How and when, not only how much, you drink is important to liver health.

2003 JUL 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- In the first study of drinking patterns and their relationship to potential liver damage, University at Buffalo epidemiologists have found that how and when drinkers consume alcohol may be as important to a healthy liver as the amount consumed.

Moreover, their findings revealed gender differences in the effect of drinking on the liver.

In men, the amount and frequency of drinking were more important than pattern, while in women, pattern appeared to be more important than the amount consumed.

Results of the study were presented on June 13, 2003, by lead author Saverio Stranges, MD, research instructor in the UB Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health and Health Professions, at the Society for Epidemiologic Research meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

Stranges and colleagues assessed levels of liver enzymes as biomarkers of liver damage in 2,943 white men and women between the ages of 35 and 80. In addition to providing fasting blood samples, participants answered detailed questions about their health and their alcohol intake. Levels of liver enzymes, primarily of GGT, the most sensitive of three liver enzymes that become elevated in response to alcohol consumption, then were analyzed in relation to a variety of drinking patterns and levels of consumption reported by participants.

Stranges found that the men who drank daily had the highest levels of GGT, while in women, GGT levels were highest in those who drank only on weekends.

A gender difference related to ...