Data shows dramatic rise in liver disease since COVID-19
New research from Melbourne’s St Vincent’s hospital has found a dramatic increase in people with alcoholic hepatitis since the covid pandemic. While it’s a disease that traditionally affects older men doctors have noticed a rise in more young women being hospitalised.
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00:00 Alcoholic Hepatitis is when a large amount of alcohol acutely causes the liver to stop
00:09 working and so a patient might present yellow or jaundiced.
00:14 Whilst it can develop with a couple of days of very heavy drinking, it's more common in
00:18 people who are drinking at very high levels over a period of weeks to develop this condition.
00:23 There is the potential for this to be very serious and even fatal.
00:26 During the COVID months we saw a dramatic increase in the number of quite young women
00:32 who were being admitted with serious alcohol poisoning of their liver.
00:36 So I was in ICU with jaundice.
00:39 The doctor said, "Look, you can't keep going like this.
00:41 If you keep drinking the way you're doing, then you'll be dead in a few months."
00:46 I was just so sick in the end that I physically couldn't drink anymore.
00:50 I just gave it an honest crack and slowly it got better.
00:55 I started studying again, studying community services, so hopefully one day I can help
01:01 other people who are going through this.
01:04 It's never too late to turn your life around.
01:07 I couldn't imagine that I could be this happy without drinking.
01:10 I think at the community level there's a need for increased public health initiatives to
01:15 educate the public about the risks of drinking.
01:17 So if you're drinking more than 10 standard drinks a week or regularly drinking more than
01:21 four standard drinks a day, that's at-risk drinking.
01:24 There are also a need for alcohol rehabilitation services that are specifically directed to
01:29 support women because at the moment those really don't exist.
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