Health News
2006-06-22
Overweight people
have poor response to hepatitis C treatment
New research
suggests that obese patients in treatment for chronic
hepatitis C infection are more likely to achieve
New research
suggests that obese patients in treatment for chronic
hepatitis C infection are more likely to achieve better
results if the abnormalities associated with excessive
fat tissue are corrected first. Obesity is considered
a metabolic condition, not merely a matter of being
very overweight, according to lead author Michael R.
Charlton of the Mayo Clinic and colleagues. In
HCV-infected patients, obesity is associated with
inflammation and insulin resistance, a prediabetic
abnormality of blood sugar. Obese HCV patients may
also have steatosis, fatty liver disease; liver
scarring; fibrosis progression; and poor response to
standard HCV treatments interferon and ribavirin. In
addition, HCV patients with obesity-related fatty
liver disease are at increased risk for more advanced
liver disease. The investigators identified weight loss
to reduce fat tissue as a key step to improving response to
treatment. Treatment with diabetes drugs like
metformin and pioglitazone to raise insulin
sensitivity and reduce fat accumulation in the liver might
help reverse disease progression, according to the
report. Administering higher doses of combination drug
therapy for an extended period of time could help
offset the decreased drug response. Doses could be
determined by body mass index instead of weight, the
team wrote. “Treatment strategies that focus on
improving underlying metabolic factors associated with
poor response to combination therapy are more likely to
overcome the low sustained viral response rates observed in
obese patients infected with HCV,” the
researchers concluded. (Reuters)
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