POV: You Don’t Drink & Got Liver Disease Anyway

[00:00:01][music] >> Your liver is quite important, but it's not just alcohol that can send it on strike. I'm Dr. Samad. Let's look at the facts. See, if we take all of the people with liver disease, I'm not talking about deaths here, just those that are living with some kind of damage to their liver, then only around 2% of them are because of alcohol. The next most common causes are the hepatitis viruses B and C, which account for around 38% of cases, but neither of those are anywhere near as common as the first most common cause, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, which is doctor speak for a fatty liver. That makes up around 59% of cases and is associated with diabetes as well as rising obesity rates worldwide. So, having liver disease doesn't automatically make you a drinker, but what's also interesting of all the causes that I've mentioned is that they are preventable. It's important to mention though that it's likely that that alcohol percentage is underrepresented because many people don't admit to their drinking, but did you know that it was such a small proportion of the total number? Let us know.