Hi shortwave listeners, just a heads up for those of you listening.

This episode looks directly at addiction and alcoholism and how that affects a person's health.

You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Hey everybody, Emily Kwong here with Science Desk Correspondent Yuki Nguchi,

who covers consumer health. Yuki, this is your first time on shortwave.

So welcome. Hey, Emily is good to be here.

And you're here to talk about a worrisome trend that you've been reporting on,

which is that more people at younger ages are getting alcoholic liver disease.

Yeah, that's right. We're talking about liver disease caused by excessive drinking.

And advanced alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis are super serious.

They're really lethal.

And the thing is, you know, the past, this was something that affected older men more.

But doctors are telling me younger women under the age of 40 are driving the increase now.

Oh, wow. Okay.

And this is a trend that began several years ago before the pandemic,

but it's really been supercharged in the last year.

And my conversation with my colleagues at other institutions,

everybody is saying the same thing. They're like, yeah, it's astronomical.

It's just gone off the chart.

That's Dr. Jessica Melinger.

She's a liver specialist at the University of Michigan.

The CDC hasn't reported data yet on hospitalizations from alcoholic liver disease since the pandemic began.

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