The plea was made following a report of a suspected case of liver failure involving a woman who had taken a proprietary Chinese medicine (pCm) for slimming.

A department spokesman said the Hospital Authority had been contacted for information on this incident and the Consumer Council had been approached to see if there was any complaint relating to the product. The department will follow up this case and an investigation is on-going.

The spokesman said the department attached great importance to any suspected adverse events related to Chinese medicines. A review of all adverse events reported to the department between January, 2000, and June, 2004, showed that misuse of Chinese medicines including self-medication was the most important factor attributable to adverse events related to Chinese medicines. People should first consult a Chinese medicine practitioner before taking Chinese medicine.

"To promote proper use of Chinese medicines, briefing sessions will be held this month and in October for Chinese medicine practitioners and Chinese medicines dispensers on the proper way of handling Chinese medicines which is a common cause of adverse events.

The department also appealed to doctors and Chinese medicine practitioners to report suspected adverse events related to Chinese medicines via the notification system.

The spokesman said that to safeguard public health, a registration system for pCm and a licensing system for wholesalers and retailers of Chinese herbal medicines as well as wholesalers and manufacturers of pCm have been implemented.

The spokesman reiterated that a healthy lifestyle including maintaining a balanced diet and adequate physical exercise was the crucial factor in keeping fit and healthy. People who need to reduce weight by means of medicines were advised to consult their doctors in advance.

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While the majority of studies to date have assessed the effects of overall alcohol use on prostate-cancer risk, fewer studies have attempted to compare the effects of wine versus beer versus hard liquor, and only one previous study has compared the impact of red versus white wine on prostate-cancer risk, said Stanford, also a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine.

The previous study, the Netherlands Cohort Study, evaluated prostate-cancer risk in relation to white and red wine consumption. Increased risks were found in men who consumed "white and fortified wines," but not red wine, as compared to nondrinkers, although there was not a consistent trend in risks with levels of intake. Interestingly, among men who consumed 15 or more grams of red wine per day (about one and a half glasses per day), there was an overall 18 percent reduction in risk and a 16 percent lower risk of advanced-stage prostate cancers. The Netherlands Cohort Study was initiated in 1986 and collected information by self-administered mailed questionnaires that asked about alcohol consumption during the prior year only. Thus, the Netherlands Cohort Study results only reflect associations with recent wine consumption, as investigators were unable to examine lifetime intake as was done in the current Fred Hutchinson study.

"One of the reasons we wanted to do this study is because overall, most of the scientific literature “ around 17 studies to date “ haven't shown a consistent relationship between alcohol consumption and prostate cancer," Stanford said. "Some have shown an increase, some a decrease, and most no association whatsoever. Part of the problem, we believe, is that few of the studies have attempted to sort out the effects of different types of alcohol intake over a man's lifetime."

Stanford and colleagues plan to seek funding to conduct a larger study to see if their results hold up. In collaboration with Norm Greenberg, Ph.D., of Fred Hutchinson's Clinical Research Division, they also plan to test the effects of resveratrol on mouse models of prostate cancer to see if giving mice this chemical compound will reduce the onset of prostate cancer and/or decrease the aggressiveness of the disease.

The first author of the study, W. Marieke Schoonen, M.S., formerly a graduate student in Stanford's group, is now a doctoral student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services funded the research.

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