“The link between diabetes and the liver is a very dangerous link: 70% of people who have type 2 diabetes have fatty liver disease, a disease that if it is not sought and uncontrolled risks sliding towards the more serious forms of the disease. liver, which are fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer. We also know how in people living with type 2 diabetes the presence of fatty liver disease exposes the patient to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death ”. Paolo Di Bartolo, president of the Association of Diabetic Doctors (Amd), underlines this to Ruetir Salute, on the sidelines of the 11th national conference of the Foundation, which was held in Rome.
“Diabetes, however, – underlines Di Bartolo, who is also director of Diabetology at the Ravenna hospital – does not exhaust its link with liver disease with steatotic liver disease, but there are other liver diseases that we have seen to be particularly relevant in the person living with diabetes. And we’re talking about viral hepatitis. In particular, the hepatitis C virus (Hcv) is a form of hepatitis that presents itself in a subtle way in people with type 2 diabetes. However, we know that the patient with type 2 diabetes is more vulnerable to an attack of the hepatitis C virus due to problems related to liver enlargement “.
For this reason, according to Di Bartolo “these patients must be sought and identified. Only if identified do we have the concrete possibility of treating these patients with targeted therapies for the hepatitis C virus “. And “we know that from a clinical benefit point of view – he underlines – the treatment of hepatitis in people who have diabetes at the same time leads to a dramatic improvement in the disease outcomes of glycemic control and the possibility of meeting what are the complications ”he concludes.
