feh...
Posted on 10/02/2014 4:30:02 PM PDT by BulletBobCo
GPs will prescribe nalmefene and actively ask about patients' alcohol consumption, under new plans by national health watchdog Nice to tackle alcohol abuse.
Hundreds of thousands of people drinking half a bottle of wine a night are to be put on the first ever drug to help reduce alcohol consumption, under plans announced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
Men drinking three pints of beer and women drinking two large glasses of wine per night and who do not cut down within two weeks should be prescribed a new drug, Nice has said.
There are an estimated 750,000 people in the UK who would be eligible for nalmefene who show no overt symptoms associated with their drinking.
The plans mean GPs will actively ask patients about their alcohol consumption even when they see them for unrelated health matters such as low mood, inability to sleep, diabetes and high blood pressure.
The drug, which costs £3 per tablet, is taken when people feel the urge to have a drink and stops them from wanting more than one.
The plans will cost £288m per year and it is estimated to save 1,854 lives over five years and prevent 43,074 alcohol-related diseases and injuries over the same period.
The NHS and local authorities will be required to make funding available within three months.
Prof Mark Bellis, alcohol lead for the Faculty of Public Health said there were relatively simple alternatives that would reduce alcohol consumption without the need to medicate the middle classes such as reducing advertising of alcohol and introducing a minimum price per unit.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I just had a bottle of Yuengling lager. Screw these idiots and the Muslims too. Muzzies can get stoned on hashish due to no Koranic injunctions against it
God Bless him.And thank him for my freedom. My problem was I only ever drank on the weekend. Trouble was my weekends always began on Monday. :-) But that was twenty-four years ago.
All this talk about booze is making me thirsty. BRB. :-)
They could probably save a lot of time and trouble if they just included it in each bottle of wine. After two drinks you would get violently ill and wouldn’t drink for the rest of the day.
When he was in college (a loooooong time ago) he did ‘party’ on the weekends. That stopped when we had kids. Unless it was offered as a specialty sample, he’s never had hard liquor. (The smell makes him vomit)
why don’t they just give everyone POT!
seems to be ok here!
feh...
Think you drink a lot? This chart will tell you.
It’s like there’s a new “normal” for everything these days. I say we tell ‘em where to stick their new normal.
I am not an alcoholic. I am a drunkard - there is a big difference.
Just popped the top on Blue Moon #3. I wonder what this drug’s side effects are. Probably worse than alcohol!
Red wine and dark chocolate both give me humdingers of a headache the next day so I can not have either. So very sad.
2 servings of alcoholic beverages a day is a level of consumption correlated with BETTER general health outcomes than NO DRINKING AT ALL. Granted, that doesn’t imply causation; it might just be that the laid-back type of person likely to engage in such a pattern of drinking generally has a slew of other healthy habits, relationships, and stress-coping mechanisms that someone violently emotionally opposed to drinking is less likely to share.
To put that into perspective, the studies I’ve seen on maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy don’t even show the slightest statistical blip in infant birth weights cropping up until that level of consumption is passed; but due to a surfeit of caution it’s recommended that pregnant or nursing women abstain entirely.
So, what we have here is a level of alcohol consumption generally correlated with longer lives and better health, a level of alcohol consumption so mild and generally safe that it might even be on the threshold to be considered safe enough for pregnant women, and the British government is treating it like a disease and prescribing medication to combat it. That’s just a lovely use of a nation’s resources now isn’t it? Wage war on health, war on happiness, and charge the people higher taxes to do so.
“I have two glasses before breakfast.”
Depends when breakfast starts.
>> Imagine taking away wine and dishing up a drug in its stead!
Here’s how we fix this: we hire us some liquor salesmen (and saleswomen) and make them up some business cards that show their title as “Psychopharmeceutical Sales”. We send ‘em out to doctor’s offices with cases of free half-carafe, jigger, longneck etc. “samples”. (Relabeling is probably in order.) Our “salesmen” also order in trays of pastries and sandwiches and stuff, so the MDs and their staff can get even fatter. Our salesmen will also leave all manner of advertising booty (rulers, koozies, desk sets, etc.)
Of course, we also dummy up some scholarly articles about the benefits of our alcohol and get ‘em published in Lancet... they’re really not as discriminating as you might think.
Hey, it works for drugs... why not give it a shot?
It'll also help with strep throat; take about a tablespoon and then you can eat/drink... plus the alcohol kills off some of the germs.
My adopted brother has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. There is no way on earth I would ever risk that for my child.
We belong to a fundamental Baptist church & if they knew I had wine every night they would probably remove me from membership roles. I think that is a silly and wrong interpretation of scripture. My husband, who used to have a few beers with his fellow coaches once a week, quit drinking completely when we started attending this church. I never drank anything due to several pregnancies, but just this week bought some wine.
My mom had a massive heart attack at age 51 and since she wasn’t in any high risk category (age, weight, etc) they tested her for elevated levels of Lpa. She was very high, I was tested as well and was double the maximum “normal” level at the age of 30. Alcohol is literally the only thing they know that lowers your Lpa levels.
At the age of 40 I think I can now start drinking wine at night, it doesn’t make my husband happy, but he loves me more than our church’s rules.
I don’t have a drinking problem...I have a problem getting up in the morning.
There’s the problem. You need a good 12 year old bourbon, not whiskey...ugh.
Seriously, there is no comparison between good bourbon and whiskey.
About a year ago, we did get to sample some *real* Scotch - hand carried from a distillery in Scotland... from a strange, tiny bottle with a hand-waxed seal and a cork.
Okay. I would never have insulted that brew by calling it ‘whiskey’ or by turning it into a toddy. I gently sipped it for half an hour, then (humbly) asked if I could have another dram in my specially made glass that allows the hand to warm the nectar of the gods in just the right way.
It was good. And also $300 a shot. (My host did not charge and I did have two... I’m a horrible person. I know)
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