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Paul Tait
Consultant Radiologist, Hammersmith Hospital Imperial College NHS TrustDirectory:
Expertise:
I am a Consultant Interventional Radiologist at Hammersmith Hospital Imperial NHS Trust. My particular interest is in the oncological delivery and treatment of Liver tumours by endovascular means.
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Shahid Khan
Consultant Physician at St Mary’s and Hammersmith HospitalsDirectory:
Expertise:
Dr Shahid Khan is a Consultant Physician at St Mary’s and Hammersmith Hospitals and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London, having been appointed in 2007. He is a Consultant in Gastroenterology with Specialist Accreditation in Hepatology. He is also a Trainer in Endoscopy.
Background Dr Khan graduated from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals Medical School in 1994. He completed specialist training in Gastroenterology, Hepatology and General Medicine in 2007 in North-West London and in 2003 he was awarded a PhD from the University of London for studies in liver cancer. Dr Khan became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) in 2010.
International Profile Dr Khan has lectured on liver and gastrointestinal disease nationally and internationally at Hepatology and Gastroenterology conferences. He is the lead author on the National guidelines for biliary cancer and was on the European panel for the International guidelines. Dr Khan has also given several presentations and lectures on various aspects of liver and gastrointestinal disease at national and international conferences, including the British of Society Gastroenterology, British and European Associations for the Study of the Liver, the American Association for the Study of the Liver, the International Liver Cancer Association and the Royal Society of Medicine.
Research Dr Khan is the Academic Lead at Imperial College for Liver Cancer. He is also a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London where he leads a research team investigating early biomarkers in liver disease and supervises several PhD students. His research areas include the epidemiology, aetiopathogenesis, metabolomic, proteomic and genomic analyses of liver cancer. He is recipient of several national research grants. Dr Khan has published over 50 articles in the international medical literature including original research articles, reviews and book chapters.
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Rohini Sharma
Clinical Senior Lecturer, Imperial College LondonDirectory:
Expertise:
Dr Rohini Sharma is dual accredited in both medical oncology and clinical pharmacology and is a consultant based at the Hammersmith Hospital.
She completed her medical training at the University of Adelaide, and undertook her specialist oncology training at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney and her clinical pharmacology training at Westmead Hospital, Sydney.
Rohini was awarded an NHMRC PhD Fellowship at the Westmead Millennium Institute, University of Sydney. She was awarded a HEFCE Clinical Senior Lecturer position in May 2010. Rohini's clinical interests are in gastrointestinal malignancies and early phase clinical trials. Her research interests are in PET imaging within the Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Center .
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Earnest Hemingway, the novelist, used to say he, "drank to make other people more interesting".
Today, binge drinking is a silent epidemic.
Often unrecognized, binge drinking is a serious issue among British and American young women.
In the US, nearly 14 million women binge drink about three times a month and each year nearly 1,400 American college students die from binge drinking.
Professor Dame Sally Davies, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, highlighted the rising tide of UK deaths from alcohol related liver disease. "We really have young people who are binge drinking and it is damaging their livers.” Liver disease costs the UK NHS £1 billion a year.
A hidden problem
In addition to causing liver disease, binge drinking also increases the chances of breast cancer, heart disease, sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancy.
Researchers at University College London have recently reported that alcohol consumption could be much higher than previously thought, with more than three quarters of people in England drinking in excess of the recommended daily alcohol limit.
Since the beginning of 2010 more than 2,400 more girls than boys have been seen by hospitals because of alcohol. Suggesting that alcohol abuse appears to have a much greater immediate effect on women than men.
The ladette culture of binge drinking is not confined to young women. UK Department of Health figures show that in 2010 there were 110,128 alcohol related hospital admissions for women between 35 and 54. A switch to drinking at home has contributed to the problem of women increasingly drinking.
In February 2013 the debate over a minimum price for alcohol was reopened by a report by the Alcohol Health Alliance, a coalition of 70 health organisations and published by the University of Stirling. It recommends that a 50p minimum charge for a unit of alcohol is needed to end the "avoidable epidemic" of binge drinking deaths.
Dr Paul Southern, a consultant hepatologist at Bradford's Royal Infirmary Hospital in the UK, said that people in their 20s are dying from liver disease caused by binge drinking and children as young as 12 are falling prey to the “pocket money alcohol business.”
According to Dr Southern there is, “only one single effective deterrent (for binge drinking) and that is taxation.” While recognising the problem of binge drinking the UK government has not yet delivered a solution.
A cultural change
While supporting the call to increase the price of a unit of alcohol sold in supermarkets, Professor Dame Sally also suggests that, "We need a cultural change.”
Mobile Apps are now available for predicting alcohol abuse, using research-based questionnaires to help patients determine if they are at risk, while other more light-hearted Apps allow users to see the effect of alcohol abuse on their future appearance.
Innovative ideas to make people think twice, but with little research evidence available, several doctors have come out against such aids saying that they wouldn’t recommend such Apps without empirical evidence in place to support their effectiveness.
In such settings is scientific medicine holding back opportunities for mHealth?
