Diabetes Ups Risk of Hospitalization, Death From Liver Disease

Diabetes Ups Risk of Hospitalization, Death From Liver Disease
Marlene Busko
April 25, 2016

In a cohort study of 40- to 89-year-old people who were followed for a decade, individuals with type 2 diabetes were more likely than nondiabetic individuals to be hospitalized for or die from chronic liver disease. These were defined as alcoholic liver disease, autoimmune liver disease, hemochromatosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD; including cirrhosis and hepatic fibrosis), and viral liver disease.

For example, diabetic men were three times more likely than other men their age to be hospitalized for or die from NAFLD — the most common type of liver disease in diabetic patients — whereas this was five times more likely to occur in diabetic versus nondiabetic women of the same age.

Thus, the increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes is likely to result in an increasing burden of all chronic liver diseases, conclude Sarah H Wild, MB, BChir, PhD, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and colleagues in their study, published online in the Journal of Hepatology.

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