Hepatitis
Question: What is the difference between
hepatitis, cirrhosis, and liver failure?
Answer: Hepatitis simply means inflammation of
the liver. Inflammation can be caused by infections from hepatitis viruses, by
alcohol use, by inherited diseases, and by eating certain mushrooms and
chemicals.
Hepatitis usually causes the
liver to swell because of the inflammation.
In the early stages of hepatitis
(inflammation), the body tries to make new healthy liver cells. If inflammation
continues for too long, however, the body starts to replace liver cells with
scar tissue. After years of constant inflammation and tissue replacement, the
liver starts to look like a big piece of scar tissue with few areas that
function normally. When a liver becomes mostly scar tissue, it is said to have
cirrhosis.
The liver is an
important organ--so important that it is impossible to live without one. When
too few liver cells are working to perform all of the liver's important
functions, liver failure is the result. Liver failure comes in varying degrees
of severity, but generally speaking, someone with liver failure usually only
has weeks to live.
Home Page
Newsletters
FAQs
H-SCAN Physical Age Test
Our Results
|