Rikesh Patel

Once upon a time, a man used to drink close to 1L dark rum a day Over the course of four years, he developed chronic liver disease Doctors advised him to stop alcohol. He did not. His wife got beaten up everytime she advised him for his good. It was his money, so he could do anything with it, was his excuse. An year later, after a session of binge drinking, he developed severe alcohol-related hepatitis and his chronic liver disease became unstable As the liver failure progressed, he figured out he would not live for long and his very young children will miss him. Only a liver transplant could save him. His wife was a matching donor. He made a promise he would not touch alcohol again. The blood, sweat and tears drama ended with him getting a life saving liver transplant from him wife. She gave a part of her liver, so that the father of their children would survive. And he did. Their business thrived. Everyone was happy. Two years after the transplant, during business trips, he started with one glass a day, then three glasses a week. By the end of 6 months, he was back to drinking close to 1L of dark rum a day. He found his old friend. Doctors advised him to stop. He broke deaddiction protocols. He did not turn up for counselling sessions.His wife got beaten up everytime she advised him for his good. It was his money, so he could do anything with it, was his excuse. But it was part of her liver and he had no right to destroy it, was hers. But now it was his. So he kept drinking for more than 18 months. Six months ago, his new liver was diagnosed to be cirrhotic. His old friend had gotten his old disease back. Three months ago, he developed severe alcohol-related hepatitis after a binge. And his newly developed cirrhosis liver became unstable. Again. As the liver failure progressed, he figured out he would not live for long and his grown children will miss him. Only a second liver transplant could save him. The wife could not donate again. But her sister was a match. He made a promise he would not touch alcohol again. The blood, sweat and tears drama ended with them telling him no. There was no more money left. There was no more trust left. Yesterday I send him back home, for comfort care and palliation, to die in peace, surrounded by the family he never knew he had. "First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Please do not fall for this scam - IV Vitamin therapy. It is more of an "elitist" thing to do, rather than actual scientific recommendation. IV Vitamin therapy is not only useless, but expensive and potentially dangerous. There is no scientific evidence to back the claims of IV Vitamin therapy - if you are lucky, it results in only making expensive urine. The claims in this video are pure unadulterated bullshit. IV Vitamin therapy hydrates - consuming water also hydrates. A person requires IV hydration if oral hydration is not possible in the event of severe illness that incapacitates them from oral intake - such as severe vomiting and diarrhea, hypovolemic shock, a brain disease or other serious acute or chronic disabling illness. IV Vitamin therapy does not boost immunity - in fact, all the vitamins that are pumped into your body feels like they've visited a water theme park and came out in the urine as they entered. It is just a ticketed roller-coaster ride for the vitamins. The whole aspect of "boosting immunity" is a wellness marketing fraud aimed at making peoples wallets lighter and bank balance redundant. IV Vitamin therapy flushes out toxins - no they don't. Your skin, lung, liver and kidneys are working 24x7 doing just that. Putting additional vitamins and fluids into your body through an IV drip only makes them overwork for nothing. IV Vitamin therapy does not guarantee vitamin absorption. In fact, there is a limit for the body to absorb vitamins and minerals which is already going in as part of the daily diet. Anything additional given, just makes the body throw it out in the urine - which means IV drip therapies only makes your body work additionally to make expensive pee. IV Vitamin therapy does not improve skin health. It causes transient hydration which you pee out later on and "skin health" is dependent on multiple factors, all of which is not covered by a useless IV drip. The most common "cocktail" used is the Myer's Drip discovered in the 1970s (!!!) which was proven to be useless in decades old study - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article… and not further studies on safety or effectiveness have been conducted. People who experience "benefits or improvement" from IV Vitamin therapy feel so because of a psychological reinforcement and confirmation bias and a self consolation prize because they spend huge sums of money to make expensive pee. Not to forget, supermodel Kendall Jenner had to be admitted to the hospital after she developed a severe reaction to IV drip therapy - Read: Kendall Jenner Was Hospitalized After a Bad Reaction to a Vitamin IV Drip — What are the Risks? - people.com/health/kendall-je… Isn't IV Vitamin therapy so cool? No it is not. It only makes the person taking it look like an apparently rich dunce. dunce /dʌns/ noun a person who is slow at learning; a stupid person. More Sources: Does IV Vitamin Therapy Work? - cedars-sinai.org/blog/iv-vit… Vitamin IV Drips Are a Scam - medium.com/in-fitness-and-in… England’s top doctor slams ‘exploitative’ party drips - england.nhs.uk/2019/12/party… The FTC cracks down on IV drip bars for false advertising claims about its “intravenous micronutrient therapy” - sciencebasedmedicine.org/the…

Make this your must read for the day. You will thank me and curse me in the same breath. Every week I sign off death summaries of young and middle-aged men with liver dysfunction, multiple organ failure and liver cancer due to alcohol use. Some of them drank heavily – almost 1000 to 1200 ml/day while others consumed alcohol modestly – from 200 to 400 ml/day. Some of my patients felt cheated. They drank with their friends and most of their friends drank much more than them but they were still healthy and productive, while my patients were either on death bed or waiting for a liver transplant. Which begs the question - Should you consume mild to moderate alcohol for its purported health benefits especially on the heart? But before we answer that, let us see the [infamous] J-shaped curve that projected alcohol consumption as beneficial in 'moderate' quantities versus no drinking. The 'presumed benefits' of moderate drinking was first published in 1924 by Biologist Raymond Pearl. See here: nasonline.org/publications/b… In it, he concluded that the effect of alcohol use followed a J-shaped curve (see picture on left side given below), where to the left of the tipping point of the ‘J’ were non-drinkers who survived much lesser and to the right were those who drank more than modestly and had increased death rates. So, the key to increasing life was to drink "moderately." But why where they surviving better with modest use of alcohol and not no-alcohol or heavy alcohol? Further research found out that one particular type of heart disease reduced with alcohol use - called ischemic heart disease, which is a type of 'heart attack,' where the blood flow to heart reduces and people develop a poor 'heart-pump.' pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3071… But why was heart health, especially ischemic heart health reducing with modest alcohol use? Fast forward to 2023 - a study by a group of doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) found that the reason was that alcohol promoted long-term reductions in stress signaling in the brain leading to happier/healthier heart. And this was shared and cited by so many news media and on social media jacc.org/doi/full/10.1016/j.… Proving the above study, very interestingly, another kickass study showed that "lower stress reduction" was happening even at the molecular and cellular level, which was manifested by a reduced microvascular dysfunction or MVD - where 'blood health' was improved with modest alcohol consumption. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3696… So, all good right? Sorry not really. Now lets get on with some reality checks! A large study showed that the favorable health benefits of modest alcohol use was because people with lower/modest consumption also had better and healthier lifestyle such as dietary patterns and physical activity. And when these were taken out of the equation, lower doses of alcohol increased heart disease risk which increased exponentially with increasing dose and duration. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam… And it just keeps going on and on. More recent studies suggest that association of low-to-moderate alcohol consumption with the reduction in cardiovascular risk is a result of lifestyle changes and that any reduction in alcohol consumption is in fact beneficial in terms of general health. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3628… And quite interestingly, in those with worse health outcomes with low or modest consumption, genetic profile also played a role. If you did not have good genes, any amount of alcohol was going to harm you. And the best way to protect yourself was to not consume alcohol at all, because even now, the “good” genes are not yet fully identified (and probably will never be because it does not matter in the big picture). So, everyone is at risk until proven otherwise. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article… While light/moderate drinkers lowered their risk for ischemic heart disease, the 2023 MGH study also showed that any amount of alcohol increased the risk of various cancers and hence increased chances of cancer-related death even when you have a “supposedly healthy heart.” This was again proven in the magnanimous study published this year - a large systematic review and meta-analysis, the highest grade of quality for evidence generation in medical science that “Low-volume alcohol drinking was not associated with protection against death from all causes," and that it increased risk more in women than men. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam… But then there was this study that showed that people with modest alcohol use gained one whole year in their lifetime. Oh super! It’s time to be merry! Sorry to burst your bubble again, but the gain of one year by modest drinkers was erased by a two to fourfold increase in mouth and food-pipe (esophageal) cancer and that drinking beyond modest amount led to a large loss of life expectancy. nature.com/articles/s41598-0… And to top it all off, like placing a rotten black cherry on top of alcohol connoisseurs’ happy cake, scientists again proved that any level of alcohol was unsafe because it increased risk of cancers like hell. They are making you feel happy and sad at the same time. Sadists! thelancet.com/journals/lanpu… onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/… Look at all these big medical mafia and pharma shill scientists trying to protect your health from something you love to do! Bad guys, no? Now let us come to the picture on the right side. See what that is all about? Individuals who engaged in 15–20 min of simple physical activity per day experience a similar level of reduced mortality as portrayed by the “J-shape” of modest alcohol use. And see how that graph is going. The more you increase physical activity, the more your chances of living longer! And guess what, without the risk of cancer of course! bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.co… Hey, did I tell you what the MGH guys who recently discovered that stress reduction in brain with alcohol improved heart health also found out? Guess I did, but here it is again! While light/moderate drinkers lowered their risk for cardiovascular disease, the study also showed that any amount of alcohol increased the risk of cancer. Just like we discussed before and some more. news.harvard.edu/gazette/sto… So, forget about the less is more with alcohol use; many alternative healthy lifestyle choices mean more is merrier. So, ditch that alcohol drink and that cocktail and start with some good physical activity daily. Just 20 minutes a day. But the more the merrier. And live a good long life. Trust me, it’s worth it.