GHRL and Ascites: Patients who had ascites had nearly double ghrelin (2546.4 ± 454.5) pg/mL level compared to those without ascites (1341 ± 82.9 pg/mL), those who had encephalopathy averaged 2648.4 ± 440.9 pg/mL versus 1668.1 ± 421.1 for those without encephalopathies, and patients with a history of bleeding showed considerably higher levels of ghrelin (2682.2 ± 408.5) pg/mL compared to patients without a history of bleeding (1844.7 ± 573.1 pg/mL) (Table 2).