Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0015695 (fatty liver)
 13,941 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The mortality and the causes of death have been studied in a cohort consisting of 1548 male alcoholics in Stockholm. During the period 1969-1981 there were 542 cases of death in this population. The mortality rates were triple those for males in Stockholm generally. Using the official causes of death there was a highly significant excess mortality in the following diagnostic groups: Cancer in the upper digestive region, primary hepatic cancer, cirrhosis in the liver, pancreatitis, pneumonia, alcoholism and alcoholic poisoning, suicides and other causes of violent death as well as ischemic heart disease. The underlying and contributing causes of death on the death certificates were reclassified according to ICD-rules using clinical records and autopsy protocols. It was found that the underlying cause of death was incorrect in 21.8% of the cases. Important information was withheld in further 19.8%. After validation there was no longer any excess mortality in ischemic heart disease. The number of alcohol-related diagnoses, i.e. alcoholic cardiomyopathy, cirrhosis and fatty liver with alcoholism and alcoholic intoxication, was much greater. It is concluded that there is a underreporting of alcohol-related diseases and injuries which has a great influence on the reliability of death statistics.
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PMID:Validation of diagnoses on death certificates for male alcoholics in Stockholm. 358 75

A computer model was developed with decision analysis software to explore the long-term clinical and economic outcomes of alcohol abstinence maintenance with either standard counselling therapy or standard therapy plus 48 weeks of adjuvant acamprosate in detoxified alcoholic patients. Important complications of alcoholism were modelled using Markov processes, and included relapse (return to drinking), alcohol-related hepatic disease, acute and chronic pancreatitis, acute and chronic gastritis, oropharyngeal carcinoma, oesophageal carcinoma, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, alcohol-related peripheral neuropathy, alcoholic psychosis, accidental death, and suicide. Probabilities of developing complications were dependent on whether the patients within the cohort remained abstinent or had relapsed. Relapse rates, probabilities, and costs for acamprosate therapy and treatment of complications were taken from published literature. The analysis was performed from the German health insurance perspective. Life expectancy and total lifetime costs (costs of initial abstinence maintenance therapy plus costs of complications) were calculated for a typical male cohort with average age of 41 years, 80% with fatty liver, 15% with cirrhosis, 22% with chronic pancreatitis, and 1% with alcoholic cardiomyopathy at baseline. Life expectancy with and without acamprosate therapy was 15.90 and 14.70 years respectively, and discounted (5% per annum) average total lifetime costs per patient were DEM 46 448 and DEM 49 549 respectively. We conclude that, despite the acquisition costs of DEM 2177, adjuvant acamprosate therapy was both clinically and economically attractive under conservative assumptions.
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PMID:The long-term cost-effectiveness of improving alcohol abstinence with adjuvant acamprosate. 1102 23

Alcohol is the most commonly abused drug worldwide, and chronic alcohol consumption is a major etiological factor in the development of multiple pathological sequelae, including alcoholic cardiomyopathy and hepatic cirrhosis. Here, we identify regulator of G protein signaling 6 (RGS6) as a critical regulator of both alcohol-seeking behaviors and the associated cardiac and hepatic morbidities through two mechanistically divergent signaling actions. RGS6(-/-) mice consume less alcohol when given free access and are less susceptible to alcohol-induced reward and withdrawal. Antagonism of GABA(B) receptors or dopamine D2 receptors partially reversed the reduction in alcohol consumption in RGS6(-/-) animals. Strikingly, dopamine transporter inhibition completely restored alcohol seeking in mice lacking RGS6. RGS6 deficiency was associated with alterations in the expression of genes controlling dopamine (DA) homeostasis and a reduction in DA levels in the striatum. Taken together, these data implicate RGS6 as an essential regulator of DA bioavailability. RGS6 deficiency also provided dramatic protection against cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis, hepatic steatosis, and gastrointestinal barrier dysfunction and endotoxemia when mice were forced to consume alcohol. Although RGS proteins canonically function as G-protein regulators, RGS6-dependent, alcohol-mediated toxicity in the heart, liver, and gastrointestinal tract involves the ability of RGS6 to promote reactive oxygen species-dependent apoptosis, an action independent of its G-protein regulatory capacity. We propose that inhibition of RGS6 might represent a viable means to reduce alcohol cravings and withdrawal in human patients, while simultaneously protecting the heart and liver from further damage upon relapse.
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PMID:Regulator of G protein signaling 6 is a critical mediator of both reward-related behavioral and pathological responses to alcohol. 2564 31