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<\/div>WHEN I was at school, I contracted viral hepatitis, despite never having done any of the things \u2013 sharing needles, getting tattooed or having multiple sexual partners \u2013 that are the usual risk factors for the disease. My biology teacher took one look at my sick and jaundiced face and told me, sagely, that \u201cthe life depends on the liver\u201d.<\/p>\n
All I knew at the time was that life with a malfunctioning liver was pretty miserable. That, unfortunately, might now be the fate of an increasing number of people around the world. Liver diseases in general are on the rise, but one in particular is causing concern for doctors and researchers alike \u2013 and you have probably never even heard of it. More than a third of adults and around 13 per cent of children and adolescents are thought to have a condition known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), among other names \u2013 a condition that, if undiagnosed and untreated, puts them on a trajectory towards liver failure and a host of other conditions.<\/p>\n
Not me, surely? Don\u2019t be complacent. Most people with NAFLD don\u2019t know they have it, as the condition is largely asymptomatic and screening programmes almost non-existent. But a concerted effort to raise awareness is under way in the hope of averting a crisis. The bad news is that, on our current trajectory, more than half of the world\u2019s adults will have NAFLD in their lifetime. The good news is that many of these people won\u2019t experience severe disease, and the rest may be able to reverse the problem \u2013 but only if it is caught early enough.\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n