Greater hepatic vulnerability after alcohol intake in African Americans compared with Caucasians: a population-based study.

AIMS OF THE STUDY: In the last 40 years, African Americans have experienced higher age-adjusted liver cirrhosis mortality rates than whites. Alcohol use has been hypothesized to be the likely determinant of this disparity in liver disease mortality. This study was aimed at evaluating racial variations in common biomarkers of liver injury, such as gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), aspartate amino transferase (AST) and alanine amino transferase …