“The scary thing is that they're only in their 30s and 40s,” he says, noting that the chances of developing liver disease go up the longer a person has been drinking and is most common between the ages of 40 and 50. Other Yale Medicine doctors have diagnosed people with liver disease when they are still in their 20s.
Increasingly, alcohol-related liver disease is killing younger people in the U.S. Johnson is part of a disturbing trend of 25-to-34-year-old men and women experiencing severe, and sometimes fatal, liver damage related to their drinking.
Hepatitis and other viruses.
Hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis E can cause acute liver failure. Other viruses that can cause acute liver failure include Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus.
“Surprisingly, women as young as their late teens and early 20s can develop cirrhosis due to a variety of autoimmune diseases that affect them at a young age,” she says. These include: Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy — This is a liver disorder unique to young women, which begins in pregnancy.
Although children and young adults can get fatty liver disease, it is most common in middle age. Risk factors include: Being overweight. Having high blood fat levels, either triglycerides or LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
Liver failure can happen to children of any age. The liver can fail due to many different types of injury or disease. Often, a cause cannot even be found.
However, despite these general figures, it's crucial to note that no one can tell you in advance how much or how long you can drink before you develop cirrhosis. In people who drink in extreme amounts for two decades or longer, the chances of developing the disease are roughly 50/50.
Alcohol consumed during just seven weeks of intermittent binge drinking harms the liver in ways that more moderate daily drinking does not, according to researchers at UC San Francisco. The scientists discovered that just 21 binge drinking sessions in mice were enough to cause symptoms of early-stage liver disease.
As the liver becomes more severely damaged, more obvious and serious symptoms can develop, such as: yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes (jaundice) swelling in the legs, ankles and feet caused by a build-up of fluid (oedema) swelling in your abdomen caused by a build-up of fluid known as ascites.
Alcohol-related disease can happen to anyone: teenagers, young professionals, the elderly, and both men and women. A recent surge in alcohol-related deaths is concerning, as there is a spike in cases of cirrhosis in those between the ages of 25 to 34. Read on to learn about cirrhosis and the problems it causes.
Acute liver failure can happen in as little as 48 hours. It's important to seek medical treatment at the first signs of trouble.
Other Yale Medicine doctors have diagnosed people with liver disease when they are still in their 20s.
While those in their 20s and 30s often believe that only older people develop drinking-related liver problems, an alarming rise in the number of young people diagnosed with liver disease proves otherwise.
"Alcohol-related liver cirrhosis used to be considered a disease that would happen after 30 years of heavy alcohol consumption," Shah says. "But this study is showing that these problems are actually occurring in individuals in their 20s and 30s."
Some alcohol-related liver damage can be reversed if you stop drinking alcohol early enough in the disease process. Healing can begin as early as a few days to weeks after you stop drinking, but if the damage is severe, healing can take several months.
No. Some alcoholics may suffer seriously from the many physical and psychological symptoms of alcoholism, but escape serious liver damage. Alcoholic cirrhosis is found among alcoholics about 10 to 25 percent of the time.
Having 2 to 3 alcoholic drinks every day or binge drinking can harm your liver. Binge drinking is when you drink more than 4 or 5 drinks in a row. If you already have a liver disease, you should stop drinking alcohol. There is no safe amount of alcohol for people with any type of alcoholic liver disease.
“Apart from alcohol consumption, several contributory factors, including diet, lifestyle, mental health, viral infection and gender, influence the risk of developing cirrhosis. There is also evidence that genes influence the development and progression of this disease,” Professor Day said.
What is considered a heavy drinker? According to the NIAAA, consuming seven or more drinks per week is considered heavy drinking for women, and 15 drinks or more per week is determined to be excessive or heavy drinking for men.
Heavy drinkers and alcoholics may progress from fatty liver to alcoholic hepatitis to cirrhosis, and it is estimated that 10 percent to 15 percent of alcoholics will develop cirrhosis.
Both NAFLD and alcoholic fatty liver disease are usually silent diseases with few or no symptoms. If you do have symptoms, you may feel tired or have discomfort in the upper right side of your abdomen.
The first stage is referred to as simple fatty liver or steatosis; This occurs when the liver cells start to build-up fat, although there is no inflammation or scarring at this stage. There are often no symptoms in this early stage, so many people are unaware they have a fatty liver.