Your liver is so cool, you should take care of it

Its three main jobs: filtering harmful stuff from your blood, storing fuel and making bile to help you digest food, according to Dr Minesh Khatri, in a WebMD review. But that’s just the beginning. Here’s why your liver is so cool, you should take care of it Apart from your skin, your liver is the […]

Its three main jobs: filtering harmful stuff from your blood, storing fuel and making bile to help you digest food, according to Dr Minesh Khatri, in a WebMD review.

But that’s just the beginning. Here’s why your liver is so cool, you should take care of it

Apart from your skin, your liver is the biggest organ you have. An adult liver weighs around 1.4kg, roughly the equivalent of three big “orobos” (or 50cl coke bottle), liquid content only.

At any given time, 13% of your blood is in the liver.

When damaged, as much as three-quarters of it can be taken out without destroying it. It often grows back to its original size with a few weeks. And if you need a new liver, a doctor sometimes use a piece of someone else’s—and you can watch it grow to fit your body.

Your medicines need your liver to “activate” them to work well. This activation releases chemicals that control how quickly drugs are broken down, used and then “deactivated” and excreted in urine or faeces.

Your liver takes cholesterol and makes bile, a juice that helps break down fats and vitamins so your body can use them. Other portions of the bile are stored in your gall bladder until it is needed in your small intestine.

It is the job of your small intestines to take in nutrients from your food, but it must pass them into your blood. For this to happen, your liver must first put the nutrients in forms your body can use. It stores iron, folates and some vitamins and delivers them where and when your body needs them.

So your blood carries nutrients, but it also carries toxins. Once your body picks up what it can use, whatever is left is broken down and sent out as waste one of two ways: it may be carried in your bile and goes out with your poop; it may  go into your blood, then to your kidneys and goes out with your urine.

So apart from toxins in your food, the toxins from alcohol, pesticides, heavy metals are a problem. It is your liver’s job to render them into harmless waste that you can get rid of as waste.

In addition to toxin catcher, the liver also finds, catches and destroys harmful bacteria, viruses and other germs that may get inside you through food. The largest land army of immune system soldiers (called phagocytes) that eat germs is found in the liver. This army can launch a full-blown “war” when needed.

Getting rid of toxins in the blood keeps you thinking straight. When the toxins are not gotten rid of, they build up and change your mood, sleep habits and the way you act. The liver’s purifying function helps sharpen your brain.

The liver is a fuel tank, a fuel factory and chemical factory rolled into one. As a tank, it stores a day’s worth of glucose, which kicks in when you don’t eat and your blood sugar gets too low. As a factory, it takes amino acids from digested food and turns them into fatty acids, which become ketones for energy when you run out of glucose.

As a factory, the liver takes nutrients from your food, build amino acids into proteins, takes vitamins to parts of your body where they are needed, and helps your blood clot so you don’t bleed too much after an injury.

When your red blood cells break down, the waste product is bilirubin. Jaundice occurs when there is big buildup of bilirubin in your body. It turns your skin and the whites of your eyes yellow. The liver helps to get rid of bilirubin.