One fifth of British 15-year-olds are drinking astonishing amounts of alcohol in a year

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This frightening article highlights the dangers of drinking alcohol and the damage it can do to the liver, heart, brain, pancreas and other organs. Although this story doesn't mention alcohol's effects on the lungs, other researchers found that lowered glutathione levels due to alcohol can be as deadly to the lungs of alcohol abusers as alcohol itself can be to their livers and other organs. This story is about British teens, some as young as 11, but is probably true in North America and elsewhere.

By PROFESSOR ROGER WILLIAMS dailymail.co.uk

As Britain's schoolchildren enjoy the freedom of the long summer break, an alarming new government report has revealed just how much alcohol they are drinking.

According to Department of Health statistics, one in five young people between 11 and 15 drinks more than 600 units a year.

This amounts to an astonishing mountain of alcohol. Britain’s binge-drinking epidemic sees 200 under-18s admitted to hospital every week with drink-related injuries.

But it’s the long-term damage these young people are doing to their bodies that concerns me.

As someone who helped to establish the first liver transplant programme in this country back in 1969, and oversaw George Best’s liver transplant in 2002, I am horrified by the latest figures.

It would be worrying enough if they related to older teenagers, but in fact none of the 7,700 school pupils interviewed for the NHS Information Centre’s report was over 15.

Many were as young as 11. The immediate ill-effects may be nothing worse than a hangover but - however much we like to pretend otherwise - alcohol is a poison.

Teenagers do not reach full physical maturity until they are in their 20s, so they are pouring toxins into bodies which are still at a crucial stage of development.

There is also evidence that drinking a lot in a short space of time is worse for your health than more frequent drinking of smaller amounts.

Since young people are more likely to binge-drink, they are placing themselves at even greater risk.

Here are some of the ways in which alcohol affects our children.

Liver

In my clinic, I see a disturbing number of young people with severe alcoholic hepatitis - an acute inflammation of the liver, which can lead to jaundice, coma and even death.
Long-term, excessive drinking can also cause cirrhosis, in which the normal liver tissue is destroyed and replaced by scar tissue.

The incidence of cirrhosis in this country has increased tenfold in recent decades, with some patients who have been drinking since their early teens facing terminal liver disease in their 20s.

Heart

Drinking affects the rate at which the heart beats and the high levels of alcohol in the blood associated with binge drinking can create an irregular rhythm which causes sudden cardiac arrest.

In later life, those who drink at an early age also face the danger of raised blood pressure and heart disease.

Brain

Apart from the impaired judgment which makes intoxicated youngsters more likely to have casual sex - with all its attendant consequences - getting drunk also causes long-term damage to the brain.

Just at the age when they should be at their sharpest, teenage drinkers may be impairing their reaction times, memory and attention span.

One study by the Institute of Child Health suggested that teenage drinkers are 30 per cent more likely to leave school with no qualifications.

They were also 40 per cent more likely to use illegal drugs and suffer mental health problems.

Pancreas

This organ is crucial to digestion. By their late 20s, those who drink heavily at an early age may develop painful pancreatitis, which can cause permanent loss of function. They also have an increased risk of diabetes.

Cancers

Drinking to excess is associated with a higher incidence of common cancers of the mouth, oesophagus, stomach, breast, colon and pancreas.

Physical and emotional development

Excessive drinking during puberty may upset the critical hormonal balance necessary for normal development of organs, muscles, bones and the reproductive system.

Alcohol abuse also exacerbates conditions such as depression and stress, with suicide a major cause of death in 15- to 34-year-olds in the UK today.

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Hundreds of British transplant organs given to foreign patients

The organs of nearly 700 British donors have been given to foreign patients, new figures reveal.

By Patrick Sawer Telegraph.co.uk.

The controversial practice has seen patients from as far afield as China fly in for operations at NHS hospitals around the country.

The procedures have taken place despite a severe shortage of organs for transplant in the UK, putting British patients' lives at risk.

Nearly 8,000 people are currently on NHS waiting lists for a transplant, with 305 waiting for a liver and 226 for a lung.

Patient groups and politicians condemned the practice of making organs available to foreigners while so many British patients remain on waiting lists.

The Conservative shadow minister for health, Stephen O'Brien MP, said: "This is not about being xenophobic, but when there is such a shortage of available organs we first need to ensure that we can provide for British patients.

"Ministers must answer the serious questions at stake here. Why, when their organ donation policies are failing, have they presided over so many organs going to people living outside the UK?"

The figures, obtained by Mr O'Brien through a Parliamentary question, show that between 1998 and 2008, around 70 British organs have been transplanted into foreign nationals every year.

A total of that 603 livers have been given to foreigners over the ten year period, as well as 57 corneas, five kidneys and four hearts.

At the same time, only 140 foreign organs were imported into the UK to be transplanted into British patients.

Britain is obliged by European Union rules to make British organs available to all EU nationals. Non-EU nationals are only entitled to an organ if there are no suitable British or EU patients.

Among the foreigners given British organs in the past two years were 40 from Greece and Cyprus, as well as a number from Libya, the United Arab Emirates, China and Israel.

Most of the operations took place at Leeds Teaching Hospital, King's College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital, both in London, with others taking place at Cambridge University Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital, in London, and University Hospital, in Birmingham.

The Healthcare Commission investigated the matter in 2008 after being alerted to the number of operations being carried out at King's College Hospital, but found that no rules were being broken.

However, the British Transplantation Society has criticised the practice.

Its president, Professor Peter Friend, said: "While there is a surfeit of UK residents awaiting transplant it is correct that these patients should have priority. Were the situation such that there were organs that were not required, it would be appropriate to make them available to other nationals

"We do not have a European organ donation system. It is a UK system and I therefore feel that the system is there essentially for the benefit of residents in the UK."

Among the foreign patients who have benefited from the practice is 67-year old Panayotis Papoutsis, a mechanical engineer for the Greek Public Power Corporation (PPC), who underwent a successful liver transplant at the Royal Free Hospital in 2004.

Mr Papoutsis, a former merchant seaman, said: "I will be eternally grateful to the Greek and British hospital system, and especially to the British family of the donor. I carry part of an Englishman inside me, so that will for ever keep me close to that country."

He decided to come to Britain for the operation as a way of by-passing Greek waiting lists.

Mr Papoutsis said: ""I got on the list in Greece, but could not find a quick solution, so I also tried in England. There the reception and treatment I received was excellent. I will never forget it.

"I visited three times before the operation was actually done. During my second visit to London I went through tests and was approved. Then I waited. Suddenly I got a call from London. The opportunity had arisen. There was a donor. In one week it was all done after a wait in Greece and England that had lasted six months."

But Jane Dodd, whose nine-year-old daughter Rebecca died while waiting for a similar liver transplant, has spoken out against organs being made available to foreigners when British people are still on the waiting list.

"I do feel that organs donated in this country should go to people from this country unless there isn't a suitable recipient," she said.

Mrs Dodd, who lives in the Wirral, Merseyside and whose 19-year-old son Matthew had his life saved by a liver transplant, added: "If you are signing a donor card in this country you expect someone from this country to get the organ."

The Department of Health last night announced it was clamping down on hospitals carrying out transplant on non-EU patients in cases when a suitable British recipient could have been found.

A spokesman said: "We recognise that this is complex area and will work with NHS Blood and Transplant and the Transplant community to provide further clarification."

He added: "The transplantation of donated organs into non-UK EU residents who qualify for NHS treatment is lawful. This is guided by European law which effectively regards such patients as having equal access to the NHS.

"Decisions over accepting a patient onto the transplant waiting list and allocating an available liver rests with the individual transplant centre.

"They must always give priority to those waiting on the national list of super urgent patients. The criteria for selecting an appropriate recipient of a donated organ includes the patient's blood group, size and severity of their condition."

A spokesman for the Royal Free Hampstead Trust said of 134 liver transplants carried out in the last 2 years, 120 went to UK citizens, and said EU citizens had the same rights to donated organs as British patients under European law.

Under the system all EU patients are treated in order of clinical priority, which means that a patient from the Continent with more urgent need would receive a transplant ahead of a UK citizen.

This could mean EU patients leapfrogging British patients who are less seriously ill.

However, non-EU patients can only be given a transplant if no suitable recipient can be found among the British and EU pool.

One year old Ethan Collins could die within weeks if he does not receive a new liver and intestine.
Ethan, who was born prematurely, has spent all but one day of his life in hospital, on a waiting list for an intestinal transplant and has now developed severe liver disease.

Ethan, who is in Booth Hall children’s hospital in Manchester, is one of 259 British patients waiting for a liver.

His parents are horrified at the idea that an organ which could save him could go to a patient from another country. They are also fearful that public outrage over the issue could lead some people to remove their names from the organ registry.

Ethan’s mother Donna from Whitefield, in Mancheter said: “If I found out that someone from another country had got one and it could have gone to my son, I wouldn’t be very happy”.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network
For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants. One tissue donor can help up to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves