Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article, I'll talk about the benefits of elevated bilirubin.
About 80% of the bilirubin in our blood comes from the breakdown of hemoglobin. The rest of the bilirubin is obtained from myoglobin and various enzymes.
About 300 mg of bilirubin is produced per day.
It is clear that if the blood suddenly begins to break down, then a lot of bilirubin will be produced.
It does not dissolve in water
Bilirubin is insoluble in water. It belongs to fat-soluble compounds. Remember we already discussed fat-soluble compounds in the statin side effects story?
Fat-soluble bilirubin easily penetrates cells and prevents them from working properly. It turns out that regular bilirubin is a toxin.
To get rid of bilirubin, the body attaches it to blood proteins and poisons it in the liver. There, bilirubin binds to glucuronic acid and becomes water-soluble. The liver secretes this bilirubin along with bile.
The bound bilirubin enters the intestines. There it still changes in a cunning chemical way, and then we meet it already at the exit. It is he who gives the poop its brown color.
If anything interferes with the flow of bile, the bilirubin will not flow into the intestines and the stool will turn white. This is a characteristic symptom.
Albumen
Albumin is a protein in our blood. It is he who keeps insoluble bilirubin in the blood and does not allow it to poison the body.
If there is too much bilirubin in the blood, then there is not enough albumin to bind it, and the bilirubin will climb into the brain. It is harmful. This is how it harms newborns.
Jaundice of newborns
Have you heard of newborn jaundice? There, the level of bilirubin in children rises. It is bad for the brain of a child.
To remove bilirubin, the child has to be placed under a blue lamp. This light makes bilirubin soluble, and the liver will merge it into the intestines along with bile.
Diseased liver
If the liver is sick, then it binds and removes bilirubin much worse. Therefore, tests for bilirubin are done.
So what's the use of it?
It may seem that bilirubin is sheer muck, but in fact it can be useful. Found out that bilirubin can act as an antioxidant.
First, it is associated with a lower risk of heart attacks.
Well-known British scientists conducted a study on middle-aged men, and it turned out, there is such a U-shaped relationship between the level of bilirubin and poor outcomes of coronary artery disease hearts.
Why is it a complex U-shaped graph? Because if there is too much bilirubin in the blood, then something is clearly wrong with the person, and he may die from this. At the same time, it turned out that too low bilirubin levels are harmful to men. But if the bilirubin is slightly increased, then the benefits for the heart are obtained.
Then back in Belgium in 2001, they found an interesting relationship between cancer mortality and the level of bilirubin in the blood. There, men were also examined, but only those with bilirubin within the normal range were selected. And all the same, the higher the bilirubin was within the normal range, the less often people died of cancer.
These stories were never clearly explained. But now they give as an example that not everything is so simple in our body.
Have you heard about Gilbert's syndrome? This is when the liver has a defect in an enzyme that binds bilirubin. In such people, jaundice can roll, and in the blood there will be a high concentration of insoluble bilirubin.
It turned out that students with Gilbert's syndrome somehow learn better. They measured the IQ, and it turned out to be higher than that of their peers. So much for bilirubin!
If you liked the article, please, like and subscribe to my channel. Check out my articles on related topics:
Fat-soluble statins
Fatty hepatosis
Vivid symptoms of liver disease
