What is high bilirubin?

There is an item called bilirubin in the physical examination report, but many people don’t know about it. Simply put, it is related to red blood cells. High bilirubin is also called jaundice, mainly because the manifestations of high bilirubin are yellowish skin, yellow urine and yellow eyes. At the same time, the destruction of red blood cells will affect other organs. Of course, newborn jaundice is not within this range. Newborns will have high bilirubin for a short period of time after birth.

First of all, the first reason for high bilirubin is that when the red blood cells in the human body are destroyed in large quantities, the body's intermediate bilirubin will increase a lot. At this time, the liver cannot completely convert all the bilirubin, which will lead to an increase in bilirubin in the blood.

At this time, the main causes of high bilirubin are leukemia, severe anemia, hemolytic anemia, etc.

Second liver disease.

The liver and gallbladder have a very close relationship, and liver and gallbladder diseases usually occur at the same time. Patients with poor liver function will be found to have high bilirubin during examination. Because the liver is the place where direct bilirubin and indirect bilirubin are converted, when the liver is diseased, the conversion ability of the two types of bilirubin is reduced, thereby increasing the bilirubin in the blood; at the same time, patients with liver disease have difficulty in excreting direct bilirubin, which flows back into the blood. Liver disease patients with high bilirubin may experience symptoms such as yellow skin, yellow urine and yellow eyes.

Increased direct bilirubin is common in bile duct diseases. Direct bilirubin enters the intestine from the bile duct. If the bile duct is blocked, direct bilirubin cannot enter the intestine smoothly and thus flows back into the blood, resulting in high bilirubin. The main causes of high bilirubin at this time are: gallstones, bile duct tumors, pancreatic head cancer, etc.

Fourth, blood transfusion error.

When there is an emergency need for blood, if the blood transfusion is done incorrectly and the blood type is messed up, it will cause hemolysis. When hemolysis occurs, the bilirubin in the human body will also increase.

Many people do not understand why newborns have jaundice. In fact, it is because the blood type of the newborn and the mother is incompatible, which leads to hemolysis and causes high bilirubin. At the same time, congenital bile duct malformations in newborns can also cause high bilirubin.