What Is Yellow Jaundice?

As mentioned in the main article on jaundice in this section of our website, jaundice is not so much a disease as it is a symptom of some other problem, usually involving the liver.

Jaundice, which many people call "yellow jaundice," causes the skin and the whites of the eyes to look yellow. Some advanced cases of jaundice can cause the skin to progress from yellow to brown. Another name for jaundice is icterus.

The reason for yellow discoloration is a substance called bilirubin. To understand why jaundice turns the skin and eyes yellow, you have to know what bilirubin is and how the liver works.

Your body constantly replaces old red blood cells with new ones. When the old cells are being replaced, they begin to break down chemically. Hemoglobin, which is the part of the cell that contains iron and actually carries oxygen to the tissues and organs, is released. Bilirubin is the substance that's left behind.

Bilirubin is a yellow-colored waste product. It is processed by the liver (just one of many metabolic liver functions) and passes into the intestines. Eventually, it leaves the body in stool.

Jaundice, or yellow jaundice, results from several different causes related to bilirubin:

• when there's too much bilirubin for the liver to process efficiently,
• when there's a liver problem that limits how much bilirubin can be removed from the blood,
• when a bile duct is blocked and bilirubin and bile can't flow properly into the intestines. These blockages could occur due to gallstones, inflammation or tumors.

Yellow jaundice symptoms The build up of bilirubin spreads throughout the body, causing the yellow coloration of the skin and eyes that is characteristic of jaundice. The medical name for excess levels of bilirubin in the blood is hyperbilirubinemia.

Yellow or light-colored stools can also be a symptom of jaundice. Other signs of jaundice include:

• dark or brownish colored urine,
• itchiness (pruritis) which can sometimes become extremely intense. There have been documented cases of people who committed suicide because they couldn't stand the itching.

Someone with jaundice which is caused by an underlying liver condition (like cirrhosis or hepatitis) may also

• get tired easily and often,
• have swollen ankles,
• lose muscle mass,
• become confused easily, and
• have ascites, which is a fluid build up in the abdomen.

Yellow jaundice treatment There's really no treatment for jaundice itself, since it's a symptom of some other problem. You have to identify and treat the condition that's causing it.

At present, there are no tests that can differentiate various types of jaundice. It takes a battery of liver tests to come up with a diagnosis.

Yellow jaundice and the "jaundiced eye" You've probably heard someone use the phrase, "jaundiced eye" to mean a condition of opinion, prejudgment, or bias. This phrase came about because people in past centuries believed anyone who had jaundice saw the world in yellow shading. Alexander Pope's "Essay on Criticism" included a line "All seems infected that the infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye."

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