Céline Géraud, edited by Mélanie Faure
modified to
07:42, September 08, 2022
Faced with the worrying increase in the number of cases of people with NASH, also called soda disease, experts from around the world are meeting this Thursday and for two days at the Institut Pasteur in Paris for a symposium. The goal? Develop a treatment. Worldwide, 25% to 30% of the population is affected.
It is a pathology still too little known: NASH, also called soda disease. It is characterized by the accumulation of fat in the cells of the liver and is developing in a worrying way in industrialized countries. To talk about its worrying growth, experts from around the world are meeting this Thursday and until Friday at the Institut Pasteur to look into creating a treatment.
Between 500,000 and 1 million people affected
What are the numbers? In all, 25 to 30% of obese people or type 2 diabetics are affected in the world. A progression which means that it will soon be the first cause of liver transplantation. In France, NASH affects between 500,000 and 1 million people.
Junk food, sugar addiction, and a sedentary lifestyle cause, in the most serious cases, lesions identical to those caused by cirrhosis. But the first stage of this metabolic disease is what is called fatty liver disease. “If we take foie gras, the average age is 40-45 years in men, rather”, details Lawrence Serfaty, professor of hepatology at the Strasbourg University Hospital. “If we see more advanced patients and diseases, it’s more like 55-60 years old […] it is a disease that develops very slowly. When we have obese children, we have young subjects with already advanced diseases.
Screening for NASH is indicated in patients at risk: type 2 diabetics and obese.
Youth obesity worries
The problem is that it is a silent disease that develops without any symptoms. Thus, most patients discover that they are affected following a simple blood test. In the United States, soda sickness is now the leading cause of liver transplants. In France, it is the galloping obesity among the youngest that worries.
Currently, only substantial weight loss and a better lifestyle act on the disease. But according to information from Europe 1, the first specific treatment could arrive on the market by 2024.