Cirrhosis death double

Don’t drink to this ... alarming cirrhosis trends revealed

Australian manual or “blue collar” workers are dying from liver cirrhosis at 2.5 times the rate of their “white collar” counterparts, according to a University of Queensland study. School of Population Health Professors Jake Najman and Gail Williams and Stockholm University’s Professor Robin Room examined death rates for Australian men from liver cirrhosis between 1981 and 2002.

Their results were published in the prestigious journal, Drug and Alcohol Review. The men were categorised according to whether they were manual or non-manual workers. Manual worker status is a marker for lower socio-economic status. Heavy or binge drinking is one of the main contributors to the development of liver cirrhosis. Professor Najman said the study results suggested that men from lower socio-economic backgrounds were in greater danger of liver cirrhosis because of their heavy and binge drinking.

Liver cirrhosis accounted for 3.3 percent of all deaths among men aged between 15 and 64 in Australia in 2002 (543) and is the 10th largest overall killer of men. Cirrhosis is believed to develop in about 15 percent of people who drink heavily for more than a decade – three to four drinks a day for men and two to three drinks a day for women.

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