospital that deals with cancer and seeing some children on a crossing going to the school there all bald and pale many with lung cancer at the age of 7,8,9 from that day to this I have never had any worries since enjoy every single day you have the old saying you are a long time dead??jp

[Captain Kong]

Too much booze Killed my granddad. An interesting story.............
.
In 1914, my granddad worked in Vickers Ship building yard in Barrow in Furness.
he lived on Walney Island, just over the bridge from Barrow. with Grandma and four young daughters, one was my mother.
He used to drink in the Ferry Inn near the bridge and one day he won the `Calcutta Sweep,` run by the landlord. it was a fortune in those days.
The Landlord, being not a little bent, said I am not paying out, you can have it over the bar.
Two weeks later Grandad was dead of the booze, age 36,
Grandma alone, No Benefits, no child allowance , Nothing at all in those days, no money of any kind, no food banks,
[ they complain today,] A new widow with four very young girls. rent man a calling. So she had to get a job in Vickers Shipyard helping to build ships for the war effort.
She had no money for the funeral.
The Landlord of the Ferry Inn got his conscience back, and paid two Irishmen a few bottles of grog from granddad`s winnings to dig the grave in the churchyard just opposite the bridge to Barrow.
When the family turned up with the coffin, at the bottom of the grave was the two Paddies flaked out drunk as monkeys surrounded by bottles. They had to get the two out of the grave, clear all the bottles out before burying granddad.
Then The Landlord went back to the Ferry Inn, went upstairs to his bedroom lay on his bed and cut his throat in remorse.
Grandma then sent the eldest girl, Aunty Elsie into `Service` in a big house in Cumbria age 13, Mother age 12 was sent to Bolton on the train alone to another old Aunt to work in the cotton mills and send wages back to Walney.
Then Grandma gets herself Pregnant, [ it went on in those days too, with lace up boots and long frocks to the ground] must have been hard to get at it. with a 21 year old lad, she was 38. So she had to get married to him. She had the baby, another girl, now Aunty Florence, still alive age 95 with dementia.
Oswald, her new husband decided after one year enough was enough and told her he would go to New Zealand , get a job, get a new house and then send for her and the kids, He was never seen again.
Thirty years later, Grandma, now in the Salvation Army , got their excellent search team on to tracing him, they found him in Auckland , he had changed his name and had remarried, so he was a bigamist. So having been found after 30 years, he sent an envelope to Grandma with a One Pound Note , NZ, to grandma, no message. and that was the last heard from him.
Mother died 24 years ago, , two years before she asked me to take her to Walney Island,
We crossed the bridge and went into the Church cemetery, we searched and searched but could not find Granddads`s grave, grandma could not afford a stone in those days, but we found the Landlord for the Ferry Inn`s grave, with a big stone on it.
We then went to the Ferry Inn for lunch. This is where the Landlord had cut his throat up stairs.
I went to the bar to order a beer and a sherry for mother. An Italian Manager was there, so I got to talking with him.
I said , "Which is your bedroom, is it the one just above here, " he said `Yes` so I said, "Do you know, that room is haunted by the ghost of the Landlord who committed Suicide by cutting his throat," The new Manager, Italian chap, turned white. I left him and went to drink with Mother.
A few weeks later we went back to the Ferry Inn and I asked about the Italian Manager, and was told that he had hurriedly left the job and disappeared.
A bit later Mother died, we had her cremated and took the box of ashes with us, brothers and sisters, , we had lunch again in the Ferry Inn, Her box of ashes on the table with a full sherry glass on top, after lunch we all took a sip out of it, then took her ashes down to the beach where she used to play as a child. and scattered them there with a drop of sherry on top, she liked her sherry.
And that was the saga of Walney Island.
Cheers
Brian.


,

[John Gill]

#9- as you John i have annual health mot's, and like you have unwisely over indulged on occasion prior to the blood tests and was always surprised (and pleased) to find the liver function test normal. However, chatting to the clinician i was told that there is a specific test in the case of suspected liver damage, eg skin yellowing and lifestyle changes. The normal test merely determines the fact that you do, indeed have a liver. The philosophy of '' if it ain't broke don't fix it'' may not always apply to our ageing organs.
Gilly

[Ivan Cloherty]

#9- a The philosophy of '' if it ain't broke don't fix it'' may not always apply to our ageing organs.
Gilly

Well mine is broke and I wish someone would fix it! and I'm not talking about my liver!