A recent study has revealed alarmingly scary results that more and more people across America, particularly youngsters, are dying due to ailments associated with liver cirrhosis. This ground-breaking new study was published in the BMJ earlier last month, and it took into account various age-related and other crucial factors to account for the rising death rates across the country.
The study revealed that since 1999 to 2016, death tolls in the US due to liver cirrhosis and related ailments has increased to an alarming 65%, and the deaths resulting from liver cancer have also doubled during this period. Moreover, the death toll induced by liver cirrhosis for nearly every ethnic group, amongst both, men and women has experienced a sharp increase during these years.
Furthermore, from 2009 to 2016, people between the ages of 25 to 34 emerged as the greatest targets of this increase in the death rates resulting from cirrhosis. These findings were shared by Dr. Elliot Tapper, an assistant professor from the University of Michigan, and the first author of this new study. She revealed that this sudden increase in cirrhosis-related death rates can be directly associated with the habit of binge-drinking amongst youngsters, which has led to an increase in cirrhosis-associated mortality.
Tapper shared that these easily preventable deaths can be reduced by taking certain precautionary measures, increasing the prices of alcoholic beverages and liquor, and using existing blood tests to provide an accurate diagnosis for liver cirrhosis. Moreover, Tapper revealed that during the past few years, he had been dealing with more and more young patients suffering from liver cirrhosis, and this led to him to create an entire research revolving around while this trend of young deaths resulting from liver cirrhosis has emerged in various different states across the country.
He is reported to have said,
We were struck by how the current concept of who develops cirrhosis didn’t quite match what we were seeing. It was really striking to us to have people that were younger than us in our clinic dying from cirrhosis.
