'10-11% GMC deaths are liver diseases fuelled by liquor' (ToI)

TNN | May 4, 2014, 02.21 AM IST
Bambolim: About 10-11% of all deaths registered at the Goa medical college (GMC) and hospital, Bambolim, are due to alcohol-fuelled liver diseases. Of this figure, deaths caused by liver cirrhosis and gastrointestinal bleeding have the highest percentage.

This data has been compiled by two second-year MBBS students after a retrospective study carried out between July and December 2013. In their 'Role of the liver in alcoholic metabolism', Blessy George and Reeba Mariya Mathews found that of the total 1,474 deaths recorded at GMC in that six-month period, 168 deaths were linked to liver failure caused by alcoholism. They recently presented their findings in a poster format at a conference at the MGN medical college, Aurangabad.

The duo from the medicine department found that of the total admissions at GMC for diseases associated with alcohol intake, a maximum number were liver cirrhosis, even as cases admitted by the surgery department were of gastrointestinal bleeding.

Their poster elucidated that alcohol requires no digestion, is rapidly absorbed, and about 90% of ingested alcohol is metabolized exclusively in the liver. Moreover, chronic alcoholics are able to metabolize alcohol at a faster rate than non-alcoholics. This is due to an increase in the liver's enzymes. But this ability ends as the liver gets damaged. With the rate of metabolism now depressed chronic alcoholics stay intoxicated for hours even after only a few drinks.

The poster presentation attempted to highlight the effects of alcohol, starting with the euphoria of the first drink to the development of complications as alcohol intake increases.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/10-11-GMC-deaths-are-liver-diseases-fuelled-by-liquor/articleshow/34608199.cms