Coffee Drinking Associated

With Lower Risk For

Alcohol-Related Liver Disease

Science (June 13, 2006) — Drinking coffee may be related to a reduced risk of developing the liver disease alcoholic cirrhosis, according to a report in the June 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Cirrhosis progressively destroys healthy liver tissue and replaces it with scar tissue. Viruses such as hepatitis C can cause cirrhosis, but long-term, heavy alcohol use is the most common cause of the disease in developed countries, according to background information in the article. Most alcohol drinkers, however, never develop cirrhosis; other factors that may play a role include genetics, diet and nutrition, smoking and the interaction of alcohol with other toxins that damage the liver.

Arthur L. Klatsky, M.D., and colleagues at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Oakland, Calif., analyzed data from 125,580 individuals (55,247 men and 70,333 women) who did not report liver disease when they had baseline examinations, between 1978 and 1985. Participants filled out a questionnaire to provide information about how much alcohol, coffee and tea they drank per day during the past year. Some of the individuals also had their blood tested for levels of certain liver enzymes; the enzymes are released into the bloodstream when the liver is diseased or damaged.

By the end of 2001, 330 participants had been diagnosed with cirrhosis, including 199 with alcoholic cirrhosis. For each cup of coffee they drank per day, participants were 22 percent less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. Drinking coffee was also associated with a slight reduction in risk for other types of cirrhosis. Among those who had their blood drawn, liver enzyme levels were higher among individuals who drank more alcohol, indicating liver disease or damage; however, those who drank both alcohol and coffee had lower levels than those who drank alcohol but did not drink coffee, with the strongest link among the heaviest drinkers.

Tea drinking was not related to reduced risk in the study, suggesting that it is not caffeine that is responsible for the relationship between coffee and reduced cirrhosis risk. “Previous reports are disparate with respect to whether the apparently protective coffee ingredient is caffeine; in our opinion this issue is quite unresolved,” the authors write.

The findings do not suggest that physicians prescribe coffee to prevent alcoholic cirrhosis, the authors continue. “Even if coffee is protective, the primary approach to reduction of alcoholic cirrhosis is avoidance or cessation of heavy alcohol drinking,” they conclude. “Assuming causality, the data do suggest that coffee intake may partly explain the variability of cirrhosis risk in alcohol consumers. Basic research about hepatic coffee-ethanol interactions is warranted, but we should keep in mind that coffee might represent only one of a number of potential cirrhosis risk modulators.”

(Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:1190-1195. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.)

This study was supported by a grant from the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute. Data collection from 1978 to 1985 was supported by a grant from the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation, Baltimore, Md.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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China scientists show how arsenic treats blood cancer

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SINGAPORE, Apr. 9, 2010 (Reuters) — Scientists in China have demonstrated how arsenic — a favorite murder weapon in the Middle Ages — destroys deadly blood cancer by targeting and killing specific proteins that keep the cancer alive.

“Our study showed how arsenic directly targets these proteins and kills them,” lead researcher Zhang Xiaowei at the State Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics in Shanghai, China, told Reuters.

“Unlike chemotherapy, the side effects of arsenic (in treating acute promyelocytic leukemia) are very low. There is no hair loss or suppression of bone marrow (function). We are interested in finding out how arsenic can be used in other cancers,” Zhang said by telephone.

Well known for its toxicity, arsenic was regarded in the past as the king among poisons because its symptoms are like those of cholera and can often go undetected.

In China, however, it has long served a dual purpose. Apart from intentional poisoning, it has been used for at least 2,000 years in traditional Chinese medicine.

In 1992, a group of Chinese doctors reported how they used arsenic to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), a blood and bone marrow cancer that has surprisingly high cure rates of over 90 percent in China.

However, the actual workings of arsenic and how it interacts with cancer tissues has never been clear — until Zhang and his colleagues used modern technology to find out.

In a paper published in the journal Science, Zhang and his team, which includes Health Minister Chen Zhu, described how they used modern equipment and saw how arsenic attacked specific proteins that would otherwise be keeping the cancer alive and well.

“This shows how Western technology can be used to find out about the mysteries of Chinese medicine,” Zhang said.

“Although many countries are now using arsenic to treat APL, some countries are resistant to the idea. It depends a lot on whether doctors recommend it and whether patients accept it.”

In APL, there is a drop in the production of normal red blood cells and platelets, resulting in anemia and thrombocytopenia. The bone marrow is unable to produce healthy red blood cells. Until the 1970s, APL was 100 percent fatal and there was no effective treatment.

“The clinical result of arsenic in treating APL is well-established. More than 90 percent of APL patients in China have (at least) five years of disease-free survival,” Zhang said.

In a separate commentary in Science, Scott Kogan at the University of California San Francisco Cancer Center wrote that proper case selection and combination therapy with arsenic may lead to improved outcomes for treating not only promyelocytic leukemia, but other diseases as well.

“If so, an ancient medicine, revived through careful clinical and biological studies in modern times, will have an even greater impact on human health,” wrote Kogan, who was not linked to the Chinese study.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 6th May 2010

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