{US scientists say they have bred a genetically modified (GM) mosquito that can resist malaria infection.}
If the lab technique works in the field, it could offer a new way of stopping the biting insects from spreading malaria to humans, they say.
The scientists put a new “resistance” gene into the mosquito’s own DNA, using a gene editing method called Crispr.
And when the GM mosquitoes mated – their offspring inherited the same resistance, PNAS journal reports.
In theory, if these mosquitoes bite people, they should not be able to pass on the parasite that causes malaria.
About 3.2bn people – almost half of the world’s population – are at risk of malaria.
Bed nets, insecticides and repellents can help stop the insects biting and drugs can be given to anyone who catches the infection, but the disease still kills around 580,000 people a year.
{{‘Pivotal role’}}
Scientists have been searching for new ways to fight malaria.
The University of California team believe their GM mosquito could play a pivotal role – breeding resistant offspring to replace endemic, malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
They took a type of mosquito found in India – Anopheles stephensi – on which to experiment.
Dr Anthony James and his team showed that they could give the insect new DNA code to make it a poor host for the malaria parasite.
The DNA, which codes for antibodies that combat the parasite, was inherited by almost 100% of the mosquito offspring and across three generations.
The researchers say the findings offer hope that the same method could also work in other mosquito species.
Although it would not be a sole solution to the malaria problem, it would be a useful additional weapon, they say.
Prof David Conway, UK expert from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “It’s not the finished product yet but it certainly looks promising. It does look like the genetic editing works.”
Other scientists have been looking at genetically modifying mosquitoes to render them infertile, so that they die out. But some experts fear that eliminating mosquitoes entirely may have unforeseen and unwanted consequences. Replacing disease-carrying mosquitoes with harmless breeds is a potential alternative.
{Residents of Nyabihu served by Nyakiriba Health Center in Rugera sector, have called upon government to rehabilitate access roads to the center saying the current dilapidated, slippery and pot-holed ones are a hurdle to accessing and consumption of medical services in the locale, with the area ambulance finding it difficult to take or collect critically ill patients from the facility to Shyira Hospital. }
Residents who talked to IGIHE, noted that the government has done much to improve welfare of residents through the provision of such facilities as electricity and health facilities, but lack of roads takes them way back in time since, quite often, they have to carry patients on traditionally made stretchers, endangering their .
Musabeyezu Josephine, in charge of maternal and child health says the situation becomes more complicated when it comes to transferring pregnant women Shyira Hospital, some of who might have developed complications. “It requires calling people to carry the patient in a litter which also delays medical administration from the referred hospital,” explains Musebeyezu.
Ndazigaruye Boniface, also a resident of the area, says it’s difficult to summon nurses in times of emergencies or when the number of patients is overwhelming because of the poor state of roads in the sector. “Our homes and facilities have been connected with electricity, but what we need now are good roads to allow us easy access to health services and market our farm produce without much ado,” emphasizes Ndazigaruye.
Nyiramahirwe Claudine, the deputy director of Nyakiriba Health Center argues that lack of the good roads linking the center to Shyira Hospital present big hurdles to the residents and stalls efficiency in service delivery. “Drugs are sometimes brought to the facility in sacks rendering them susceptible to sun rays and going bad, while milk meant to be served to children suffering from malnutrition sometimes goes sour thus aggravating bad situations further,” laments Nyiramahirwe adding that building good accessible roads can reduce maternal and child mortality in the locality.
Deputy Mayor finance and economic development Nyabihu district, Mukaminani Angella says she recognizes the complexities of the issue and construction of a new 28km— Rwankeri-Gatovu-Nyakiriba-Nyakinama has started. The road under construction is expected to be carried out in three phases and, on completion, will connect Nyakiriba Health Center to Musanze hospital.
The health center receives roughly 40 patients from Rugera, Rurembo and Kintobo sectors
{Conservative Mauricio Macri has been confirmed as the winner in Argentina’s presidential elections after his ruling party opponent conceded.}
With almost all votes counted, Mr Macri led Daniel Scioli by 51.5% to 48.5%.
He danced on stage at a victory rally at his Buenos Aires headquarters and thanked his staff for their support.
Mr Macri’s victory is the first in more than a decade for Argentina’s centre-right opposition and ends the 12-year rule of the Peronist Party.
“Today is a historic day,” said Mr Macri, addressing thousands of cheering supporters. “It’s the changing of an era.”
Sunday’s victory completes a turnaround for Mr Macri, who is currently mayor of Buenos Aires, after he lost in the first round of voting to Mr Scioli.
But Mr Scioli, who is the governor of Buenos Aires province, did not command enough of a lead to win the vote outright, forcing a run-off – the first in the country’s history.
Mr Macri went into Sunday’s vote with a comfortable lead in opinion polls, and campaigned on pledges to bring new investment into the ailing economy, tackle crime and fight corruption.
A divided Argentina: Wyre Davies, BBC News, Buenos Aires
As he danced around on the stage, like an embarrassing grandfather at a wedding, Mauricio Macri couldn’t care less – he’d produced an election result against a party that has dominated Argentine politics for more than a decade – a result that few would have predicted just a few months ago.
In the end it was close, about a 3% margin over the deflated Daniel Scioli. He’d been handpicked by the outgoing president but could never match Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s charisma or her bond with the Peronist Party’s working class base.
Economic reform will be Mr Macri’s number one priority but he gave little away in his victory speech. It will not, though, be easy. Argentina is divided. While most of the white, middle class supporters at the victory rally will hope for a more liberal, open economic climate – the working class, banner waving youth at the ruling party “wake” will hope that warnings about welfare reform and government cuts do not materialise.
The son of one of Argentina’s richest men, Mr Macri had a long career in business before entering politics.
In 1991, he was kidnapped and kept captive for 12 days by a gang of corrupt policemen demanding millions in ransom.
Four years later, he became president of Boca Juniors Football Club and used his success at the club as a springboard for his political career.
Mr Scioli, a close ally of outgoing President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, had been expected to win by a greater margin in October.
He tried to regain momentum before Sunday’s runoff by attacking Mr Macri’s market-driven economic policies as a throwback, but failed to regain a lead in the polls.
{A slow international response and a failure of leadership were to blame for the “needless suffering and death” caused by the recent Ebola epidemic, a panel of experts has concluded.}
Led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the panel’s report said major reforms were needed to prevent future disasters.
More than 11,000 people died in the outbreak, which began in 2013.
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone were the countries most badly affected.
The report said these countries were unable to detect, report and respond rapidly to outbreaks – something which allowed Ebola to develop into “a worldwide crisis”.
But it reserved most criticism for the World Health Organization, saying it was too slow to declare Ebola an international public health emergency – five months after Guinea and Liberia had notified it of outbreaks.
The report said the WHO had also failed to meet its responsibilities for responding to the outbreak because of a lack of leadership and accountability.
When a global response did eventually materialise, towards the end of 2014, it was deemed to be slow, inflexible to conditions on the ground, inadequately informed and poorly co-ordinated.
“The reputation and credibility of the WHO has suffered a particularly fierce blow,” the report said.
The panel also criticised some political leaders for playing down the outbreak and not calling for international help.
Early reporting
The report makes 10 recommendations for improving systems to cope with future outbreaks.
These include calls for a global strategy to help poorer countries monitor and respond to infectious diseases.
Those countries that delay reporting outbreaks and sharing information should be named and shamed, it says.
The report also recommends creating a dedicated centre for outbreak response at the WHO, which has a protected budget.
And a global fund should be set up to finance research and development of drugs and vaccines to treat infectious diseases.
The panel, made up of 20 experts in global health from around the world, was chaired by Prof Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and co-discoverer of the Ebola virus.
He said: “Major reform of national and global systems to respond to epidemics are not only feasible, but also essential so that we do not witness such depths of suffering, death and social and economic havoc in future epidemics.”
‘Game changer’
Prof Piot added: “The AIDS pandemic put global health on the world’s agenda. The Ebola crisis in West Africa should now be an equal game- changer for how the world prevents and responds to epidemics.”
Ashish K Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and a professor of medicine, said: “People at WHO were aware that there was an Ebola outbreak that was getting out of control by spring… and yet it took until August to declare a public health emergency. The cost of the delay was enormous.”
Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said the report offered “some sobering lessons”.
“Particularly welcome are the calls for greater investment from governments to build a core capacity to detect, report and respond rapidly to outbreaks, as is the idea of creating a dedicated centre for outbreak response within the WHO,” he said.
“It’s vital that the lessons learned are translated into concrete action if we are to avert another crisis on the scale of Ebola.”
{The fight against one of the country’s deadliest diseases, malaria, has slightly been eased with the launching of new high dose strength for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria in adults and older children who weigh 35kg and above.}
The Novartis Head of Africa Operations, Malaria Initiative, Dr Nathan Mulure, said at the launch over the weekend that the new high dose strength is called Coartem® 80/480 (artemether/lumefantrine 80 mg/480 mg) and that the drug has been registered by the TFDA, Tanzania Food and Drug Administration and has already been launched in Nigeria, Kenya and Angola, Cote d’ Ivoire and many other countries.
“Novartis reaffirms its strong commitment to the fight against malaria. This achievement is a truly remarkable milestone contributing to treating many patients and help in the reduction of disease burden.
The fewer tablets offer a convenient solution for busy lives. The launch of Coartem® 80/480 in Tanzania marks another milestone in the fight against Malaria, and will benefit patients with a convenient and high quality treatment for malaria,” he said. In July 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) prequalified the drug paving its way for the introduction into the public sectors and donor funded programmes.
In a bid to enhance patient compliance, the full course of treatment for malaria has been reduced from 24 tablets to six tablets translating into a 75 per cent reduction in pill burden using Coartem 80/480.
The Coartem 80/480 was first registered in Switzerland by a stringent health authority, the Swissmedic. Others who spoke during the launch include the renowned malariologist, Professor Zul Premji, who advised that malaria must be confirmed by laboratory or rapid diagnostic tests before treatment is started.
A research scientist at Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), Dr Abdunoor Mulokozi, explained that pill burden reduction has been associated with better adherence to treatment in many acute and chronic diseases. Registrar of the Pharmacy Council Ms Elizabeth Shekalaghe emphasized on the importance of rationale use of medicine and creating awareness to the public.
She added that there should be a collaborative effort amongst all stakeholders to ensure that medicines are used correctly. “Through a partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001, we were the first company in the healthcare industry to commit to the supply of anti-malarial treatments to the public sector in endemic countries without profit”, added Dr Mulure.
Novartis pioneered the launch of a fixed-dose ACT, and ten years later, in 2009, the first dispersible ACT was tailored to meet the needs of children who are the most vulnerable to malaria.
Each year, there are more than one million malaria-related deaths around the world. Nine out of ten malaria deaths occur in sub Saharan Africa, and the vast majority of malaria-related deaths occur in children. In Africa alone, a child dies every 60 seconds from malaria.
As part of its ongoing commitment to patients and health workers, Novartis also provides malaria case management educational programmes, which include hands-on training for local healthcare workers, customized training manuals, and user-friendly packaging to ensure that Coartem and Coartem Dispersible are properly used and to improve patient compliance.
In 2001, Novartis signed a memorandum of understanding with the World Health Organization to provide at no profit, Coartem to malaria endemic countries all over the world. Since then, Coartem has grown from 100,000 treatments per year product to over 100 million treatments, a milestone that was achieved in the year 2011.
Novartis is the first company to develop a WHO prequalified child friendly medication, the Coartem Dispersible. Dispersible tablets easily break up in water, are sweet and easy to take.
Two sites in Tanzania participated in the phase 3 clinical trials of Coartem Dispersible tablet. Since 2009, over 250 million dispersible tablet treatments have been delivered the vast majority to African countries.
{The Ebola virus may remain present in sperms of survivors of Ebola epidemic for at least nine months. Demonstrates the research which stresses the need for a longer medical monitoring.}
According to the study published Wednesday 14th October in the New England Journal of Medicine, fragments of the virus can remain permanently in the body of people healed, presenting a danger of their spouses they may contaminate. The study was conducted on 93 male in Sierra Leone over the age of 18 years.
Talking to Jeune Afrique journal, Bruce Aylward, the head of response to Ebola at the World Health Organization (WHO) stressed the need to increase efforts to resist relapse of the epidemic.
“This study reminds us that despite the fact that the number of cases of Ebola continues to decrease, the survivors and their families are still facing the effects of the disease,” said Bruce Aylward, head of the response to Ebola at the World Health Organization (WHO).
“This research provides more evidence showing that patients who survived Ebola need help for six to twelve months following their recovery to ensure that their partners are not exposed to the virus,” he says.
More than half of the subjects whose sperm was tested four to six months after their illness was positive for Ebola, while 26% whose sperm was tested between seven and nine months after the infection, was still positive, reveals the research conducted by the Ministry of Health of Sierra Leone, World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for control and disease prevention (CDC).
The study found that more than 8000 men who cured Ebola in the three most affected countries in Africa – Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia have subsequently relapsed.
Following this relapse, health authorities therefore recommend survivors to test their sperm before having sex, use a condom or otherwise.
{Residents of Cyanika, Burera district attribute the increase of infectious diseases to inadequate sanitation in their households over stony land which prevents to dig toilets’ deep holes. }
Residents expressed their views on this Monday 2nd November 2015 during the launch of maternal and child care week organized by Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC). They called for help to eradicate the problem of inadequate sanitation to improve their livelihoods.
Talking about challenges residents encounter, Nkurunziza Alphonse said that it is difficult to dig the depth of one meter because of the land’s structure which prevents deep penetration over stony land.
He declared it to be the major cause of inadequate sanitation that results in the contamination of infectious diseases.
Mukeshimana Providence, a community health councilor attributes the lack of proper toilets to diseases even though she tries to mobilize residents to clean existing ones.
Sembagare Samuel, the mayor of Burera district promised to find solution through community work and the assistance of partners.
Sembagare shared that last year 2000 households had improper toilets adding that the matter will be solved not later than December 2015.
The executive board of RBC noticed that the one week campaign launched aims at saving children and mothers lives since they get affected easily.
{The scene from “Sex and the City” when Charlotte reflects on the effort she put into pregnancy prevention as a single woman–only to get married and learn that she has a 13 percent chance of conceiving– is an unfortunate reality that rings true for millions of women in the United States, according to the CDC. Historically, it has been fairly impossible to predict your odds of getting pregnant in the future; however, a new screening exam is changing that.}
According to Glamour, the diagnostic test called What’s My Fertility? can determine whether or not a woman is suffering from Premature Ovarian Aging or POA.
{{How it works:}}
All women are born with all of their eggs and they gradually lose them over time. Unfortunately, some women lose their eggs more rapidly than others, causing their ovaries to age prematurely.
“The number of eggs that are left in a woman’s ovaries at a given time defines her ovarian age,” said Dr. Norbert Gleicher, who developed the exam. “For 90 percent of women, their egg counts follow an expected curve as they age. But for 10 percent of women—independent of race, background, or what they eat or drink—their egg counts don’t follow that curve pattern, and their ovaries age prematurely.”
According to Dr. Gleicher, who serves as medical director and chief scientist of the Center for Human Reproduction, the screening is available to women ages 18 to 35 and in place to equip women experiencing POA with the knowledge needed to make decisions about the future.
“After treating infertility in women for decades and hearing them tell us time and time again that they wished they had known of the risk of POA so that they could have planned for a family sooner, we were determined to find a better way to proactively identify POA in young women,” said Dr. Gleicher. “This is the group of women our screening is addressing. Fertility centers like ours see an exploding patient population in this category, and since they usually present to us very late—in their mid to late 30s or 40s—there are limited options we can offer them. The best case is that they go into IVF quickly; the worst case is that they are unable to have biological children.”
Currently, testing costs $98 plus lab fees. It consists of a medical questionnaire, and blood tests that take three things into consideration:
1. “The FMR1 gene, which may regulate how a woman’s ovarian function changes over time.”
2. “Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which has a role in the maturation of eggs (if FSH levels are high that’s an indicator of declining ovarian reserves or how many eggs a woman has left).”
3. “Anti-muellerian hormone (AMH), another indicator of a woman’s ovarian reserves.”
While What’s My Fertility? is only licensed in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, and Virginia at the moment; you can still ask your ob-gyn to access the screening for you.
If you’re residing in one of the licensed states, you can begin the screening process by heading over to the What’s My Fertility? website and filling out a questionnaire. You will then be prompted to go to a local lab to have blood work performed.
“Our plan is to offer this program for free to the general ob-gyn community and primary care doctors in every state so that it may eventually become part of routine screening for young women,” said Dr. Gleicher. “If we can advance the first diagnosis of POA from the late 30s to the mid- to late 20s, there will be a huge outcome difference because women will have the chance to do something about it; they’ll be able to make informed decisions earlier in life that will help them avoid the emotional and hefty costs of later infertility treatments.”
The East African Community (EAC) has registered a general improvement in maternal, newborn and child health, but there are areas in each member state that require sustained action for improvement, according to a recent report.
The Countdown to 2015 Report, A Decade of Tracking Progress for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival, launched last month at the first Global Maternal and Newborn Health Conference held in Mexico, includes an updated country profile for each of the 75 countries, which jointly account for more than 95 per cent of the world’s maternal, newborn and child deaths.
The seventh in a series released over 10 years, it examines trends in mortality and nutrition; intervention coverage (including inequality); financial flows to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health; and supportive policy and systems measures in 75 countries.
The report is intended to help policymakers and their partners assess progress, prioritise actions and ensure accountability for commitments to reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality.
{{Shared problems }}
As is the case in nearly all other countries, all EAC countries have not ratified the Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183), a modern international labour standard on maternity protection, which came into force in 2002.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), expectant and nursing mothers require special protection to prevent harm to their infants’ health, and they need adequate time to give birth, recover and nurse their children.
Mothers also require protection to ensure that they will not lose their job simply because of pregnancy or maternity leave.
All the five EAC countries also suffer inequalities as regards skilled attendants at delivery between poor and rich households. Furthermore, in the entire EAC region and beyond, under-nutrition is mainly attributed to half of child deaths even though pneumonia is blamed for most under-five deaths.
Zulfiqar Bhutta, the co-chair of Countdown to 2015 Initiative, said worldwide maternal and child survival had improved by 50 per cent since 1990, but newborn survival and child nutrition remain the two major challenges that must be addressed.
{{Rwanda}}
Only four of the 75 Countdown countries — Cambodia, Eritrea, Nepal and Rwanda — will achieve both Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, the report noted.
Regarding socio-economic equities, the report paints a positive picture for Rwanda when it comes to oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and continued feeding; measles; diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3) immunisation coverage; early initiation of breast feeding; and antenatal care.
Rwanda has good policies, including community treatment of pneumonia, and postnatal home visits in the first week after birth, but still lacks an international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes, according to the report.
The Code is an international health policy framework for breastfeeding promotion adopted by the World Health Organisation in 1981 as a global public health strategy.
It recommends restrictions on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, such as infant formula, to ensure that mothers are not discouraged from breastfeeding and that substitutes are used safely if needed.
{{Rwanda registered 1, 300 maternal deaths in 2013.}}
The report shows that in 2013, general government expenditure on health as a percentage of total government expenditure was 22 per cent, while out of pocket expenditure as percentage of total expenditure on health was 18 per cent.
During the Mexico conference, Catherine Mugeni, the director of the Community Programmes Unit at the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), shed light on how 45,000 community health workers (CHWs) champion post-natal health in Rwanda by identifying all women in child bearing age, those who are pregnant and visiting pregnant ones three times during pregnancy.
She, however, cited insufficient supervision and mentorship by health care providers and a high turnover among the challenges to maternal and child health.
The way forward, according to Mugeni, includes “strengthening community-based maternal and newborn health service delivery through supportive supervision and mentoring.”
Reinforcing physician nursing home visit documentation and linkage with heath facilities, she said, is another good idea.
{{Kenya}}
In Kenya, under-nutrition is mainly attributed to half of child deaths, while haemorrhage (25%) and hypertension (16%) are the biggest causes of maternal deaths. Post-natal visits for mothers – within two days – were at 51 per cent in 2014.
Government expenditure on health as percentage of total government expenditure in 2013 was six per cent, while out of pocket expenditure as a percentage of total expenditure on health was 45 per cent.
Dr Irene Mbugua, World Vision’s regional maternal, newborn and child health project coordinator, observed that equity gaps are wider for interventions that require access to health facilities or repeat contacts with a health provider than for interventions that can be delivered through outreach services at the community level.
“The community needs more empowerment which can only come about when citizens understand their rights and entitlements in the health delivery system. They need to monitor the standards at the health facilities and ultimately the two parties (citizens and duty bearers) need to get together and dialogue to look for sustainable solutions,” she said.
{{ Tanzania}}
On equity, Tanzania only does well in closing the gap in use of insecticide-treated nets among under-five children between rich and poor households. But there are inequalities regarding even early initiation of breast feeding.
The country of 53.5 million people also lacks community treatment of pneumonia with antibiotics, according to the report.
Another policy deficiency is the lack of antenatal corticosteroids, medication given to pregnant women expecting preterm delivery, as part of management of preterm labour, a situation which often results in greater health risks for babies.
Most (39 per cent) of its maternal and newborn health expenditure is covered by external sources, while general government expenditure accounts for 33 per cent and private sources 27 per cent, according to 2012 statistics.
In 2013, out of pocket expenditure as percentage of total expenditure on health was 33 per cent and the country registered 7,900 maternal deaths that year.
{{Uganda}}
Most (53 per cent) of Uganda’s maternal and newborn health expenditure is covered by private sources while government expenditure accounts for 24 per cent and external sources 23 per cent, according to 2012 data.
Out of pocket expenditure as percentage of total expenditure on health was 38 per cent in 2013.
The country recorded 5, 900 maternal deaths in 2013.
{{ Burundi}}
Regarding matters of equity, Burundi is an outstanding example as it registered a thin gap between rich and poor households as regards antenatal and DTP3 immunisation coverage.
At policy level, Burundi lacks in many respects. For instance, it has no maternity protection; no maternal deaths notification; no kangaroo mother care in facilities for low birth weight or preterm newborns; and no antenatal corticosteroids as part of management of preterm labour.
{Sober October is over – but was it worth it? Yes. Studies confirm that abstaining from booze for four weeks lowers blood pressure and blood sugar, improves sleep and concentration and helps you lose weight }
Have you ever wondered if a dry January really works? Does your liver notice if you spend a month off the chablis, sipping elderflower spritzers instead? Apparently so, according to research to be presented this month at the 66th annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease.
A study of 102 drinkers who had a dry January found a reduction in their “liver stiffness” – measured by a scan that assesses the amount of fibrous scarring in the liver. No one knows what this means, although one could hope the liver can at least partially repair itself, given an alcohol–free holiday. Fibrous scarring can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, irreversible damage that can lead to liver failure. Importantly, the blood pressure of those in the study fell, as did their resistance to insulin, reducing the likelihood of developing diabetes.
The solution
The research is only available as an abstract and has not yet been published. It does, however, fit with findings from a pilot study from the same research unit, at the University College London Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, last year. That research found that 10 members of staff at the New Scientist who opted for a dry January (compared with four who continued drinking) experienced a 15% reduction in the amount of fat in their livers (a precursor to fibrous liver damage) and a fall in their blood glucose levels. They also reported better sleep and concentration, and an average weight loss of 1.5kg (over 3lbs).
In this latest study, the average alcohol intake was 33 units for men and 29 for women, whereas UK guidelines are 21 and 14 units – a unit being half a pint of beer or a small glass of wine. But before we all raise a glass to a dry January, there are studies that show 5-15% of people with fatty livers who abstain from alcohol still go on to develop fibrosis and cirrhosis, especially if their livers already show alcohol damage.
The Royal College of Physicians says there is evidence that drinking every day increases the risk of liver disease, and that it is better to have two or three alcohol-free days a week. But one problem in assessing a dry month is that is that no one knows whether you drink more, less or the same after it is over. The pilot study from UCL found one downside – avoiding booze reduced the social contact of the participants. Otherwise, do consider increasing your alcohol-free days because, as I have found, life is actually better without it. I’d still like to be invited to Christmas drinks, though.
