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TEXAS
CHILDREN'S LIVER CENTER
Steatohepatitis, which causes
inflammation of the liver, is seen in some 20 percent of overweight
patients. At Texas Children’s, 30 patients from ages 6 to 17 are
treated for the condition by
Dr. Ruben Quiros, medical director of Texas Children’s Liver
Transplant program and assistant professor of pediatrics and surgery
at Baylor.
“If a patient can lose more than 10
percent of his or her body weight, this will have a significant
effect on the disease,” Quiros says. “So, the first thing I always
do is encourage patients to lose weight and exercise – preferably in
an organized program like the
Weigh of Life.”
Quiros also is conducting research to
see if vitamin E and Actigal, a bile acid, help slow progression of
liver inflammation.
Obese children also often have the
early stages of cirrhosis, liver damage caused by inflammation,
which seems to develop into a more serious condition as they get
older.
“There is more and more worrisome
information that this is a progressive process,” Quiros says. “It
may take 15 to 20 years to develop cirrhosis. Many adults may have
had the early stages of it when they were children, but it just
wasn’t recognized.”
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Liver Center disease information
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