, accounting for approximately 5% of all disease and injury. In the United States, the prevalence of ALD has increased since 2014, and the trajectory accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ALD encompasses a spectrum of diseases that includes steatosis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as related complications. Although earlier stages of ALD may be asymptomatic, hepatologists and gastroenterologists rarely see patients at this point.
“Unfortunately, patients with ALD more often present in late stages of disease (decompensated cirrhosis) as compared with other chronic liver diseases, such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease or hepatitis C,” Doug A. Simonetto, MD, associate professor of medicine and director of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship Program at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, told this news organization.
Recent data have identified three demographic groups experiencing higher rates of ALD relative to previous periods and who may therefore require special attention. Understanding what makes these groups increasingly susceptible to ALD may allow for improved screening, earlier diagnosis, and potentially the prevention of its most dire consequences.
As Women Consume More Alcohol, ALD Follows
Historically, men have had higher rates of alcohol use, heavy drinking, and alcohol disorders than women. But this gender gap has begun to narrow.
Men born in the early 1900s were 2.2 times more likely to drink alcohol and 3.6 times more likely to experience alcohol-related harms than women, according to a 2016 meta-analysis. By the end of the 1990s, however, women’s drinking had begun to catch up. Men still led in these categories, but only by 1.1 and 1.3 times, respectively.
Rates of binge drinking (defined as at least five drinks in men or at least four drinks in women in an approximately 2-hour period) are also converging between the sexes. The authors of a longitudinal analysis hypothesized that an uptick in young women reporting drinking for social reasons — from 53% in 1987 to 87% in 2020 — was a possible cause.
Greater alcohol consumption among women has translated into higher rates of ALD. Analyzing data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, which looked at hundreds of diseases across 204 countries and territories, researchers reported that the worldwide prevalence of ALD among young women (15-49 years) rose within the past decade. Those in the 20- to 24-year-old age group had the most significant increases in ALD prevalence rates.
Recent US statistics highlight the relative imbalance in ALD’s impact on women, according to George F. Koob, PhD, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
“The age-adjusted death rate from alcohol-associated liver cirrhosis increased by 47% between 2000 and 2019, with larger increases for females than for males (83.5% compared to 33%),” Dr. Koob told this news organization. “Larger increases for women are consistent with a general increase in alcohol use among adult women and larger increases in alcohol-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths.”
Physiologically, women have a higher risk than men of developing ALD and more severe disease, even at lower levels of alcohol exposure. According to a 2021 review, several proposed mechanisms might play a role, including differences in alcohol metabolism and first-pass metabolism, hormones, and endotoxin and Kupffer cell activation.
Crucially, women are less likely than men to receive in-person therapy or approved medications for alcohol use disorder, according to a 2019 analysis of over 66,000 privately insured adult patients.