Excerpt:
Although national figures are not available, admissions for alcoholic liver disease at Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California were up 30% in 2020 compared with 2019, said Dr. Brian Lee, a transplant hepatologist who treats the condition in alcoholics. Specialists at hospitals affiliated with the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, Harvard University and Mount Sinai Health System in New York City said rates of admissions for alcoholic liver disease have leapt by up to 50% since March.
…..
Across these institutions, the age of patients hospitalized for alcoholic liver disease has dropped. A trend toward increased disease in people under 40 “has been alarming for years,” said Dr. Raymond Chung, a hepatologist at Harvard University and president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease. “But what we’re seeing now is truly dramatic.”
Maddur has also treated numerous young adults hospitalized with the jaundice and abdominal distension emblematic of the disease — a pattern she attributes to the pandemic-era intensification of economic struggles faced by the demographic. At the same time these young adults may be entering the housing market or starting a family, entry-level employment, particularly in the vast, crippled hospitality industry, is increasingly hard to come by. “They have mouths to feed and bills to pay, but no job,” she said, “so they turn to booze as the last coping mechanism remaining.”
Author(s): Eli Cahan
Publication Date: 10 February 2021
Publication Site: Kaiser Health News