Friday, July 07, 2006

Alcoholic Liver Disease

Alcoholic Liver Disease


The symptoms of alcoholic hepatitis include vague abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, weight loss, fever, diarrhea, fatigue and malaise. Alcoholic liver disease is the most common liver disease in the United States also it is encountered most commonly and results in between 20,000 and 40,000 deaths per year. It is the fourth leading cause of death among Americans.
Most patients with alcoholic hepatitis stabilize after 4-5 days and in fact, most patients without alcoholic hepatitis experience some form of deterioration within the first 4-5 days of hospitalization. After 4-5 days, the sequences of alcoholic hepatitis begin to become less but people with severe alcoholic hepatitis can result in death.

In fact, severe alcoholic hepatitis carries a mortality rate of approximately 50 percent within the first 30 days and the patients at risk for this have multiple organ failure, abnormal electrolytes, abnormal fluid dynamics and change in mental status that is encephalopathy and are jaundiced, hence these patients are severely ill.

What is alcoholic liver disease?

Excessive consumption of alcohol can cause liver disease as well as harming many other body organs which at last may result to death. The prevalence of alcoholic liver disease in a population is usually determined by measuring death rates from alcoholic cirrhosis in which healthy liver tissue becomes increasingly...



for more Alcoholic Liver Disease

No comments: