Why does jaundice occur?

Authors Avatar

Medical Physics

AVCE SCIENCE UNIT 15 Jaundice

By Ziad Pekacar

Introduction

This is a disease caused by bilirubin, which is excreted as one of the constituents of bile. Bilirubin is normally released into the blood to breakdown worn out red blood cells.

The side effect of this disease is that it turns the whites of the eyes yellow and discolours the skin.

A brown pigment called bilirubin, which is situated right below the outer layer of the skin, causes the colour of the skin and eyes to turn yellow.

Colour changes depending on the concentration of this pigment in the certain area, or the capillaries containing a certain amount.

Jaundice disease conditions have been identified as these types:

  1. Obstructive (2) hepatocellular (3) haematogenous.

In the obstructive type the flow of bile is blocked from the gall bladder.

Hepatocellular is when the liver is damaged and is unable to remove bilirubin.

Haematogenous is when a large amount of red blood cells are destroyed, so haemoglobin is produced to balance things out which also leads to a concentrated amount of bilirubin in the blood.

  

Why does jaundice occur?

The excessive bilirubin in the blood doesn’t cause a lot of damage just skin discoloration that ends when the whole problem is corrected.

Regurgitation jaundice can bring intense secondary disorders.

Join now!

This is usually due to the malfunction of bile salts to arrive at the intestinal tract.

The bleeding that transpires in the intestines is openly connected to the lack of bile salts, for without them the body cannot immerse the fat-soluble vitamin K correctly.

Without this vitamin, blood clotting is very weak, so there is a better tendency for bleeding to take place.

Treatment of jaundice

 In hepatocellular jaundice, its dark amber urine and normal stools categorize it.

Hepatocellular jaundice, since much of the bilirubin in the blood already has been conjugated by the endoplasmic ...

This is a preview of the whole essay