Your liver carries out more than 500 distinct jobs for you. In case you don’t know what it does, here’s a little introduction.
By Dona Suri
We’ve been together ever since you were a wee blob clinging to Mom’s endometrium, but maybe you never got to know me very well. I’M YOUR LIVER, and I am both an organ and a gland.
If 75 per cent of me were removed, my remaining 25 per cent would REGENERATE and regain full size in two weeks or less – and I would be fully functional even as I was re-growing myself.
Like the kidneys, I PURIFY YOUR BLOOD: I can remove even poisonous stuff like alcohol and narcotics. That stuff can kill you. In fact, if it weren’t for me, it would kill you.
Before you were born, I made your blood, now I RECYCLE YOUR BLOOD. I remove old or damaged blood cells.
I AM YOUR STOREHOUSE.
I STORE IRON that blood needs in order to carry oxygen.
I STORE VITAMINS A, E AND K … and without those three you wouldn’t be here.
Before you were born, Vitamin A was busy with your development, making sure that all your cells specialized the way they were supposed to. And after that, Vitamin A has been keeping your bones, eyes, skin and mucus membranes healthy and making sure that your cuts and scrapes heal.
Vitamins E and K are partners and work in the Blood & Bone Development Department. Vitamin E is an antioxidant that prevents cell damage and Vitamin K keeps you from bleeding to death if you get cut.
I STORE GLUCOSE in the form of glycogen and release it into the blood safely and as needed. If I weren’t around to control your plasma glucose and ammonia levels, toxins would build up in your brain and you would slip into a coma.
By the way, glycogen absorbs over six times its own weight in water, so I MANAGE YOUR WATER STORAGE too.
There’s a limit to how much of any hormone you should have sloshing around in your body. I control that. I BREAKDOWN EXCESS ESTROGENS AND ANDROGENS and flush them down the bile drain.
When you take medicine do you think that the drug just goes straight from your stomach to whatever place is sick? Wrong. It goes when and how I say it goes. Medicine would be useless if I didn’t CONVERT MEDICINES into a form that your body can use.
I PRODUCE MY OWN PROTEIN AS WELL AS ENZYMES AND CHEMICALS. Among them are the enzymes/chemicals needed for blood-clotting.
Without bile you couldn’t digest fats or metabolize proteins. I MAKE BILE.
Worried about your cholesterol? You needn’t be if you treat me right. I MAKE CHOLESTEROL — both the good high-density lipoproteins (HDL) and bad low-density lipoproteins (LDL) – and I also strain out both kinds as necessary. I MAKE TRIGLYCERIDE, which is another kind of fat that stores unused calories and makes them available for quick energy.
I CARRY OUT MORE THAN 500 DISTINCT JOBS FOR YOU so I’ve earned a little consideration.
HERE’S WHAT I WANT:
Say goodbye to fatty foods, hello to fiber-rich fruits/vegetables, whole grains, salmon, tuna, sardines (lots of omega-3)
Drink about 6 pints of fluids every day, most of it water
Maintain a healthy weight.
Exercise … preferably aerobics because all us vital organs like a surge of oxygen.
Sleep well every night … 6 to 8 hours.
Avoid toxins: the worst are vinyl chloride (plastics), paraquat (herbicides), ethanol and alcohol.
SHOW YOUR LIVER SOME LOVE !