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Dr Waihong Chung
It's more evidence that Americans drank more alcohol during the COVID-19 lockdown. Rates of liver and gastrointestinal (GI) diseases associated with drinking alcohol rose after the COVID-19 pandemic started compared with the same period in 2019.
Interestingly, while the overall number of people seeking GI or liver specialist care dropped by 27%, the proportion of consults for alcohol-related GI and liver diseases jumped by nearly 60%, researchers report.
"We do believe that the lockdown of the pandemic has a direct effect on patients' alcohol consumption," senior study author Waihong Chung, MD, said during the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) preview media briefing on May 13.
"We urge primary care physicians and GI doctors and hepatologists to double down on questioning patients about alcohol use and to identify people who might need help sooner rather than later," added Chung, gastroenterologist at Lifespan/Warren Alpert Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island.
"You have to ask. If you don't ask, you don't know," Chung told Medscape Medical News when asked how to broach the subject.
Symptoms of alcohol-related GI and liver diseases, especially acute alcoholic hepatitis, can include fatigue, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, and even jaundice in more severe cases.
