A case-control study on alcohol consumption and the risk of chronic liver disease.

We carried out a hospital based case-control study involving 655 patients with chronic liver disease encompassing chronic hepatitis, asymptomatic liver cirrhosis and symptomatic liver cirrhosis and 655 pair-matched control individuals in order to estimate the dose-response relationship between alcohol consumption and the occurrence of chronic liver disease. Alcohol intake was measured by a questionnaire and expressed as Daily Alcohol Intake (DAI) during the patient life. DAI estimates from patient interviews were in good agreement with those obtained by interviewing a sample of relatives. We found an exponential positive association between DAI and the risk of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. However, consuming less than 100g of alcohol every day did not increase the risk of developing chronic liver disease. For asymptomatic cirrhosis the risk was lower than for chronic hepatitis, especially at high DAI, probably because high consumption carried a high probability of liver decompensation. For symptomatic cirrhosis, the risk function showed a similar pattern as for chronic hepatitis. Chronic hepatitis patients were 6-7 years younger than cirrhotics. Our results suggest that the evolution towards cirrhosis once a chronic liver damage has occurred is probably time-dependent, but not or minimally dependent on alcohol intake.