Clearing the smoke in chronic liver diseases

Clearing the smoke or muddying the water?

Medical Marijuana: Clearing Away the Smoke

Recent advances in understanding of the mode of action of tetrahydrocannabinol and related cannabinoid in-gredients of marijuana, plus the accumulating anecdotal reports on potential medical benefits have spurred increasing re-search into possible medicinal uses of cannabis. Recent clinical trials with smoked and vaporized marijuana, as well as other botanical extracts indicate the likelihood t...

Can patients with chronic liver diseases withstand Ramadan fasting?

Ramadan is a sacred month for Muslims all around the world. During this lunar-based month, healthy adult Muslims are obligated to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, or using oral medications from predawn to sunset. Followers will typically eat just after sunset and again before dawn (1). The Islamic lunar Hijri calendar is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian solar calendar, and therefore, t...

Osteodystrophy in chronic liver diseases.

Osteoporosis and osteomalacia are, to date, among the most common metabolic diseases in the world. Lately, an association between metabolic bone diseases and chronic liver disease has been increasingly reported, inducing many authors to create a new nosographic entity known as 'hepatic osteodystrophy.' The importance of such a condition is further increased by the morbidity of these two disease...

Clearing the smoke: behavioral interventions in the emergency department.

T he emergency department (ED) is an important entry portal into the medical care system and an increasingly recognized as an opportunistic setting for delivery of public health messages and interventions. Although the prevalence of smoking has decreased some in the general population, it remains almost one in five. Among ED patients, it remains higher than in the general population. Elevated r...