Millions of dementia patients my actually have 'very treatable' liver disease ... trends now
Hundreds of thousands of Americans with dementia - and millions around the world - may actually have a very treatable liver condition, a study suggests.
Researchers found that 10 percent of US veterans diagnosed with dementia did not were actually suffering from hepatic encephalopathy (HE) - severe liver scarring which can cause cognitive issues similar to Alzheimer's.
When damage continues over an extended period of time, the liver cannot detoxify the blood, which allows toxins to build up and reach the brain.
HE can be very mild and difficult to diagnose - for example, not all patients with cirrhosis have it - and symptoms can be as subtle as changes in sleep pattern or irritability.
But once diagnosed, it can be treated with common drugs. This is typically done with laxatives that help to remove ammonia and other toxins that accumulate in the gut, followed by antibiotics which kill some of the harmful ammonia-producing bacteria in the gut.
The above graph shows rates of Alzheimer's per 100,000 people, both age-standardized and all ages. Age-standardization is a method used to adjust for differences in age distribution between populations or over time, while non-age-standardized is the raw rate calculated across all age groups in the population without any adjustment
A recent study of US veterans found that 10% of those diagnosed with dementia actually had a liver condition called hepatic encephalopathy (HE) – a treatable condition
Dementia, on the other hand, is a condition caused by long-term damage to brain cells and function.
In the case of vascular dementia, it's caused by a lack of blood flow to the brain because of damage to small blood vessels through diabetes or high blood pressure.
Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, is caused when plaques build up in the brain and cause people's memories and other cognitive abilities to degrade.
While there are some drugs that modestly slow down the progression of dementia, it is incurable.
Dr Jasmohan Bajaj, the lead author of the new study, said: ‘This unexpected link between dementia and liver health emphasizes the importance of screening patients for potentially treatable contributors to cognitive decline.
‘Early detection of liver issues allows for targeted interventions and opens avenues for addressing treatable factors contributing to cognitive decline.’
More than 100 million Americans have some form of liver
