TEXAS CHILDREN'S LIVER CENTER
Steatohepatitis

Steatohepatitis, which causes inflammation of the liver, is seen in some 20 percent of overweight patients. At Texas Children’s, 30 patients from ages 6 to 17 are treated for the condition by Dr. Ruben Quiros, medical director of Texas Children’s Liver Transplant program and assistant professor of pediatrics and surgery at Baylor.

“If a patient can lose more than 10 percent of his or her body weight, this will have a significant effect on the disease,” Quiros says. “So, the first thing I always do is encourage patients to lose weight and exercise – preferably in an organized program like the Weigh of Life.”

Quiros also is conducting research to see if vitamin E and Actigal, a bile acid, help slow progression of liver inflammation.

Obese children also often have the early stages of cirrhosis, liver damage caused by inflammation, which seems to develop into a more serious condition as they get older.

“There is more and more worrisome information that this is a progressive process,” Quiros says. “It may take 15 to 20 years to develop cirrhosis. Many adults may have had the early stages of it when they were children, but it just wasn’t recognized.”

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