Deaths from liver disease are increasing at an alarming rate and, by 2030, will exceed those from cardiac deaths, warned Kevin Moore, professor of hepatology at University College London, and Nick Sheron, consultant hepatologist at Southampton General Hospital.
Writing in the British Journal of Hospital Medicine, the authors pointed out that over 95% of all liver diseases are entirely preventable or treatable.
Deaths from liver disease occur at an average age of 55 rather than 82 for cardiac disease or stroke.
“To stop this we need to reduce the rising tide of alcoholic liver disease and fatty liver disease, and actively treat the increasing number of patients with chronic hepatitis B and C,” said the authors.
To reverse this trend the Government has recently announced a new initiative, the National Strategy for Liver Disease, with Dr Martin Lombard of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital as its clinical director.
Professor Moore and Dr Sheron stressed that the six-fold increase in liver deaths since 1970 is largely due to alcohol being moved away from specialist pubs and wine merchants. They pointed out that beer is 170%, wine 280% and spirits 350% more affordable now than in 1979.
A report published by the Health Select Committee, earlier this month, also warned that the drinks industry and supermarkets “hold more power over Government alcohol policies than expert health professionals”.
Both reports follow Too much of the hard stuff, by the NHS Confederation and Royal College of Physicians, which said that treating alcohol-related conditions cost the NHS approximately £2.7 billion in 2006/07 – almost double the 2001 cost.
Commenting on the Health Select Committee report, NHS Confederation chief executive, Steve Barnett, said: “The NHS Confederation has already argued in its own report that alcohol is causing a growing health problem in the UK that is damaging lives as well as costing the health service billions every year.
“Given the facts it is hard to escape the growing body of evidence behind the call made for a national minimum unit price for alcohol. The NHS can of course carry on picking up the tab for our nation’s drinking, but, if it does so without some consideration being given by society as a whole to the price and availability of alcohol, we will be using a sticking plaster solution for a national problem.”
