Myth related to Jaundice

Hey Guys!! What's up? Hope you all are doing well and having a fantastic day. Today I am going to take you on a journey of busting myths which have plagued our society for so long and surprisingly, we still find ourselves struck by it. I think this is due to the fact that it has ingrained deep into our system.

Yesterday, I was wondering about the myth prevalent in our society related to diseases. I am pretty sure all of you must have come across at least one myth when you fell sick or showed signs of some disease/infection. Today, I am going to tell you the myth surrounding Jaundice and how easily we get influenced by it. This may sound weird at first, but i will clear your misconception along the way. 

There is a myth about jaundice that one should avoid eating or drinking food items which are yellow in color. Actually in jaundice patient skin and eyes color turn yellow so people believe that if they take any food items or drink which are yellow in color, their skin color will become more yellowish. This sounds so ridiculous and actually has no scientific evidence to it at all. But people still believe in it because it has been passed on to them from generations to generations. I can tell you that this happens because of bilirubin content in our blood. Bilirubin is a yellow color substance normally produced when old red blood cells are broken down. It is then metabolized by the liver so that it can be removed from the body. For a healthy patient, bilirubin content is anywhere between 0.2-0.8 ml/100ml blood and in jaundice this increases to 0.8-2 ml/100ml blood. This is the sole reason why our skin turns yellow in Jaundice.

Except this there are many other myths also related to Jaundice like Jaundice can be treated with sunlight therapy, if the patient is newborn baby then feed them with water to ‘flush out’ the jaundice, etc. These all are baseless and there is no link between these factors.

You know what, it's all in our thoughts, therefore, we need to use our own thinking and scientific reasoning to arrive at any conclusions. Hope you will find this useful. Till my next blog, take off your shackles and bust all the useless myths which have hold us back for so long.