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Diseases of the Human Liver

The liver is the largest organ in your body. It performs various functions, but it's probably most well-known for being a detoxifier. Your liver cleans harmful substances out of your blood. It also converts the food you eat into life-sustaining vitamins and nutrients. But if you expose your body to the wrong things, you can create an opportunity for disease to affect this abdominal ally.

  1. Hepatitis A

    • Hepatitis A is a liver infection that's easily spread through person-to-person contact, food or contaminated water. Though not everyone develops visible symptoms, you may have dark urine, fever, nausea or abdominal pain. These symptoms may last up to six months, and even without treatment, you can recover from a mild case of hepatitis A. But if you already have a chronic liver disease, you may be at risk for acute liver failure, which requires hospitalization and possibly a liver transplant.

    Hepatitis B

    • When the hepatitis B virus enters your body through sexual contact or IV drug use, it causes the liver to swell. Within two to three months, you may notice a lack of appetite, dark urine, weakness, vomiting and joint pain. These symptoms can range from mild to downright awful. If a hepatitis B infection becomes chronic, it can become a lifelong problem leading to liver cancer.

    Hepatitis C

    • Because hepatitis C can exist in the body with virtually no symptoms, it's often referred to as a silent stalker. You catch it by coming into contact with hepatitis C infected blood, and you may not realize that you have it until you begin to show signs of liver damage years later. If you do display early symptoms of hepatitis C, it might be just a flu-like feeling, with tenderness in the liver area. In the later stages of the disease, you may feel tired or nauseous, or have a yellowing of the whites of the eyes and skin.

    Cirrhosis

    • Similar to hepatitis C, most people don't realize they have cirrhosis until the liver is already damaged. Cirrhosis is basically a scarring of the liver. And once the liver is damaged, it cannot clean the blood and store nutrients effectively. If you have cirrhosis, you may notice that you're feeling more tired than usual, you bruise and bleed easily or you're retaining fluid in your abdomen. Cirrhosis can be brought on by alcoholism, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other problems.

    Liver Cancer

    • Though liver cancer is a worldwide problem, primary liver cancer---which begins in the liver---isn't common in the United States. Most causes of liver cancer are unknown. But sometimes it can be attributed to chronic hepatitis viruses. Early signs of liver cancer may be subtle but include swelling in the abdominal region, weight loss and jaundice, which is a yellow tint to the skin and the whites of the eyes.

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