Why do ammonia levels rise with cirrhosis?

Your liver has several big jobs to do. One key task is to clean your blood by getting rid of harmful chemicals that your body makes. Hepatic encephalopathy starts when your liver gets damaged from a disease you've had a long time, like chronic hepatitis, Reye's syndrome, or cirrhosis. read more

When the liver is damaged, it can’t break the ammonia in our blood down, so the ammonia just builds up in our blood, circulates around and causes symptoms up to and including hepatic encephalopathy/coma if it’s not removed by using lactulose syrup before this happens. read more

Any disorder that damages liver cells -- including alcoholic cirrhosis, viral hepatitis and fatty liver disease -- can decrease the liver's ability to detoxify ammonia and lead to rising blood ammonia levels. In addition, liver disease commonly causes bleeding into the digestive tract. read more