摘要：Age-Specific Analysis of Liver Dysfunction among Printing Plant Workers: Yasushi HONDA, et al . Environmental Health Sciences Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies —This cross-sectional survey investigated the age difference in the effect of two major causes of liver dysfunction, i.e., obesity and drinking. “Liver dysfunction” is defined here as an abnormal level of either serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) or alanine aminotransferase (ALT). After eliminating subjects who are either hepatitis B antigen positive or hepatitis C antibody positive, we obtained 901 male study subjects aged 24 to 63 working at two printing plants, whose tasks did not entail exposure to materials that might cause liver dysfunction. The proportion of subjects with liver dysfunction was higher in the 40-49 year age group than in any other age group. We consider this age pattern was mainly attributable to the following two.factors: (1) Among non-drinkers, the prevalence ratio (PR) for the moderately obese group was 3.4 (95% confidence interval =1.1-10.4) and the PR for severely obese group was 8.2 (3.0-22.9) compared with the non-obese group in the 40-49 year age group, whereas the corresponding Mantel-Haenszel PRs controlled for age were 1.6 (0.97-2.7) and 4.4 (2.8-7.1), respectively. (2) The proportion of subjects with obesity or with a drinking habit is higher in the 40-49 year age group . The effect of habitual drinking was not great: The Mantel-Haenszel PR (controlled for age) for drinkers compared with “non-habitual-drinkers” was 1.2 (0.72-2.0) for the non-obese group, 1.8 (1.1-2.8) for the moderately obese group, and 0.84 (0.48-1.5) for the severely obese subjects. ( J Occup Health 1997; 39: 45-50 )
