Normal Working People and Alcoholic Liver Damage

You’re not an alcoholic by any means. You never ‘get drunk’ and you don’t have a problem stopping once you start. Perhaps you just drink two to three glasses of wine with dinner every night, or look forward to your beers at the end of the day to unwind.

You’re not alone; most people deemed ‘normal working people’ do not consider themselves alcoholics, but do drink more than the average person. In fact, most normal working people drink every day, even though it is not enough to get them ‘drunk’ or make them feel like they have a problem. Although, there may still be a problem they are unaware of: liver damage.

A new study by the University College London, soon to be published in the medical journal Hepatology, found that ‘normal working people’ working in offices, have an usually high amount of liver damage. The effects of liver damage aren’t felt until there is already an increased chance of early death. Fortunately, the government is now considering a new plan that involves national screening in Britain, to help reduce rising liver disease statistics.

The study involved over 1,000 people who took home testing LiverCheck kits to determine liver damage. The kits are made by YorkTest and measure several different things, such as levels of aspartate aminotrans-ferase (AST), alanine aminotrans-ferase (ALT) – both of which are enzymes in the blood that can signify liver damage.

The people involved in the study were ‘working class’, but over 70 percent were drinking more than the recommended weekly units (14 for women, 21 for men), and over 40 percent were drinking every day. The study found that nearly one-third had enough liver damage to cause early death. Even when the researchers took a conservative analysis of the enzyme levels for the home testing kits, it still showed nearly 30 percent of the participants had noteworthy liver abnormalities.

Unfortunately, liver damage and liver disease is increasing. This could be due to more stressful jobs and the lack of information about liver damage. Screening for liver disease can hopefully help decrease these rising statistics and help prevent early death.







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