More than 10 percent of people over 70 have clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential, or CHIP, which is caused by blood stem cells that carry cancer-causing mutations and proliferate. Scientists have linked CHIP to increased risk of leukemia and heart disease, and now a new study adds chronic liver disease to the list of disorders strongly associated with CHIP.
The findings, which appear today in Nature, also suggest a biochemical pathway in cells that could be targeted by drugs to treat liver disease in patients with CHIP.
