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Conventional wisdom calls for prolonged abstinence from alcohol after recovery from viral hepatitis, but it has never been shown that small amounts of alcohol are actually harmful. To address this issue, Tozun and colleagues randomized patients recovering from acute viral hepatitis to two groups. One group was asked to abstain from alcohol; the other was permitted to drink modest amounts when liver- function tests had become nearly normal (e.g., aspartate aminotransferase below 50 units). Of the 87 evaluable patients, 36 had hepatitis A, 34 had hepatitis B (all were surface-antigen-negative as a condition of the study), and 17 had non-A, non-B hepatitis.
The drinking group began using alcohol an average of two to three months after their fir…