Longevity Among Ethnic Groups in Alcoholic Liver Disease

Abstract

As part of a multicenter V.A. Cooperative Study, 437 male veterans with varying stages of alcoholic liver injury were followed over a 4.5 year period. Their ethnic distribution consisted of 256 Caucasians, 109 black Afro-Americans, 63 Puerto Rican Hispanics, and 9 Native American Indians. Survival analyses revealed significant differences between groups (P = 0.0002): 66% of Afro-Americans were still living at 42 months; Caucasians were intermediate with 40% survival; and only 28% of Hispanics were alive. The number of Native American Indians enrolled was too small to draw conclusions but none of those enrolled survived beyond 24 months. Survival regression analysis of 30 clinical, laboratory, histologic and nutritional parameters, revealed the following significant risk factors: clinical severity (P less than 0.0001), histologic severity (P less than 0.0001), race (P = 0.001), age (P = 0.002), BUN (P = 0.01) and ALT (P = 0.02). These analyses indicated that ethnicity, independent of other variables, is significantly associated with outcome from the disease.

Effect of age increase on metabolism and toxicity of ethanol in female rats

“…On the other hand the potentiation of ethanol-induced GSH depletion accompanied with age increase would be of greater significance in humans. This view appears to be in accordance with the clinical observations that age is a risk factor in alcoholic liver injury (Chedid et al, 1991;Mendenhall et al, 1989).…”

“…Generally old people or animals have a lower alcohol tolerance than younger counterparts (Vestal et al, 1977;Abel and York, 1979;Hartford and Samorajski, 1982;York, 1983;Mendenhall et al, 1989). It is suspected that the age-dependent increase in ethanol effects would be associated with greater sensitivity of target tissues and/or high blood ethanol concentrations.…”

Hispanic Mortality Paradox: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Longitudinal Literature

“…Research reports typically failed to describe the specific ethnic heritage of the Hispanic participants (80% omitted this information), but 8 studies (15%) were specific to Mexican Americans, 20,29,33,42,47,52,67,72 1 study was specific to Puerto Rican Americans, 48 and 5 studies (9%) involved participants from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. 24,25,31,36,51 Several studies (22%) involved initially healthy participants, but 24% of studies involved patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), 12% with cancer, 10% with HIV infection, 7% with diabetes, 5% with renal disease, and the remaining 20% with a variety of conditions, including liver disease and dementia.…”

Glutathione depletion and recovery after acute ethanol administration in the aging mouse

“…The magnitude of this problem is compounded by the rapidly increasing proportion of the population represented by the elderly [5]. In addition, sensitivity of elderly subjects to the toxic effects of EtOH appears to be enhanced compared to younger persons [6][7][8][9]. Laboratory animal studies have also indicated that ethanol metabolism is decreased and toxicity increased with advancing age [10][11][12][13].…”