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NATIONAL REPEAL DAY On December 5th, National Repeal Day commemorates the day Prohibition ended in the United States. #NationalRepealDay Prohibition grew out a practice of moderation rooted in the Protestant churches in America. By the 1830s, consumption of alcohol, especially hard spirits, was affecting the nation. Most participants were male. Those who supported who joined the Temperance movement saw alcohol as the root of all evil. The movement took hold at a time when women had few rights, and the country was debating slavery. Ethics and mores were changing. The Temperance movement shifted the view on alcohol use from moderation...

Researchers joined efforts to use machine learning and management of patients with cirrhosis to develop a non-invasive algorithm that can help clinicians identify patients with cirrhosis at highest risk for severe complications. There are two clinical stages of liver cirrhosis: compensated and decompensated. Patients with compensated liver cirrhosis have very few or even no symptoms. However, patients may progress decompensated cirrhosis, which occurs with severe complications. Unfortunately, the measurement of the risk of decompensation in patients with compensated cirrhosis currently requires an invasive procedure. i.e., the measurement of the hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG). An elevated HVPG ≥10 mmHg is...

Brazilian researchers have succesfully bioprinted tiny organoids that perform all of the human liver’s functions, Brazilian news service Agência FAPESP reports — functions including building proteins, storing vitamins and secreting bile. The researchers had to cultivate and reprogram human stem cells, and then 3D print them in layers to form tissue. While the “mini-livers” perform the functions of a liver, they’re unfortunately still a far cry from an actual full-scale liver. Not only could printed livers end a reliance on a very short supply of donor organs, they might end up being safer as well. “Another important advantage is zero...

Two of the holy grails of medicine - stem cell technology and precision gene therapy - have been united for the first time in humans, say scientists.It means patients with a genetic disease could, one day, be treated with their own cells. A study in Nature corrected a mutation in stem cells made from a patient with a liver disease. Researchers said this was a "critical step" towards devising treatments, but safety tests were still needed. At the moment, stem cells created from a patient with a genetic illness cannot be used to cure the disease as those cells would...

I lurk here a lot but don't really post. I just thought I would post here to see if anybody is familiar with all this. I learned about 3 months ago that I have cirrhosis of the liver, probably caused by alcohol use. I never thought I drank that much -- maybe 4 or 5 beers a night -- but I had such a habit for many years. I had no warning of such a problem, and only learned about it when my abdomen started becoming oddly swollen, and uncomfortable. Finally, when I was looking like a pregnant woman (literally},...

Excerpt only website: The government is taking over three Tylenol plants following a blizzard of drug recalls and a Food and Drug Administration criminal investigation into safety issues at the factories. The FDA and the Justice Department on Thursday took action against McNeil PPC and two of its executives -- its vice president of quality and its vice president of operations for over-the-counter products -- for failing to comply with federally-mandated manufacturing practice. McNeil, a division of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500), said it had agreed to put its plants -- one in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico, one in...

Fast-Food Liver Damage Can Be Reversed, Experts SayDiets high in fast food can be highly toxic to the liver and other internal organs, but that damage can be reversed, says one of the country's leading experts on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, who offers four steps to undo the effects of a 'super-size me' diet. (Credit: iStockphoto/Marketa Ebert) ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — Diets high in fast food can be highly toxic to the liver and other internal organs, but that damage can be reversed, says one of the country’s leading experts on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, who offers four steps...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Japan have designed artificial molecules that when used with rats successfully reversed liver cirrhosis, a serious chronic disease in humans that until now can only be cured by transplants. Cirrhosis is the hardening or scarring of the liver, and is caused by factors such as heavy drinking and Hepatitis B and C. The disease is especially serious in parts of Asia, including China. Cirrhosis occurs when a class of liver cells starts producing collagen, a fibrous material that toughens skin and tendons. Such damage cannot be reversed although steps can be taken to prevent...

Remarkably, the death of overactive hepatic stellate cells may also allow recovery from liver injury and reversal of liver fibrosis. Our latest finding proves we can actually reverse the damage. Drug could benefit heavy drinkersScientists in California have made a breakthrough in the treatment of liver damage. They are developing a drug for cirrhosis of the liver, the scarring caused by severe alcohol abuse. The scientists have developed a drug that not only slows progression of the disease but also reverses damage to the organ. Their discovery, published in PLoS Online on December 26, opens the door to treating...

LONDON (AP) — Last call at a British pub can be like a contact sport, with a crush of drunken customers suddenly heaving toward the bar in search of one last round. It's a hallowed British tradition, and doctors say an increasingly dangerous one. Britain's taste for binge drinking, driven by a pub culture in which a good night out means packing in as many pints as possible before the traditional 11 p.m. closing time, could lead to a liver-disease epidemic within two decades unless Britons learn to drink more responsibly, authorities warned. "There's been a frightening increase in alcoholic...

Adult Stem Cells Provide New Life for Livers By Michael Fumento Scripps Howard News Service, October 20, 2005 Copyright 2005 Scripps Howard News Service I have frequently written on the gulf between the "PROMISE" of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and the REALITY of therapy from adult stem cells (ASCs) – those already in our bodies and umbilical cord blood. ESCs get publicity; ASCs get results. The latest example: ASCs are now rebuilding human livers.  This is a healthy liver . . .   Until now, the only hope for persons with irreversible liver failure from such diseases as cirrhosis, which...

I have had the honor of serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee for 43 years, during which I've participated in confirmation hearings for every one of the justices who now sit on the Supreme Court. Over that time, my colleagues and I have asked probing questions and listened attentively to substantive responses. Because we were able to learn a great deal about the nominees from those hearings, the Senate has rarely voted along party lines. I voted, for example, for three of President Ronald Reagan's five Supreme Court nominees... But the careful, bipartisan process of years past -- like so...

Sometimes two vices are better than one. Drinking large amounts of coffee protects the livers of people who drink large amounts of alcohol, a new study shows. The results partly explain why so many heavy alcohol drinkers escape cirrhosis of the liver, say the authors. The idea that coffee drinking might benefit alcohol users arose more than a decade ago, when cardiologist Arthur Klatsky and colleagues at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, California, noticed that fewer heavy drinkers were dying of cirrhosis--scarring that hardens the liver--than expected. A study at the time suggested coffee drinking might be...

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the...

<p>NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (AP) -- Living in a college dorm can mean little privacy and exposure to a lot of booze. That can make it a tough place for young adults who are in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.</p>