Fat threat to liver
Thursday June 9th, 2011
Fat is a bigger threat to the liver than alcohol for the majority of men, according to two Swedish studies.
One
piece of research, from the University of Gothenburg, links weight to
the development of cirrhosis of the liver.
Researchers tracked some 855 men for up to 40 years, from the age of 50 for the research published in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology.
About two per cent developed cirrhosis of the liver and all of these had been overweight at the beginning of the research, according to researcher Jerzy Kaczynski. No link could be found with alcohol - although people with alcohol problems at the outset might have refused to take part.
Dr Kaczynski said: "A liver that has been ill and weakened as a result of overweight can take less of a load. We can therefore speculate that cirrhosis of the liver will develop more quickly in people who drink too much alcohol if they are overweight.
"Our study does not offer any evidence for this, but this kind of speculation is well founded.”
* A second piece of research links weight directly to the development of fatty liver disease.
The study, published in the Annals of Medicine, suggests drinking alcohol - in the form of red wine - may make little difference to the risks of liver disease developed by obese people.
The findings come from a detailed study of some 44 volunteers conducted at Linköping University, Sweden. The effect of red wine was tested on the volunteers.
Researcher Stergios Kechagias, a liver specialist, said: "It turned out that the amount of fat in the liver was linked with obesity and insulin resistance and was almost not at all affected by the red wine.
"Specifically, after three months, none of the wine drinkers had developed fatty liver or elevated liver transaminases.”
Jerzy Kaczynski, Andreas Schult, Henry Eriksson and Sven Wallerstedt. Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology June 2011
Effects of moderate red wine consumption on liver fat and blood lipids: a prospective randomized study. Annals of Medicine May 23, 2011. doi:10.3109/07853890.2011.588246
Tags: Diet & Food | Europe | Fitness | Internal Medicine
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