KnowHOW team explains: Jaundice is the symptom of a disorder in the liver. In a healthy person, red blood cells are constantly broken down by the spleen and replaced so that they can carry out their vital tasks of transporting food and oxygen to different parts of the body efficiently.

Bilirubin comes out as a product of the breakdown of the red blood cells in the spleen. This yellow-coloured product is then carried to the liver where it is subjected to a process called ‘conjugation’, which dissolves the bilirubin so that it can be excreted through bile produced by the liver.

Normally, this conjugated bilirubin goes out through faeces. But, in certain cases (for example, pre-hepatic jaundice, in which too many red blood cells are broken down) bilirubin fails to make its way into the bowel. Conjugated bilirubin then gets accumulated and leaks from the liver cells back into the blood.

They show up first in the transparent parts of the body as in nails and the white pa-rt of the eyes. If bilirubin leakage is checked, colouration cannot progress any more. But in advanced stages, even skin turns yellow.

The question was sent by Arun Kumar Singh from Jharia