Liver Cirrhosis: Degenerative Disease

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ons that help maintain our body. Unfortunately the liver can be subjected to different disease, such as liver cirrhosis. Liver Cirrhosis is the result of scar tissue replacing and damaging healthy tissue, this is considered a degenerative disease. According to WebMD there are at least 31,000 in the United States that died from liver cirrhosis each year. I believe this disease is important to know and understand because it is caused by lifestyles. Not all people believe their lifestyle will affect them in the future especially when they're in their 20s. Also it is important to understand because it takes place in the liver which we need to live hence, live-r. As stated before the liver is the single largest most important organ in our body, The two main causes are alcohol abuse and hepatitis C. Now this doesn’t mean that everyone who drinks can develop liver cirrhosis. This is due to people taking more drinks per day for a long period of time. But for some people it does not start off as alcohol liver cirrhosis right away although it could. The process starts off as fatty liver, then it goes to alcohol hepatitis, and at the end its alcohol liver cirrhosis. In some cases the process can skip alcoholic hepatitis, (Common Causes of Cirrhosis, 2015). Alcohol abuse affects the liver because it can’t keep up with trying to breakdown the alcohol leading to scarring of the liver and inflammation, (Alcohol and Liver Disease, If a person is diagnosed within six months of the infection they may not have liver problems. But if a person is diagnosed after those six months then in the future they can suffer from liver disease, (What Happens, 2014). Hepatitis C affects the ability of the liver to produce bile if no bile is being produce the gallbladder is then inflammated. The symptoms may not be immediate instead they start showing up after the disease has run its course. There are two symptoms categories the minor and the serious ones. The minor symptoms are when the disease is still at the acute stage and those are; nose bleeds, weight loss, jaundice, itchy skin, weakness, decreased appetite, and the most common fatigue. The serious symptoms are when the disease has turned chronic they are, abdominal swelling, leg swelling, confusion, having a difficult thinking, and in males they may start developing breast tissue, (Treatment,

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