In deciphering the analysis of excrement or body fluid, one of the first indicators is color. It indicates a violation of the body or the whole system. With hepatitis, the color of feces often changes, as does the consistency. To understand why this happens and what changes indicate, you must first have an idea about the disease itself.
What is hepatitis: etiology and clinic
Chronic and acute diseases of the endocrine gland, located in the abdomen, of an inflammatory nature of various origin, are called hepatitis.
Given the duration of the disease, clinical symptoms, morphological features, hepatitis is acute and chronic. The underlying conditions in the formation of the acute form are infections and toxins. Most often, acute hepatitis, in addition to Botkin's disease, is caused by the following microorganisms:
- enteroviruses;
- Epstein virus - Barr;
- leptospira;
- shigella;
- Escherichia colli;
- butolotoxin.
Catarrhal jaundice (Botkin's disease) has its name because of the yellowish skin tone of the diseased due to the ingestion of bilirubin not processed by the liver into the blood. The color of feces in hepatitis A is white with a gray tint. Also, with jaundice, itching of the skin is observed, in the blood test, the content of cholesterol and lipoproteins is significantly exceeded.
Chronic hepatitis usually occurs due to viral. This form can develop against the background of other diseases: alcoholism, syphilis, lymphogranulomatosis, alveococcus. Pathology is dangerous because it is asymptomatic. Untreated chronic forms develop into cirrhosis, and later into liver cancer.
The World Health Organization considers hepatitis a dangerous disease. Lethal outcomes from it are comparable to the immunodeficiency virus and tuberculosis.
Types of hepatitis
Inflammation of the liver can be due to various hepatotropic factors. Based on them, a classification of hepatitis.
- Infectious - the disease is caused by a virus.
- Bacterial - damage to the liver tissue by treponema bacteria, leptospira.
- Parasitic hepatitis occurs with toxoplasmosis, opisthorchiasis, amoebiasis.
- Toxic: alcoholic, medicinal.
- Ray.
- Autoimmune.
- Fetal.
In almost all viral hepatitis, fecal color has deviations from the norm. This infectious disease differs not only in liver damage, but also in tissue macrophages of the digestive tract.
What type of hepatitis feces changes color
The main functionally active liver cells are hepatocytes. They make up to 80% of the mass of the gland. They perform many functions, including bile formation. Hepatocytes have a limited number of divisions and, unlike epidermal cells, lower ability to regenerate. With liver damage, hepatocyte destruction is implied. Hence the name of the disease.
A change in the color of feces rather depends not on the type or form of hepatitis, but on the degree of liver damage. So, the destruction of the gland caused by prolonged intake of alcohol, and against this background, the development of pathology, lends itself to therapy. In this case, excrement quickly acquires a normal shade (provided that alcohol is rejected), although the liver is affected by a viral anthropic disease.
In most cases, the tone of biological waste products changes. Similar changes in the color of urine and feces with hepatitis A and fetal. Last congenital, forms in the fetus in the womb at the sixteenth week of development. The causative agent of this form of hepatitis is a virus. The clinic is the same as with jaundice: the urine is dark, the stool is light, bilirubin is found.
What is the reason for the color change?
Stercobilin gives brown color to feces. It is formed from red blood cells due to the destruction of half of the non-protein parts, which are the coloring matter of hemoglobin. Aging red blood cells are converted to the green pigment of bile - biliverdin. Biliverdin is a transitional product, the result of the breakdown of hemoglobin, which occurs in the liver, spleen. Under the influence of enzymes, the green pigment turns into bilirubin. Further, the bile pigment is secreted through the liver into the small intestine. Part of bilirubin under the influence of intestinal bacteria turns into urobilinogen, which becomes stercobilin during oxidation.
The color of feces in clay-colored hepatitis is due to the fact that bilirubin does not reach the intestine, which performs the appointment of absorption of nutrients (small intestine), and sterkobilin simply does not form.
What in the coprogram indicates hepatitis
Coprogram - a comprehensive study of feces, allowing you to evaluate the work of various organs. The analysis is included in the list of free ones, and you can submit it at any clinic according to the compulsory medical insurance policy. Usually they pass him in the direction, and the results come to the doctor, who sent you for examination. Normally, feces should have a dark brown color, have a stable characteristic odor. The presence of liver pathology is indicated not only by tone, but also by a number of other indicators:
- Color from light yellow to white indicates destructive processes in the pancreas, liver.
- Maze-like consistency - a deficiency or overabundance of bile produced by the liver. Watery stools may be due to inflammatory processes.
- Acidity of 8-8.5 rN is a violation of the functions of the small intestine and the hollow organ of the digestive tract (stomach).
- Mild or lack of smell - disorders of the pancreas and liver.
- Stercobilin index below 75 - blockage of the bile ducts, malfunctions of the external secretion gland located in the abdominal cavity.
- The presence of white blood cells is an inflammatory process in the abdominal cavity.
- Fatty acids are found with a deficiency of bile produced by the liver.
- Triglycerides are a violation of the synthesis and transport of bile.
Photos with the color of feces for hepatitis in adults and children we do not provide for aesthetic reasons.
With this disease, excrement changes not only the shade. Only a comprehensive diagnosis allows you to make a conclusion.
What white color indicates
Light shades of excrement do not always indicate pathological processes of the abdominal cavity. With viral hepatitis, white feces is one of the first symptoms, but not the only one. Therefore, before panic, you first need to make sure that the case is not an isolated one and analyze the nutrition and the presence of any diseases in the last 3-4 months preceding an unpleasant symptom.
There are some reasons not related to liver pathology in which feces have a light tone:
- Lack of calcium or poor digestibility.
- Overuse of acidic foods.
- Taking various drugs, especially course therapy, upset the balance of the natural intestinal flora. Lack of bacteria in the small intestine contributes to the disorder of the bilirubin oxidation process.
- Dysbacterioses of various etiologies.
Light-colored feces can be a symptom of biliary obstruction. Clogging can form due to pathologies of the organ or its compression by the emerging neoplasms.
What else affects the color change of excrement
Fecal masses are waste products of the body. Nutrition is a necessity to sustain life. A varied diet is essential for health. Some products are not completely split, and excrement is painted in the color inherent in one or another food product:
- Citrus, sorrel contain a large amount of acid. The increased pH in the stomach promotes the production of bilirubin. Feces after the abuse of such products is usually an abnormal dark color.
- A greenish-colored stool indicates a person’s consumption of food rich in chlorophyll: broccoli, lettuce.
- Beetroot contains several coloring components at once: vitamin B9 and betaine. After eating the vegetable, the excrement is often red.
- Alcohol destroys the intestinal microflora. After alcohol, the stool is liquid and light.
What color feces for hepatitis also depends on the patient’s nutrition and lifestyle. It often happens that even with chronic inactive forms of pathology, excrement has a normal tone and consistency.
Hepatitis in children
Hepatitis A is quite widespread in childhood. Of all patients, 60% are from 2 to 15 years of age. The clinical manifestations are the same as in adults. In young patients, vomiting is noted, pain in the abdomen in the first 2-3 days of the incubation period. Feces in children with hepatitis A immediately brightens, and urine, on the contrary, acquires a brown tint. Jaundice is rapidly increasing and reaches a maximum within a week.
With hepatitis B, children develop weakness, nausea, and appetite decreases sharply. Sometimes mucous discharge from the nose appears. The liver and spleen increase almost immediately.
In children under one year of age, the pathology develops more acutely and quickly: the temperature is not well confused, sleep disturbance, lack of appetite are observed. If at least one of the symptoms of the child manifests, it is urgently necessary to show the pediatrician.
Serious consequences can be avoided if vaccinated.
Symptomatology
The light color of feces in hepatitis is one of the first clinical signs. Some forms of the disease are asymptomatic, but characteristic manifestations do occur. Often the first signs are similar to flu.
- General weakness, fatigue.
- A small but persistent increase in temperature.
- Gastrointestinal Disorders
- The skin and whites of the eyes become yellowish.
- Pain on the right side under the ribs, in the abdomen.
Laboratory blood tests often reveal an increase in alanine transferase, bilirubin, a change in the indicators of sublimate and thymol samples.
Therapies
Treatment of viral hepatitis takes place in infectious hospitals. In infectious - eliminate the causative agent of the disease. With all forms of pathology, alcohol is prohibited. Drug treatment consists in the use of:
- alpha-interferons ("Interferon", "Viferon", "Reaferon", "Altevir", "Eberon");
- reverse transcriptase inhibitors (Kopegus, Ribamidil, Rebetol, Vero-Ribavirin);
- interferonogens ("Cycloferon", "Neovir", "Amiksin");
- hepatoprotectors ("Hepabene", "Heptral", "Carsil").
Proper nutrition for hepatitis
In the treatment of any inflammatory liver disease, diet No. 5A is prescribed. Its main goal is to ensure the normal functioning of the liver, to improve the outflow of bile, with a lighter regimen for the gland itself.
Diet for pathology involves 5 meals a day, among the products prevail:
- low-fat dietary meat (rabbit, chicken, turkey);
- various cereals;
- low-fat fish that can be baked, boiled, steamed;
- bread - either dried or yesterday;
- sweet - jelly, marmalade and marshmallow, honey and jam, sugar (everything that contains carbohydrates that are easily absorbed by the body);
- milk, low-fat sour cream, sour curd, kefir;
- fresh vegetables and fruits, dried or in the form of juices, juices from non-acidic berries;
- salt - no more than 6–8 g. in a day.
It is absolutely necessary to exclude:
- fried, smoked and fatty foods (for example, pork and lamb should not be included in the diet of a patient with chronic hepatitis);
- canned food;
- spicy seasonings;
- sour cottage cheese;
- fresh bread and buns;
- legumes;
- cream cakes;
- mushroom broth;
- caviar (both red and black);
- hard-boiled and fried eggs;
- cream;
- ice cream and other chilled products;
- coffee.
If you follow a diet, if you compare the photo of the color of feces with hepatitis before and after use, the difference will be obvious.
Monitoring for early diagnosis and treatment of acute hepatitis is favorable. In chronic - it depends on the usefulness and speed of treatment and diet.