3% of Spanish children suffer from fatty liver disease, a pathology that almost did not exist at this age 10 years ago.

For this reason it was organized The conference on the prevention and early detection of chronic liver diseases within the framework of the Congress of Deputies will take place this Thursday, coinciding with World Day against this pathology. On this day, interested MPs and House staff will be able to find out the health of their liver using various tests to assess their risk profile. The great difficulty with this pathology, as with all diseases in general, is liveris that he is silent, reports AEEH. Its symptoms are nonspecific and do not appear until liver has high damage. In the case of children, Additionally, screening tests, although greatly improved and simplified diagnostic capabilities, they are not as reliable and accurate as in older people.

However, its early diagnosis, especially in children and young people, is important, since timely changes in diet and physical activity in patients with metabolic liver diseases can reverse the disease in more than 80% of cases. Actually, in Spain liverfatty It begins to occur at ages 6–8 years and reaches its highest prevalence at ages 10–12 years, improving during adolescence. precisely because of the higher level of physical exercise that usually occurs at this age. “The appearance of this disease in children aged 6-8 years is as alarming as it is unprecedented in our country, where the prevalence liverfatty It was always concentrated between the ages of 40 and 80. The occurrence of a prevalence of up to 3% in minors makes it possible to predict the true appearance of this pathology in adults,” explains the doctor. Rocío Aller, Scientific Secretary of AEEH.

At the moment, it is assumed that liverfatty This has already affected more than 10 million Spaniards.of which about two million would represent inflammation liver (steatohepatitis) and, of these, 400,000 would already have cirrhosis of the liver. “But we are still far from the ceiling,” hepatologists warn. “Unless we change consumer habits and lifestyles now and take this problem seriously, rates of obesity and diabetes will increase, and so will the prevalence of liverfatty– added Dr. Allaire.

“It’s difficult to say, but we make patients, so we must take action,” emphasized AEEH President Manuel Romero, who tomorrow will ask members of Congress to promote “not only a multidisciplinary approach of different specialists and health workers, but also a multi-institutional approach that covers not only the public healthcare, but also all institutions, schools, families, the media…”. “We have to deal with a problem that is so complex that it cannot be solved only from a public health perspective, but at the same time it is a very simple problem. so much so that with physical activity and a Mediterranean diet, the patient has an 80-90% chance of getting rid of the problem,” has concluded.