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Jaundice And Viral Hepatitis: Is It Contagious?

by — Last updated: 2019-10-06 in Lymphatic & Endocrine system

Hepatitis is the inflammation of the liver. There are many different types of hepatitis, some of which are contagious. Hepatitis patients also show a number of different symptoms. Jaundice is, certainly, the easiest to notice.

Inflammation of the liver tissue can happen for a number of reasons. Different drugs or toxins, including alcohol, can damage the liver. Bacteria, viruses and parasites can also attack the liver, causing inflammation. Sometimes, even our own immune system might get confused and recognize our own cells as intruders. If that happens with the hepatocytes, our white blood cells will attack them, and deal constant damage to the organ. Out of all these causes, viruses are the most common, and  they cause millions of deaths every year around the globe.

The liver has a number of functions: it stores vitamins, produces clotting factors, processes and gets rid of toxins, and produces proteins, to name a few. As the organ takes damage, it starts losing its functions, one after another. Some forms of hepatitis cause very mild symptoms, if any, while others have a very dramatic symptom presentation.

Regardless of the cause, the most common symptoms of hepatitis include:

  • Pain in the upper right part of the abdomen
  • Fatigue
  • Dark urine
  • Light stool
  • Hives
  • Getting bruises easily
  • Prolonged bleeding time
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Weight loss
  • Loss of appetite
  • And the easiest one to notice: jaundice

​What is jaundice?

Jaundice (or as doctors call it: icterus) is, by definition, "a yellowish pigmentation of the skin, tissues, and body fluids caused by the deposition of bile pigments". What this means is that the skin, the mucosa and the white of the eyes of the person with this condition turns yellow. But how does this happen?

There are many different causes to jaundice, divided into three groups:

  • Prehepatic (the cause of jaundice is anatomically located somewhere in the organism before the blood reaches the liver)
  • Hepatic (the cause of the jaundice is in the liver itself)
  • Post hepatic (the cause of the jaundice is somewhere in the bile ducts, after the blood was processed by the liver, e.g. bile duct obstruction). 

As all types of viral hepatitis affect the liver, jaundice caused by viral hepatitis is a hepatic type of jaundice. As mentioned earlier, one of the functions of the liver is to process and metabolize different products or byproducts of the metabolism. 

Red blood cells have one function — to transport oxygen to each and every cell in our organism (with a few exceptions). Even though we know erythrocytes as red blood cells, they lack most of the organelles other cells have (such as the nucleus, in mammals — yes, even camels lack a nucleus in red blood cells). But what they do have are hemoglobin molecules. Hemoglobin molecules transfer oxygen one way, and CO2 the other, back to the lungs, where they exchange the CO2 molecule for the O2 molecule. But, after 100 to 120 days, the red blood cell dies, and our liver needs to deal with the hemoglobin molecules left after the cell decomposes. 

When the liver is healthy, the hemoglobin molecule is processed and excreted out of the liver via bile. The bile enters the intestines, mixes with the feces and colors the feces in the brown color that we all know. But, If the liver is damaged, some hemoglobin doesn't go to the intestines, but instead goes back to the blood stream, and is taken by the blood to many different tissues, where it is deposited. Because the end product of the hemoglobin metabolism is of brown-yellowish color, the tissues are being colored the same color. 

Is viral hepatitis contagious?

In short: yes. Tens of different viruses cause the inflammation of the liver, but five of them cause the majority of viral hepatitis cases: hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D, and E. Hepatitis A and hepatitis E are spread by fecal matter, usually via contaminated water or food. Hepatitis B and  hepatitis D are spread by blood and other bodily fluids, such as semen, vaginal fluids, menstrual fluids etc. Hepatitis C is spread only by infected blood. 

What these viruses have in common is that that they can be spread from one person to another long before the onset of the symptoms, since the symptoms need time to develop, as the liver has a huge capacity of regeneration. 

What do jaundice and viral hepatitis have in common?

Viruses cause damage to the liver. If the disease takes a chronic form, the liver takes more and more damage. When the liver loses the capacity to deal with the amounts of hemoglobin, jaundice occurs. 

But, does it mean that every person with jaundice could spread hepatitis? No.

Different types of hepatitis can cause jaundice. Even some other conditions, such as pancreatitis, can cause jaundice. People with chronic alcoholic hepatitis can have jaundice, and this type of hepatitis is not contagious. Even cancer patients can have hepatitis. People who have had massive bruises can have jaundice (because even the healthy liver isn't able to process that amount of  hemoglobin released by destroyed red blood cells). It's even common for newborns to have jaundice. But caution is advised, since we are not able to differentiate the type of hepatitis only through the visual appearnace of jaundice. 

  • Photo courtesy of SteadyHealth