As alcohol abuse rises amid pandemic, hospitals see a wave of deadly liver disease

LA Times ^ | FEB. 8, 2021 5 AM PT | Eli Cahan

[BenLurkin]

As the pandemic sends thousands of recovering alcoholics into relapse, hospitals across the country have reported dramatic increases in alcohol-related admissions for critical diseases such as alcoholic hepatitis and liver failure.

Alcoholism-related liver disease was a growing problem even before the pandemic, with 15 million people diagnosed with the condition around the country, and with hospitalizations doubling over the last decade.

But the pandemic has dramatically added to the toll. Although national figures are not available, admissions for alcoholic liver disease at Keck Hospital of USC were up 30% in 2020 compared with 2019, said Dr. Brian Lee, a transplant hepatologist who treats the condition in alcoholics.

Leading liver disease specialists and psychiatrists believe the isolation, unemployment and hopelessness associated with COVID-19 are driving the explosion in cases.

[riri]

Soviet rulers knew what they were doing.

Same reason your kids schools and once working class white towns are flooded with heroin.

[Glock22]

I did not bother to read the article, because all MSM medical reporting is garbage. In any for 30 years the guy thy called when someone’s liver failed was me.

There are people with chronic alcoholic liver disease who are more or less in a steady state, and may well die of something else instead. For them a short-term increase in drinking can be enough to tip them over the edge.

There are people who have reached a stage of alcoholic cirrhosis such that, if they stay dry, they can live on although with diminished life expectancy. For them a single drink can be enough to trigger catastrophic decompensation.

Then there are those steady heavy drinkers who have no signs of liver disease, though a liver biopsy would show it, but then they begin to drink more heavily still and show up with serious liver disease. Some of these will present with acute alcoholic hepatitis and will die.

In all three scenarios the lockdowns could easily have been the precipitating circumstance. So yes, I find it entirely plausible that lockdowns have led to a rise in alcoholic liver disease.

[Mom MD]

To a certain extent the liver cal heal itself. Once you have cirrhosis the damage is permanent. it will all resume or even accelerate with alcohol consumption. You underestimate the problem

[tallyhoe]

I didn’t see a wave of people flooding Hospital!!!