Doctors worry obese children could be risking serious liver damage

Doctors worry obese children could be risking serious liver damage
10/19/2003 3:54 PM
By: Nakamura, Kristi

No mother should have to worry that she might outlive her 14-year-old son.

But that's exactly what's happening to Martha Rojo.

"He's really overweight and I mean he could have a heart attack, a stroke,
I mean liver problems can come up the way he is right now and lots of
things that. I mean it's a scary thought that you might lose him," Rojo
says.

Doctors say Rojo's son's excessive heft is putting strain on his organs.

A biopsy recently revealed that fat deposits are causing damage to his
liver.

Liver damage used to be a problem doctors mainly saw in alcoholics and
older people.

But doctors at Texas Children's Hospital say they're now seeing a
disturbing new trend. Children whose livers are being damaged because their
weight is tipping the scales.

"It's in the range of 15 to 20 percent of kids who are obese will have this
elevation of the liver function test and most of them, if not all, will
have this phenomenon of steatohepatitus, which is fatty liver causing
inflammation of the liver," Dr. Ruben Quiros says.

Doctors say this is such a new problem they don't yet know what will happen
to kids like Rojo's son.

But they worry that if something is not done to help repair the damage to
kids' livers, they may eventually have a generation of 20-somethings with
end-stage liver disease.

And they say liver transplants are often not an option for people who are
obese.

Doctors say it's essential that these children lose weight to protect their
health.

"It is really, really scary," Rojo says. "I don't know if he'll lose the
weight, but we just work with him right now, try to do the best."

Rojo says it can be hard at times to tell her son that he can't have the
foods he likes to eat.

But she says, keeping him alive and trying to improve his health are now
her main focus.

Dr. Quiros says there are no symptoms to indicate a child's liver is being
damaged.

Often the problem goes undetected.

But he says its important for parents and pediatricians to pay attention
when a child is obese.

Much of the liver damage is reversible if the children are able to lose
weight before the problem becomes severe.

*********

-- Steve
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