Thousands of years ago, humans began to ferment grains, fruits, honey and so on. Turn it into an alcoholic drink. Wine was first recorded in ancient Egyptian civilization; Among the 7000-year-old pottery unearthed at the banpo village site in Xi 'an, China, there are jars in the shape of "You" (the word "wine" in ancient China means "You"), which proves that drinking was quite common and exquisite at that time; In India, from 3000 BC to 2000 BC, the alcoholic beverage-cereal wine was distilled from rice. Because drinking alcoholic beverages can produce mental and physical pleasure, human dependence on alcohol has not decreased for thousands of years. Especially after it is considered to have health, longevity and medical effects.
/kloc-in the 20th century, Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman scholar, recorded the health-preserving function of gin in natural history. Relying on the good hemostatic effect, juniper has also become the love of doctors. /kloc-In the middle of the 0/4th century, the Black Death swept across Europe, killing tens of millions of people. Doctors suggested using gin to keep fit and resist the disease. In 65438+5th century, the Dutch added juniper as an additive to distilled liquor. This kind of wine was called gin by the Dutch, and later it was gradually called gin. Although gin was originally used for medicine, it was quickly loved by people because of its taste and pleasant feeling.
/kloc-in the 0/8th century, the surplus of grain made the British Parliament pass the bill of distilling alcohol and alcohol consumption with grain, which stabilized the price of grain in this way. As a result, the price of wine has fallen sharply, leading to excessive consumption of cheap wine. In Britain, the consumption of gin once reached 65438+080 million gallons (about 82 million liters) a year, and alcoholism began to be widespread. The cases of alcoholic fatty liver leading to cirrhosis have increased greatly, so the death toll is unbelievable. This public health event is usually called "brandy liver" or "gin liver" event. Erasmus Darwin, a liberal thinker of the Enlightenment, once expressed his feelings about "alcoholic beverages" in the footnote of his interesting plant poem "Love of Plants": "There is no better way to describe the feeling of sipping hard liquor than fire burning the heart. What is certain is that drinking hard liquor will generally cause liver inflammation, sclerosis or paralysis. "
By the beginning of the 20th century, although doctors had known that schistosomiasis, hepatitis, malaria and other diseases would lead to liver cirrhosis, alcoholic beverages were still an important cause of liver diseases. According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, the consumption of alcoholic beverages in various countries is positively correlated with the mortality rate of liver cirrhosis. During the period of alcohol restriction in Europe and America during World War II, the mortality rate of liver cirrhosis decreased significantly. Austria has reported that brewers drink alcohol at will every day, about 144g/ day, and the prevalence rate of alcoholic liver disease is 26%, while that of metal factory workers is 9.3%, indicating that alcoholic cirrhosis is the main cause in Europe and America.
Matthew Bailey, a British pathologist, dissected the bodies of a large number of drinkers when studying the liver in medicine, and found that their liver would be "tuberculous". He speculated that liver cirrhosis was related to long-term drinking. /kloc-in the 20th century, with the establishment and development of cell theory and biochemistry, doctors began to reveal the relationship between alcoholic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis with a microscope. In a short article published in 19 1 1, Frank Bermallory, a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, redefined cirrhosis as a syndrome: "A chronic, progressive and destructive liver disease with chaotic repair and connective tissue contracture." Moreover, he first described the relationship between inflammation and alcoholic liver disease.
Modern clinical research has proved that alcohol can initially cause fatty degeneration of liver cells, that is, alcoholic fatty liver (alcoholic hepatitis); If this trend continues, alcoholic hepatitis will develop into cirrhosis, also known as liver fibrosis. Liver inflammation caused by long-term liver fibrosis will greatly increase the risk of liver cancer. Although the pathological mechanism of alcoholic cirrhosis has been clarified in medicine, modern medicine still lacks effective means to treat advanced cirrhosis.
Liver transplantation, which began in the 1960s, brought a glimmer of hope to patients with advanced liver cancer. Although it is expensive and complicated and has obvious side effects, it improves the 5-year survival rate of patients to 70%~80%, which brings some comfort to patients. So far, there is still no medicine or therapy to reverse cirrhosis. Therefore, the most effective way to prevent alcoholic cirrhosis is not to drink, because even a small amount of drinking will bring a great burden to the liver. ▲