Fatty Liver Disease Endangers 6.5 Million U.S. Kids

"Fatty Liver Disease Endangers 6.5 Million U.S. Kids", Forbes, October
2, 2006,
Link:
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/hea...out535241.html

As many as 6.5 million American children could have a dangerous
condition called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), new
research suggests.

NAFLD -- an accumulation of fat in the liver cells -- can lead to
cirrhosis of the liver, end-stage liver disease requiring a transplant,
and liver cancer. Until now, there has been little research into the
prevalence of NAFLD in children.

For this study, researchers at the University of California, San Diego
(UCSD) analyzed 742 autopsy reports and tissue samples from San Diego
County children and adolescents, aged 2 to 19, who died from traumatic
accidents, murder or suicide between 1993 and 2003.

They found that 13 percent of the children and teens in the study had
NAFLD. Based on that, they estimated that 9.6 percent of the children
and adolescents in San Diego County have NAFLD.

"Fatty liver disease is a very common problem that has gone largely
unnoticed," study leader Jeffrey Schwimmer, an associate professor of
pediatrics and director of the Fatty Liver and Weight and Wellness
Clinics at Rady Children's Hospital, said in a prepared statement.

"If the prevalence in the United States is similar to the prevalence in
San Diego, this would translate to 6.5 million children. The scale of
the problem has enormous ramifications for the future health of these
children," Schwimmer said.

He and his colleagues identified several major risk factors for NAFLD
in children:

* Age -- Fatty liver was found in 0.7 percent of children aged 2-4 and
in 17.3 percent of those aged 15-19.
* Ethnicity -- Hispanic-American children had a higher rate (11.8
percent) of fatty liver than Asians (10.2 percent), whites (8.6
percent) or blacks (1.5 percent).
* Gender -- Boys had a much higher rate of fatty liver than girls.
* Obesity -- Overweight and obese children accounted for 81 percent of
all cases of fatty liver in the study.