Alcohol and Liver Disease: Daily Drinking Ups Cirrhosis Risk, Says Study

Researchers have now established that alcohol drinking pattern has a significant influence on the risk of cirrhosis of the liver and that daily drinking increases that risk compared with drinking less frequently.

"Our study points to a risk difference between drinking daily and drinking five or six days a week in the general male population. Since the details of alcohol induced liver injury are unknown, we can only speculate that the reason may be that daily alcohol exposure worsens liver damage or inhibits liver regeneration," said lead investigator Gro Askgaard, from the University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen.

Scientists in Denmark investigated the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis among nearly 56,000 participants aged between 50 and 64 in the Danish Cancer, Diet, and Health study (1993-2011).

Amount of alcohol intake was reported as the average amount per week of specific types of alcohol: beer, wine, and liquor.

Of the 55,917 participants, 257 men and 85 women developed alcoholic cirrhosis, corresponding to an incidence rate of 66 in men and 19 in women per 100,000 person-years. There were no cases of alcoholic cirrhosis among lifetime abstainers.

The results were published in the Journal of Hepatology.



Source-Medindia