Pubdate: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 Source: Reuters (Wire) Copyright: 2002 Reuters Limited Author: Richard Woodman SCIENTISTS LINK RISING UK ALCOHOL DEATHS TO HEROIN LONDON (Reuters) - An epidemic of heroin use in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s appears to be resulting in a huge increase in the number of men dying from alcoholic liver disease, scientists said on Thursday. Researchers at Imperial College and St. Mary's Hospital, London, said deaths from alcohol liver damage, where the precise cause was unspecified, shot up 259 per cent in middle-aged men in England between 1993 and 1999. They said such a huge rise could not be explained by increased alcohol consumption alone and suggested that exposure to the liver-damaging virus hepatitis C through drug users sharing infected needles was also to blame. "Hepatitis C normally takes 20 or 30 years to lead to liver damage and so does alcohol but if you are hepatitis C-positive and you also drink alcohol it races away," said Professor John Henry, of the academic department of accident and emergency medicine at St. Mary's. "That is what we think is happening. It is a sort of reaping effect," he told Reuters. Writing in the Journal of Clinical Pathology, the team said anyone infected with hepatitis C who also drank alcohol was 31 times more likely to suffer from liver cirrhosis. They said that a generation of men, now aged 40 to 59 years old, could have been involved in an "epidemic of illicit drug use" which took hold in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s "Significantly, this was before the introduction of needle exchange and other interventions to reduce the risk of HIV ( news - web sites) transmission in drug users." The report said hepatitis C infection -- which had not even been recognized at the time -- was now a worldwide health issue. In Britain alone, an estimated 300,000 people were infected though fewer than five percent had been diagnosed. The pathology of alcoholic liver disease and chronic hepatitis C were very similar. Clinicians and pathologists could fail to recognize hepatitis C infection as a cause of rapid progression of alcoholic liver disease unless they specifically tested for the virus. The scientists recommended more hepatitis C testing so that those found to be infected could be advised to cut down on their drinking and increase their chances of successful treatment and longer survival. - --- MAP posted-by: Alex