Diets high in protein and cholesterol are associated with a higher risk of hospitalization or death due to cirrhosis or liver cancer, while diets high in carbohydrates are associated with a lower risk. These findings are in the July issue of Hepatology, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

The nonessential amino acid glycine has been shown to be anti-inflammatory in several animal injury models.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the more common causes of chronic liver disease in world with a variety of extrahepatic complications such as essential mixed cryoglobulinemia, membranoproliferative glomerulonep hritis, autoimmune thyroiditis, sialadenitis, and cardiomyopathy.

Treating all U.S. prisoners who have hepatitis C with the standard therapy of pegylated-interferon and ribavirin would be cost-effective, says a new study in the November issue of Hepatology, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

Hepatitis C affects around 150 million people worldwide and is a major cause of chronic liver disease. Current treatment involves the anti-viral drugs interferon and ribavirin, both of which have serious side effects.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that a protein called FOXA2 controls genes that maintain the proper level of bile in the liver. FOXA2 may become the focus for new therapies to treat diseases that involve the regulation of bile salts. The study was published online this week in Nature Medicine.

A key enzyme may explain how hepatitis C infection causes fatty liver – a buildup of excess fat in the liver, which can lead to life-threatening diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer, report University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and School of Medicine researchers.

Nearly 9 percent of patients who recently underwent liver transplantation suffered a subsequent surgical site infection (SSI). Risk factors included having had biliary-enteric anastomosis (choledocho-jejunal or hepatic-jejunal reconstruction), previous liver or kidney transplant, and more than four red blood cell units transfused.

A history of early-onset paternal obesity increases the odds of elevated liver enzyme levels in offspring and points to the potential for a genetic link between obesity and liver disease, according to a study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

The University of Alberta Hospital (UAH) is one of only a few centers in Canada that perform living donor liver transplantation, a surgical procedure developed in the late 1980s that expands the organ donor pool. About 80 liver transplants are done a year in Alberta, 10 of those being living-donor.

Lamivudine is an effective antiviral agent for treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B and advanced liver diseases.

Scientists have discovered that a protein known as PEPT2 protects the brains of mice from a naturally occurring but potentially toxic compound present in lead poisoning and in a class of liver diseases that can cause serious neurological complications.