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Diabetes raises risk of serious liver problems
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men with diabetes have about a two-fold
greater risk of developing liver cancer and other chronic liver
diseases compared with nondiabetic men, new research suggests.
The same may hold true in women, but the study did not have enough
women to reach firm conclusions.
"Our study provides evidence that diabetes is an important
risk factor for chronic liver disease including (liver cancer),"
Dr. Hashem B. El-Serag from the Houston VA Medical Center in Texas
told Reuters Health. The study is also the first to show that diabetes
precedes, rather than follows, the development of these diseases,
he added.
Using the computerized records of the Department of Veterans Affairs,
investigators studied all patients with a hospital diagnosis of
diabetes between 1985 and 1990. They matched each diabetic patient
to three nondiabetic patients and tracked them through 2000. Nearly
all of the subjects were men and most had type 2 diabetes. None
of the subjects had liver disease when first diagnosed with diabetes.
As reported in the medical journal Gastroenterology, the rates
of chronic non-alcohol related liver disease and liver cancer were
significantly higher in diabetic than in the nondiabetic patients.
The increased risk "seems to be independent of age, gender,
ethnicity, or (other) illnesses," El-Serag noted, and is higher
in patients with diabetes for 10 years or more.
This study, Dr. Adrian M. Di Bisceglie from Saint Louis University
School of Medicine points out in an editorial, "provides evidence
that long-standing diabetes is followed by the development of liver
disease and (liver cancer), suggesting a causative role for diabetes
mellitus."
The current study supports the team's earlier findings from the
same group of patients in which diabetes raised the risk of acute
liver failure by 44 percent.
In light of the present findings, El-Serag and colleagues recommend
regular liver blood tests in diabetic patients. Further studies
are needed to examine the association between diabetes and liver
disease in women and to clarify the mechanisms behind the link,
the authors note.
SOURCE: Gastroenterology, February 2004.
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