Type two diabetes patients at higher risk of liver disease
People living with type 2 diabetes are at higher risk of liver disease, a study found.
Many patients with potentially deadly liver cirrhosis and liver cancer are b eing diagnosed at late, advanced, stages of the disease, according to a study led by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Glasgow.
The study of 18 million people across Europ e sug gests people living with type 2 diab e t e s a r e a t p a r t i c u l a r r i s k o f t h i s “s i l e n t d i s e a s e” a n d should be monitored closely to prevent life-threatening disease progression.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects up to a quarter of people in the West a n d i s t h e m o s t c o m m o n cause of liver disease around the world.
It is closely associated with obesit y and t yp e 2 diabetes, and GPS are often unaware of the condition and patients often go undiagnosed, Queen Mar y Universit y of London said.
For the majority, NAFLD is a benign condition, but one in six people will go on to develop the aggressive form of the disease, called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), leading to liver injury, scarring and eventually in some to cirrhosis, liver failure and even liver cancer.
By identifying which patients might go on to develop the m o r e a g g r e s s i v e d i s e a s e , interventions and treatments could be targeted at those in greatest need.
I n t h e l a rg e s t s t u dy o f i t s kind, published in the journal BMC Medicine, the team combined the healthcare records of 18 million European adults from the UK, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.
They matched each NAFLD patient to 100 patients who did not have a recorded diagnosis, and looked to see who developed liver cirrhosis and liver cancer over time.
More than 136,000 patients were identified with NAFLD/ NASH and were more likely to have type 2 diabetes, hypert e n s i o n a n d o b e s i t y t h a n matched controls. The strongest association was observed in NAFLD/NASH patients who had a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes - they were more than twice as likely to develop aggressive liver disease.
This suggests that diabetes could be a good predictor of liver disease progression.
L e a d r e s e a r c h e r D r Wi l - l i a m A l a z aw i , f r o m Q u e e n Mar y Universit y of London, said: “The public, doctors and p o l i c y m a k e r s n e e d t o b e aware of this sile nt disease a n d s t r a t e g i e s n e e d t o b e p u t i n p l a c e t o t a c k l e t h e root causes and avoid progression to life -threatening stages.”