Is Hepatitis Contagious?

Hepatitis is a common disease, which is generally caused by the damage of liver cell and the decline of liver function. A lot of people would wonder whether the hepatitis is contagious. The most important thing for us to do is to get knowledge about all types of common hepatitis.

When the liver is inflamed or damaged, its function can be affected. Heavy alcohol use, toxins, some medications, and certain medical conditions can cause hepatitis. However, hepatitis is often caused by a virus. Recently, hepatitis can be divided into 5 types.

1.Virus Hepatitis

Viral hepatitis is an infection disease that causes liver inflammation and damage. At the moment, it has discovered several different viruses link that cause hepatitis, including hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E.

Hepatitis B is specially need to take care of, because it can be easily transferred to other hepatitis, and the classic example for infectious hepatitis is hepatitis C, D, E. How does virus hepatitis spread? Infectious causes of hepatitis usually spread through person-to-person by direct contact with another person's blood that is infected.

2.Alcoholic Hepatitis

Alcoholic liver is a kind of liver disease, and it is mainly caused by long-term heavy alcohol consumption leading to liver damage and liver cell necrosis. Also, alcoholic hepatitis often has the inflammation of the liver. Inflammation is swelling that occurs when tissues of the body become injured or infected and can also damage organs. However, the relationship between drinking and alcoholic hepatitis is complex. Mild cases are self-limiting and can be treated or adjusted by themselves, but severe cases have a high risk of death, which may need to treat with glucocorticoids. Otherwise, the condition often comes on suddenly and may progress in severity very rapidly.

3.Steatohepatitis

Steatohepatitis is the result of the development of fatty liver, generally speaking, fatty liver mainly affect the metabolic function of the liver with concurrent fat accumulation. Usually it does not need special treatment. But if it develops into steatohepatitis, it means that the liver has been damaged and liver cells become necrotic, and then the liver protection treatment is needed to prevent further development of the disease.

4.Autoimmune Hepatitis

Autoimmune hepatitis is mainly because of some autoimmune diseases, and it is the liver inflammation that occurs when your body's immune system turns against liver cells. Currently the exact cause of autoimmune hepatitis is unclear, but researches find that there is a great relationship between genetic and environmental factors. Meanwhile, it is relatively rare to see in clinical research and usually can be cured.

5.Drug-induced Hepatitis

As we all know that, liver is the largest detoxification organ of the human body, and all the drugs are taken by people and necessarily needed to go through the liver detoxification. If the liver function is abnormal, coupled with long-term drug erosion, the burden of the liver will also be aggravated and can become badly damaged which can not break down certain medicines in your blood. If this condition lasts for a long time, it is highly likely to cause drug-induced hepatitis. The symptom of drug-induced hepatitis shows a redness and swelling of the liver that is caused by this harmful amount of certain medicines.

In addition, abnormal liver function with transaminase and / or bilirubin rise is the most common to find, which is always attributed to various hepatitis. So people often think that "abnormal liver function" or "jaundice" itself is infectious. In fact, these symptoms are only the result of hepatitis, and they are not contagious. All in all, none of the hepatitis except viral hepatitis is infectious.

Although we cannot find final cause in triggering the hepatitis or effective medicine to treat these disease, we need to avoid some bad habits, especially the symptoms of alcoholic hepatitis and steatohepatitis suggest us keep a healthy lifestyle to prevent it as much as possible.