Study: diabetic patients more prone to liver diseases

The research conducted by specialists at Queen Mary University in London and the University of Glasgow are based on the analysis of data from 18 million people in Europe and suggest that patients with Type 2 diabetes have a specific risk of developing liver steatosis that in some cases evolves, liver cancer. Scientists warn diabetic patients of this "silent condition" to prevent the progression of a life-threatening illness.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects up to a quarter of Westerners and is the most common cause of liver disease in the world. According to experts at Queen Mary University in London, this disease, closely linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes, is often not diagnosed by general practitioners. For most patients, NAFLD is a benign condition, with only one in six people developing an aggressive form of the disease, called NASH, that can cause liver damage, liver tissue scarring, and some cases, cirrhosis, heart failure, and other conditions. liver failure or even liver cancer.

By identifying patients at higher risk of developing more aggressive forms, interventions and treatments could target those who need it most. In the largest study of this type, published in the journal BMC Medicine, the team of researchers has associated medical data from 18 million adult Europeans from the UK, the Netherlands, the UK, the UK and the UK. Italy and Spain. According to Agerpres, the researchers associated each SNAN-diagnosed patient with 100 patients who had no registered diagnosis and who wanted to see who was suffering from cirrhosis or liver cancer at the time. over time.

More than 136,000 patients were identified with NAFLD / NASH and had a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity compared to the control group. The most significant association was observed in NAFLD / NASH patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes – they were twice as likely to develop an aggressive form of liver disease. These findings suggest that diabetes could be a good indicator of the course of liver disease. "We surprisingly found that the number of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was well below expectations, which means that many patients are not diagnosed in primary medicine." Even during the short phase of the study, patients progressed to more advanced and potentially fatal stages of the disease, suggesting that the diagnosis happened very late, "said researcher William Alazawi of Queen Mary University in London.