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91Èȱ¬ research reveals marked generational shift in alcohol-related liver
disease
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Liver specialists are seeing a marked, generational shift in patients
with severe, alcohol-related disease, according to 91Èȱ¬ News research.
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As
well as seeing more and more 20 and 30-year-olds, the
specialists are also seeing an overall increase in numbers, and they
blame it on a growing acceptance of heavy drinking.
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More than a hundred specialists from around the UK described their
clinical experience of the impact of alcohol, and they warn that
hospital wards are seeing a growing number of young people, particularly
women.
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Whereas most hospital consultants would have predominantly seen
patients in their fifties or sixties, they now describe patients as
young as their early twenties with alcohol related hepatitis and
cirrhosis.
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Of the 115 consultants who responded to the 91Èȱ¬ questionnaire, 101 said
there had been an increase in the number of patients they were seeing
for alcohol-related disease.
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The shift in the age profile of their
patients is also very marked, with 77 saying they had treated a patient
under the age of 25.
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They tell the 91Èȱ¬ their cases have included a 24-year-old woman with
advanced cirrhosis who died; a 25-year-old with advanced alcoholic
cirrhosis; a 19-year-old female with end stage liver disease; and a 21-year-old who died from acute alcohol poisoning.
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Dr Jonathan Mitchell, a Consultant Hepatologist in Plymouth and one of
the specialists who took part, says that many of his patients do not
realise the permanent damage to their health caused by regular heavy
drinking.
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Until it reaches a critical stage most liver disease is
virtually without symptoms.
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He tells the 91Èȱ¬: "I've seen patients who've been admitted with pretty
catastrophic bleeding from the stomach and oesophagus with no prior
warning of a problem of their liver.
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"Others may present with jaundice or
swelling of the abdomen because there's a lot of fluid in the abdomen.
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"All these three things are signs of quite advanced liver disease and can
come out of the blue."
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Laura is just 32 but will never be able to drink again. She began
drinking heavily in her twenties after her marriage broke up, gradually
reaching as much as two bottles of wine in an evening. She now bitterly
regrets the years of heavy drinking.
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"I never thought that at my age,
I'd have suffered such long term damage," she tells the 91Èȱ¬.
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"What
worries me is that I know how easy it is to get into it, and how hard it
is to stop."
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The 91Èȱ¬'s research comes as a new campaign is launched by doctors and
charities to put pressure on the Government to make alcohol misuse a
higher priority.
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Twenty four organisations have joined together to form
the Alcohol Health Alliance which wants to see higher taxation on
alcohol and a restriction in advertising before the 9pm watershed on
television.
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While attention is often focused on the social disorder caused by binge
drinking, many doctors say the serious health effects are not given
enough attention.
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Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College
of Physicians, is one of the leading figures in the new campaign.
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He
tells the 91Èȱ¬: "If you look at the burden of damage to society, it's
hugely greater for alcohol than for drugs, but the majority of money has
always gone on drugs, partly because of the strong link to crime."
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MO2
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