Tobacco smoke and alcohol harm liver worse as combo
February 3, 2009Exposure to second-hand smoke and alcohol significantly raises the risk of liver disease, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
The finding adds to mounting evidence that tobacco smoke and alcohol are worse for health as a combination, beyond the individual exposure risks, said Shannon Bailey, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UAB Department of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-lead author on the study.
The study is published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
"This new data is a significant finding considering the combined effect of alcohol and cigarette smoke exposures, and the implications for public health," Bailey said.
The researchers reported on mice exposed to smoky air in a laboratory enclosure and fed a liquid diet containing ethanol, the intoxicating ingredient in alcohol drinks.
Mice exposed to second-hand smoke and who drank ethanol had 110 percent more liver fibrosis proteins than mice who breathed filtered air. Additionally, the twice-exposed mice had 65 percent more liver fibrosis proteins than mice who breathed smoky air but did not drink ethanol. Fibrosis is scar-like tissue in the liver that can lead to cirrhosis.
A study from the same UAB researchers in 2007 found the combination of second-hand smoke and ethanol increased the biological signs of heart disease in mice.
Second-hand smoke kills 53,000 nonsmoking Americans every year and is a known cause of lung cancer, heart disease, low birth weight and chronic lung ailments, according to the American Cancer Society.
Excessive alcohol consumption is ranked as the third-leading cause of preventable death in the United States, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new study highlights the need to further probe negative biological impacts from single or multiple risky behaviors, and the compounding effect of environmental hazards such as second-hand smoke, said Scott Ballinger, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UAB Department of Pathology and a co-lead author on the study.
In addition to measuring liver fibrosis proteins in the study mice, the researchers looked at other signs of advancing liver disease like DNA damage, unhealthy cholesterol and oxidative stress.
Source: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Nov 24, 2009 |
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http://www.smoker...titi.htm
More than 50 studies show that human papillomaviruses cause over ten times more lung cancers than they pretend are caused by secondhand smoke. Passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus, so the anti-smokers' studies, which are all based on nothing but lifestyle questionnaires, have been cynically DESIGNED to falsely blame passive smoking for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV.
http://www.smoker...ungc.htm
The anti-smokers have committed the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on smoking and passive smoking, as well as ignoring other types of evidence that proves they are lying, such as the fact that the death rates from asthma have more than doubled since their movement began. The EPA's own report says, "Between 1980 and 1995, the percentage of children with asthma doubled, from 3.6 percent in 1980 to 7.5 percent in 1995." The graph on pdf page 65 boasts of declines in cotinine levels during this same period.
http://tinyurl.com/355p4d
And the CDC says, "Despite the plateau in asthma prevalence, ambulatory care use has continued to grow since 2000... Increased ambulatory care use for asthma has continued during an era when overall rate of ambulatory care use for children did not increase."
http://www.cdc.go...d381.pdf
And it's a lie that passive smoking causes heart disease. AMI deaths in Pueblo actually ROSE the year after the smoking ban.
http://www.smoker...art.html
The government has no right to restrict peoples' liberty without a compelling justification. The anti-smokers have no such justification, so THEY COMMITTED SCIENTIFIC FRAUD TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC.