Liver disease rise among young

The risk of young people being admitted to hospital with alcohol associated liver disease has risen more than tenfold over five years. Researchers say the figures show anti drinking campaign are failing to reach teenagers. The most worrying enlarge in alcoholic cirrhosis, or late stage alcoholic liver disease, occur in those aged 20 to 29, who would have begun drinking in their untimely teens. The study by the Curtin University National Drug Research Institute also found an enlarged risk of young people developing alcoholic hepatitis, or young stage alcoholic liver disease.

While deaths due to alcoholic liver disease were falling overall, Associate Professor Tanya Chikritzhs of the organization said this was probable to have been due to advances in disease management. ''A lot of people see the number of deaths reduce and think that means things are improving. But just because there has been an development in treatment, that does not mean the occurrence is also going down.'' Professor Chikritzhs said better screening techniques for liver disease did not clarify such a marked enlarge, and that her research showed what several doctors and nurses had been suspect but until now did not have the research to support.

''Although people might be drinking the same volume of alcohol, there has been an enlarge in the consumption of products such as wine which have a higher alcohol content, with beer have an average of 4 per cent and red wine an average of 14 per cent.'' She distinct a heavy drinker as someone who drank more than 40 grams of alcohol per day, or four ordinary drinks, but said a like result could result from binge drinking two or three times per week. The chairman of the National Alliance for Action on Alcohol, Professor Mike Daube, said because alcoholic cirrhosis take years of heavy drinking to expand, people with the disease in their 20s were probable to have begun heavy drinking as young as 15.