Prevalence of obesity in patients with acute hepatitis; is severe obesity a risk factor for fulminant hepatitis in Japan?
OBJECTIVE
The prevalence of obesity in acute convalescent hepatitis and fulminant hepatitis has not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate whether obesity affected the disease severity in Japanese patients with acute hepatitis.


METHODS
31 non-severe acute hepatitis (NS-AH) and 24 severe acute hepatitis and 14 fulminant hepatitis patients (S-AH) between January 1995 and December 2001 were analyzed retrospectively. Height and weight were used to calculate the body mass index (BMI) in these 69 patients.


RESULTS
Mean height, weight and BMI were not significantly different between S-AH and NS-AH patients. Two severely obese (BMI greater than 35kg/m2) patients had developed S-AH.


CONCLUSIONS
Severe obesity may be one of the prognostic factors in acute hepatitis. Further studies are needed.
Kanda
Tatsuo
T
First Department of Internal Medicine, Chiba University School of Medicine, Chiba University, Japan. kandat-cib@umin.ac.jp
Yokosuka
Osamu
O
Hiraide
Akira
A
Kojima
Hiroshige
H
Honda
Arata
A
Fukai
Kenichi
K
Imazeki
Fumio
F
Nagao
Keiichi
K
Saisho
Hiromitsu
H
D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006505:Hepatitis / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index