Coffee Prevents Alcoholic Liver Cirrhosis

Drinking as little as one cup of coffee a day could help protect you from liver disease caused by alcohol, according to research published today.
People who drink one cup of coffee are 20% less likely to have alcoholic cirrhosis than those who abstain from doing so.

And the protective effect increases with the more coffee you drink: People who drink two or three cups a day are 40% less likely to contract cirrhosis, while those who drink four or more cups are 80% less likely to suffer the disease.

The findings, conducted by researchers at the Kasier Permanente, in Oakland, California, are thought to be the largest study to look at the inverse relationship between coffee and cirrhosis. The link was first reported by researchers at the same institute in 1993 but this new study - of 125,000 people over 22 years - "solidifies the association", Arthur L Klatsky, the lead author of the study, said.
Dr Klatsky, who was involved in the earlier research, added: "Consuming coffee seems to have some protective benefits against alcoholic cirrhosis, and the more coffee a person consumes the less risk they seem to have of being hospitalised or dying of alcoholic cirrhosis. We did not see a similar protective association between coffee and non-alcoholic cirrhosis."

The researchers, whose findings are published in the US journal Archives of Internal Medicine, followed more than 125,000 health plan members who underwent a medical examination between 1978-1985 and who, at the time, had no diagnosed liver disease. Participants filled out a questionnaire detailing how much alcohol, coffee and tea they drank daily.

By the end of 2001, 330 participants had been diagnosed with liver disease, including 199 with alcoholic cirrhosis - caused by the consumption, each day, of three or more units of alcohol.

Researchers - who only counted those who had been hospitalised or died because of the disease - found that the more coffee a person drank the less likely they were to develop alcoholic cirrhosis.

Drinking tea had no effect, suggesting the ingredient that protects against cirrhosis is not caffeine.

Blood tests conducted on the 5% of drinkers who consumed the most alcohol confirmed that coffee drinkers were less likely to have high levels of enzymes in the liver - a key indicator of liver damage.

Dr Klatsky added: "Even allowing for statistical variation, this shows there is a clear association between coffee consumption and protection against alcoholic cirrhosis.

"This is not a recommendation to drink coffee. Nor is it a recommendation that the way to deal with heavy alcohol consumption is to drink more coffee. And while there is very little evidence that moderate coffee drinking - say up to four cups a day - is harmful to the health, that's not the message we want to get across. There is a lot of harm caused by heavy drinking other than liver damage."

Dr Klatsky said that if caffeine were the key protective ingredient, he would expect to have seen some protection for heavy tea drinkers.

"We can't answer why this has happened," he said. "The value of this study is that it may offer us some clues as to the biochemical processes taking place inside liver cells that could help in finding new ways to protect the liver against injury."

Cirrhosis, caused by thickening of the normal tissue, causes progressive damage and impaired function of the liver. There are numerous causes including viruses, obesity or genetic problems - but excess alcohol is the main culprit.

Figures published in The Lancet this year show that Britons are drinking themselves into the grave at a sharply increasing rate. In the 1950s England and Wales had low rates of liver cirrhosis deaths - for men 3.4 per 100,000 a year and for women 2.2. By 2001 rates were 14.1 for men and 7.7 for women.

While the US remains the world's biggest consumer of coffee - with the average American drinking 3.2 cups a day - British men now drink an average of 1.7 cups, and women 1.5 cups a day.

Human Micro-chips Cause Cancer

A new paper titled "Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and
Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990-2006" has been released today by
CASPIAN. The full, 48-page paper provides a definitive review of the
academic literature showing a causal link between implanted
radio-frequency (RFID) microchip transponders and cancer in laboratory
rodents and dogs. In addition, a brief, four-page synopsis of the full
report is being made available.

Eleven articles previously published in toxicology and pathology
journals are evaluated in the report. In six of the articles, between
0.8% and 10.2% of laboratory mice and rats developed malignant tumors
around or adjacent to the microchips, and several researchers suggested
the actual tumor rate may have been higher. Two additional articles
reported microchip-related cancer in dogs.

In almost all cases, the malignant tumors, typically sarcomas, arose at
the site of the implants and grew to surround and fully encase the
devices. In several cases the tumors also metastasized or spread to
other parts of the animals.

Public revelation of a casual link between microchipping and cancer in
animals has prompted widespread public concern over the safety of
implantable microchips. The story was first broken to the public in
September through an article written by Associated Press Reporter Todd
Lewan. Prior to the AP story, the journal articles were completely
unknown outside of small academic circles.

"The AP did a superb job informing the public of the existence of these
journal articles," said Dr. Katherine Albrecht, a leading privacy
expert
and long-time VeriChip opponent who authored the new paper.
"Unfortunately," Dr. Albrecht added, "a lot of misinformation about the
cancer research has circulated since Mr. Lewan's article was published.
I wrote the report to set the record straight."

The animal-microchip study findings were so compelling that one of Mr.
Lewan's sources, Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology
Genetics
Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, was
quoted as saying, "There's no way in the world, having read this
information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin,
or in one of my family members."

Nevertheless, representatives of the chipping industry have made
inaccurate public statements about the research findings in an effort
to
confuse the public.

Scott Silverman, CEO of the VeriChip Corporation which makes the
controversial VeriChip human implant, recently provided inaccurate
information to Time Magazine. Mr. Silverman is quoted as saying that
none of the tumors found in mice in a 2006 French study were malignant.
In fact, not only were the tumors malignant sarcomas, but most of the
afflicted animals died prematurely as a result of the
microchip-associated tumors.

In addition, Destron Fearing, makers of the HomeAgain pet implant,
dismissed a finding of fibrosarcoma--a highly lethal cancer--as
'benign' in a recent report.

A fibrosarcoma is a type of sarcoma, a malignant tumor of soft tissue
that connects, supports or surrounds other structures and organs of the
body. Dr. Timothy Jennings, an expert on implant-induced cancers in
humans, said he was "not aware of any nosology incorporating an entity
of 'benign fibrosarcoma'" and agreed that "any tumor classified as
sarcoma should be viewed as malignant."

"Either VeriChip and the makers of HomeAgain actually don't understand
the difference between a benign fibroma and a malignant fibrosarcoma,"
noted Dr. Albrecht, "or they're deliberately lying to the public.
Either
way, it's clear they can't be trusted. We hope our new report will set
the record straight."

~I guess it doesn't really matter about the risks to our health because the powers that be will justify their motives with specific, self-funded research to oppose these findings. Statistics can be used to abuse, and you can guarantee they will, they only need to remind us all of the threat of TERRORISM, and we will give up the last of our civil rights out of fear.~

Cannabis to be re-classified because of lost revenue

Breaking news:

The Association of Chief Police Officers are calling for cannabis to be reclassified from a class C to a class B drug. The Association of Chief Police Officers had supported the downgrading of the drug from class B to Class C three years ago. However Tim Hollis, the Chair of the ACPO drugs committee, said that they would now support a return to the previous position and would be giving evidence to that effect to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. A decision would then be taken probably next spring. Mr Hollis the Chief Constable of Humberside said there were concerns that the downgrading had sent out the wrong signals to young people. He also questioned why cannabis factories in rented houses had proliferated. He said organised crime viewed the UK as a potential place to produce cannabis. Police are stressing however that any reclassification would not necessarily change the way that they currently police possession of cannabis, although that may be reviewed in the light of any re-classification. The annual ACPO drugs conference in Cardiff is due to hear the latest evidence about links between mental illness and cannabis abuse.

~What a shame that the United Kingdom cannot cope with the irrefutable fact that Cannabis is not a dangerous drug, certainly not on the scale of Amphetamine. It is obvious that their reasons for re-classification are not because of its risks, but of a loss of profit! If Cannabis could be controlled by the government i.e by not being able to be home grown, and if it was more physically addictive like alcohol and cigarettes, then Cannabis would have been legalised in the 60's. All the police and politicians care about is that there is money to be made, and they're being left out.~

Important Quotations for Today:

1) To the United States and George W. Bush:

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." ~ Oscar Wilde

"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty." ~ Plato

"Yes, America is gigantic, but a gigantic mistake" ~ Sigmund Freud

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." ~ Mark Twain

2)To my Stepfather:

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him." ~ Mark Twain

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." ~ Martin Luther King

"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." ~ Jean Rostand

To My Mother:

"Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them." ~ Rita Rudner

"Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does." ~ Evan Esar

"Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same." ~ Pearl Buck

" Men are confused. They're conflicted. They want a woman who's their intellectual equal, but they're afraid of women like that. They want a woman they can dominate, but then they hate her for being weak. It's an ambivalence that goes back to a man's relationship with his mother. Source of his life, center of his universe, object of both his fear and his love." ~ Diane Frolov

To My Father:

"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh." ~ Frank Herbert

"For rarely are sons similar to their fathers: most are worse, and a few are better than their fathers." ~ Homer

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." ~ Unknown

To Me:

"I have decided that suicide is completely out of the question. I refuse to end the suffering of others... No, I must contemplate homicide and end the suffering of one... ME!!!" ~ Anonymous

"If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think "How lucky are the dead." ~ Dorothy Parker

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." ~ Woody Allen

"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation." ~ Benjamin Disraeli

"When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough." ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

The End Of Days...

I am tired, drained, and pessimisstic. I have awoke, bleary eyed, and cannot muster enough energy to plan anything for the day, look forward to anything, or be positive.

The 32 month wait to talk to a Psychologist has finally ended, but that too is draining every bit of energy from my being. I talk, she listens, and very well too, I might add, we have a good rapport. She is Professional, confident at her work, and does not offer sympathy, just empathy and understanding, which is the only way to really help me to help myself. The analogy of the 'Give a man a fish...' remains true in this situation also.

She has helped me to understand that by utilising something called, 'Dialectical Behavioural Therapy' I can re-learn how to 'cope' and learn better skills for coping with this fucking, bastard of a world we live in. Due to trauma's in my early childhood, abuses, and neglect, and unstable rearing with separation and rejection from my major male role model, I developed, I had to develop ways of coping. The problem being that my ways of coping have developed into, what can be described as a 'personality disorder'.

As a young child, I was lonely. Following my father leaving and my sexually abusive sister, which was round about the same time. My mother ploughed every scrap of energy she could muster into the critically important housework. 'A tidy house equals a tidy mind!', and 'What would the neighbours think if they came round and saw dust, or dog hairs of dirty plates in the sink?' Yes, I was fucking lonely! So my ways of coping were to immerse myself in my head, and so I developed highly imaginative worlds where I would reside, in safety, away from the horrors of the real world. As an adult, these fantasies disappeared, with each year I grew older, the fantasies went one by one. The tooth fairy, Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the monster in the attic, the little people who lived in the garden, the figurines I had collected from Star Wars figures, Green Army men with rocket launchers that fired matches, to the matchbox cars that skreetched around corners, and knocked down figures, or dolls that I hated...dead, dead, dead! All that was now lost, and part of me died also.

As an adult, I say adult, a pubescent boy, I realised these fantasies could be made to live again, Pinnochio could be a real life boy again! I discovered Drugs, and all the wonderful new doors they opened inside my head, but not all the doors that opened were wonderful, some I wish had never been opened, for they stay forever ajar, with the darkness casting a shadow over every piece of happiness I ever obtain, however short.

Yes, today I am tired, I am weary, but tonight I will be so drunk again that for a fleeting moment, that happiness I remember from the far distant past will come again, and I will pass out, and dream.....

Then tomorrow I rise, and the rollercoaster ride that is my life will begin again ....