Alcohol-related liver diseases have increased dramatically during the pandemic, according to reports.
Liver diseases such as fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis, have increased by 30% from the previous year, according to Dr. Jessica Mellinger, a liver specialist at the University of Michigan’s Health system, WABE reported. “In my conversations with my colleagues at other institutions, everybody is saying the same thing: Yep, it’s astronomical. It’s just gone off the charts,” Mellinger told WABE Atlanta.
Liver diseases essentially eat away at the organ, causing damage. The damage can manifest in the form of potentially deadly hepatitis, which is sometimes reversible if the individual stops drinking. However, longer exposure to alcohol may eventually cause irreversible liver scarring called cirrhosis, and even liver cancer, both of which can lead to liver failure and death.
Hospital admissions for alcoholic liver disease at a University of California hospital increased 30% in 2020 in comparison to the previous year, according to a report published by Modern Healthcare. That report stated that the increase could be as high as 50% at the aforementioned University of Michigan, as well as other hospital systems in other states.
Experts believe the pandemic was partially responsible for this disease explosion because of the increase in isolation, unemployment and associated depression, Modern Healthcare stated. This included many people who “were doing just fine” for years but relapsed during the pandemic, according to the report.
“We also know that feeling socially isolated, a possible effect of physical distancing, can worsen symptoms of anxiety and depression, and may encourage more alcohol intake,” Brenda Curtis, an investigator at the National Institute of Health, stated at a January webinar by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 09: A bar tender pours a glass of Miller High Life beer at a bar on October 9, 2015 in New York City. Budweiser’s parent company AB InBev is attempting to buy SABMiller. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
The pandemic’s social distancing restrictions may be preventing people who need treatment from taking up counseling and 12-step programming, according to recent research reported by Healthline. (RELATED: Tropicana Apologizes For Implying People Should Get Drunk To Cope With The Pandemic)
Another observation alarming the experts is that the average age of alcoholic liver disease sufferers has shifted towards impacting more people under the age of 40. Dr. Raymond Chung, a hematologist at Harvard University and president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease characterized it as “truly dramatic,” according to the Modern Healthcare report.
Women have been more negatively impacted during the pandemic, and appear to be turning in increasing numbers to alcohol as a coping mechanism, WABE speculates. Although more men suffer from liver disease, doctors are seeing more cases of alcohol-related liver diseases in young women, continuing a trend that was altogether exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to WABE.
The report goes on to cite a clinical psychiatrist who notes that women often already have underlying conditions that would be exacerbated by pandemic-induced isolation, including eating disorders and the effects of trauma from physical or sexual violence.
“Suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism—it’s going to be more deaths from despair than from the virus itself … That is our virus,” warned Dr. Marc Siegel in May 2020 on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”