Youngistan is on a high, but is hitting a health low as early as in its 30s. On the eve of World Liver Day, April 19, doctors in Chennai highlighted a worrying trend. They said there was a massive increase in young adults suffering from end-stage liver disease.
Worse, doctors are having a tough time getting alcoholics kick the habit to become eligible for a liver transplant.
From 19 years in the 1980s, the age at which Indians start consuming alcohol dropped to 14 in 2000 and experts warned at this rate there would be a 400 per cent increase in young adults with liver cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis in the next 10 years.
“Drinking too much alcohol causes what is known as fatty liver — liver cells get replaced with fat cells that cannot perform the functions of liver. Over time, the liver becomes stiff and ends up in cirrhosis, for which transplant is the only option,” explained Gomathy Narasimhan, liver transplant surgeon at Global Health City.
“When sons and daughters of middle-aged liver patients come forward to donate part of their livers, we subject them to fitness tests. 20 to 30 per cent of these seemingly healthy youngsters have fatty livers,” he said, adding that Indians seem to have a tendency to accumulate fat in the liver due to high-carb diets and sedentary lifestyles.
Dinesh Jothimani, consultant liver physician at MIOT Hospitals, said a fatty liver was created over 15 to 20 years, but the condition could be reversed in around 12 weeks with lifestyle changes.
“The liver has enormous healing powers and once a youngster stops drinking and starts eating healthy, fat deposits disappear. However, once cirrhosis sets in there is no escape.”