Deaths from liver disease have risen in the US since the financial crisis, with a particularly sharp rise in alcohol-related cirrhosis among young people.
Analysing a database of US death certificates from 2009 to 2016, Elliot Tapper at the University of Michigan and Neehar D Parikh of the Ann Arbor Healthcare System found a 65 per cent increase in deaths caused directly by cirrhosis, as well as a doubling of deaths from liver cancer, which is often linked to cirrhosis.
This is a reverse in recent trends 鈥� between 1999 and 2008, deaths from cirrhosis fell by an average of 0.5 per cent each year.
Advertisement
Alcohol abuse
Cirrhosis has a variety of causes, including obesity and alcohol abuse. Deaths due to cirrhosis caused by alcohol consumption in particular grew in all age groups. However, the change was especially sharp among people under 35, rising by 98 per cent 鈥攁 surprising finding, as drinking in this age group is thought to have decreased overall.
鈥淲hat you鈥檙e probably seeing is that while the average amount of alcohol use may be declining, there is a very important group of people for whom alcohol is having an outsized impact on their lives,鈥� says Tapper.
Because of the timing of the upswing in deaths, the researchers suspect that this could be connected to unemployment and other economic issues resulting from the 2008 financial crisis. Deaths from suicide and opioid abuse have also risen during the same period.
BMJ
Read more: Failing livers transformed into healthy organs by virus therapy
