People over 50, beware: You may have hepatitis C, a life-threatening liver disease, and not know it. The viral infection has almost no symptoms. In an exclusive Lifescript interview, an expert talks about hepatitis C and baby boomers, and how new drug treatments are promising a cure…
Baby boomers who dabbled in intravenous recreational drugs and embraced free love decades ago are now finding that behavior can have a price: hepatitis C.
The deadly viral disease brings few symptoms. In fact, it can live in your body silently for decades, slowly causing severe liver damage, even cancer. About 150 million people worldwide, and 3.2 million Americans, are chronically infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Still, even when diagnosed, many patients refuse medicines.
"The treatments have required very toxic medications with terrible side effects," says Sanjeev Arora, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. "Many patients haven't wanted to undergo them."
Reported cases of new hepatitis c infections jumped 45% in the U.S. over just one year, from 2010 to 2011, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of patients with the chronic form of the disease is declining slightly, the CDC reports, in part because of the growing number of deaths among those infected.
There are 5 common types of hepatitis: A, B, C, D and E. Types B and C are the most common cause of liver cirrhosis (scarring) and cancer, according to the WHO. B, C and D usually are contracted through contact with infected body fluids, such as contaminated blood. A and E usually are caused by ingesting contaminated fecal matter.
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