Jeff McIntyre Raises NASH Awareness Among Health Care Community

Jeff McIntyre, MA, of the Global Liver Institute (GLI) discussed the importance of the health care community understanding non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and how to mitigate its global impact. McIntyre was a part of the AMCP Nexus 2023 session titled "Navigating NASH: A Discussion on Clinical Background, Patient Advocacy, and Managed Care Considerations" where he helped to educate the managed care pharmacy audience about the disease.

At GLI, McIntyre is the vice president of liver health programs. Within this position, he supervises GLI's liver health program portfolio, including NASH and liver cancer. To address disparities in screening and treatment globally, McIntyre works with program directors to identify patient engagement opportunities across all pathways, including drug development, regulatory input, and educational opportunities.

Transcript

How important is it to bridge the knowledge gap about NASH within the health care community, especially among managed care professionals, to effectively address this health issue?

It is incredibly important. We feel like the amount of knowledge around the liver is nowhere near proportionate to the amount of liver disease, or the rising cases of liver cancer, in the nation. If you asked a general audience, most people wouldn't even be able to point to where their liver is on their body, much less things that they would need to know about how to have a healthy liver, much less things they would need to know to be able to prevent liver disease, or treat a disease that they may not yet be diagnosed with, as well.

It's incredibly important for everyone throughout the health care system to be aware of this. I think it's also important that we know that obesity is one of the leading correlations with fatty liver disease especially, and to be able to have honest conversations with patients who may present as obese—not about their obesity, but, in fact, about the liver disease itself. That's the only way we're going to be able to remove stigma around liver disease is actually talking about the treatments and the conditions without bringing in other aspects that may or may not be relevant.

What steps are essential to mitigate the impact of the NASH global epidemic?

The first step is going to be screening. We need to be able to screen and test through noninvasive measures to be able to get a better grasp of how many people have these undiagnosed cases of fatty liver disease. When someone presents with fatty liver disease, not yet NASH, but with just fatty liver disease, there are lifestyle modifications that that person can take that can then help mitigate the fatty liver disease, even reverse it, or actually completely get rid of the fatty liver disease, through lifestyle modifications—If they're aware they have it. That's done through early screening and testing, hopefully through nondiagnostic means, as well.

Then, a continuing and an update of that as patients become aware of their risk for fatty liver disease or NASH. They continue the screening, they continue the healthy choices in their lifestyle with physical activity and nutrition, and are supported by their health care providers, including their pharmacist, to be able to make those decisions wisely.