Your Liver Speaks Up

YOU probably give me little thought. Oh, you may at times be concerned about your heart or lungs, but seldom about me​—your liver. Many persons have little idea of what I do.

Did you know that if I were to stop functioning you would be dead in less than a day? In the number and complexity of my functions I put to shame your better-known organs, the heart and lungs.

I don’t mean to brag, but I perform tasks so complex that it would take a large chemical company with acres of plant to accomplish even some of my simpler jobs. And they just could not carry out some of my more complex assignments.

Actually I do more than 500 jobs​—at least that is how many have been catalogued. But men are constantly discovering new ones that I accomplish. I make over 1,000 different enzymes to manage my chemical conversions! Should I fall down on any of my major operations, you would get sick and die. Even my lesser duties are important to your well-being.

I participate in practically everything that you and the other organs in your body do. I’m vital to the digestion of your food, the sharpness of your brain, the strength of your muscles, the makeup of your blood, the beat of your heart. I’m well acquainted with you. Now, don’t you think you should become more familiar with me? Only if you care for me can I do the same for you.

My Abode and Size

First, you may wonder where I am located. I am well-hidden and inconspicuous. I don’t beat, as does your heart. Nor do I noticeably expand and contract, as do your lungs. So even though I am the largest organ in the body, weighing from three to four pounds, many persons don’t know where to find me.

I am situated mainly in the upper right part of your abdomen. But I do spread out! I am almost a foot long, and parts of me vary from one to three inches in thickness. My top reaches, in the male, halfway up the chest. And I extend all the way down to the lower edge of the ribs.

Thus, I lie under the protective cage of your ribs. Your lungs overlay the upper portion of me. And my lower portion, in turn, overlaps your intestines and stomach. You might have had a doctor press the tips of his fingers upward inside the right lower margin of the ribs. He was probably feeling for me.

Ingenuity is apparent in my location. Not only do I fit snugly into a well-protected space, but I am close to your other organs. This is ideal, because they depend heavily on me for their functions.

Key Control Center

Take the heart, for instance. I regulate the blood flow to it. Should there be a temporary surge of blood, I swell, absorbing the excess that might smother its pumping action. Then I emit the blood gradually so the heart can handle it. Being the vascular sponge that I am, I can soak up some three pints of blood, or I may hold as little as a few ounces.

I am also keenly interested in your food. The food you eat passes from your stomach to your intestines, where it is broken down, and usable materials are sent into the bloodstream. I am so situated that these materials first come to me. They are delivered to me by the large portal vein, which connects with the network of intestinal veins.

Portal is an appropriate name for this vein. It serves as a ‘port’ or ‘gateway’ through which food materials must pass before reaching the tissues of the body. And since the portal vein flows into me, I am able to monitor all of these materials, converting them into a form usable by the cells of the body.

My strategic position also allows me to protect you from harmful bacteria absorbed into the portal bloodstream. I have what are called “Kupffer cells.” These act somewhat like scavenger white blood cells. They capture, engulf and destroy bacteria as they pass through me. If it were not for this protection that I afford, a serious infection might develop somewhere in your body.

I also protect you from other toxic substances, such as caffeine and various drugs. If you were to inject such substances into my exit blood vessel that leads to the heart, you might be dead in minutes. But since they must first pass through me, I am able to safeguard you.

An indication of my efficiency was once demonstrated by an experiment that was conducted on dogs. Two dogs were given an equal dose of poison, one of the dogs receiving it in an ordinary vein and the other in the portal vein. The first dog died, but the second, having the poison rendered harmless by the liver, remained unaffected. In fact, the dose of poison had to be multiplied several times before the second dog was affected. That illustrates my importance as a poison-control center!

Your own body itself makes poisons that could kill you. Did you know that? For example, run up a flight of stairs or do some other exercise and your muscles burn glucose​—a body fuel—​to produce energy. In the process the muscles make lactic acid, which would poison you if it were allowed to accumulate. But I come to the rescue, turning the lactic acid into a form that can be utilized as fuel again.

Also, ammonia is constantly being formed as your body cells burn protein. The ammonia is absorbed into the portal bloodstream and comes to me. If it were allowed to accumulate in your body, you would die. But I take good care of you. I form urea from the ammonia and pass it along to the kidneys for elimination.

I also regulate your supply of hormones, keeping a proper balance. Too many hormones from your thyroid gland could harm you. I destroy the dangerous excess. I also protect you from over-accumulation of adrenal and sex hormones.

This may help you to see why I am the most versatile of your organs, and the body’s key control center. I am the main site of the interchange, synthesis, breakdown and storage of foodstuffs, as well as of other substances necessary for your well-being.

Incomparable Chemical Plant

Think of carrying on hundreds of chemical conversions, some of them unbelievably intricate, and yet getting them all done properly and on time! That’s what I do. I make substances your body needs, when it needs them. But due to the manifold and complex biochemical reactions involved, any description of my processes must be an extreme simplification.

For example, I receive sugar by way of portal blood in the form of glucose. This serves as fuel for your body. But if too much is fed into the bloodstream, you will go into a coma and die. So I see that this does not happen.

If there is sufficient glucose in the bloodstream, I convert the excess glucose I receive to glycogen. This is a convenient, compact form of storage for glucose, which, in its own form, would take up too much room. Then as the body needs fuel throughout the day, I change the glycogen back to glucose and send it out bit by bit. Such transformation, one doctor writes, “involves a highly interrelated and complex sequence of enzymatically controlled events.” Yet for me it is a simple, basic procedure.

In addition, I receive amino acids that intestinal enzymes have broken down from proteins. If I should pass these on in the form I receive them, they would be as deadly to you as cyanide! So I “humanize” them, changing them to a form of protein that your body can use to build tissue.

I also produce the fibrinogen and prothrombin that clot your blood. You would bleed to death from a minor cut without them! Yet, at the same time, I figure in the manufacture of heparin, which keeps the blood from getting fatally thick. One doctor likened this action of mine to making atom bombs and fuses simultaneously, without an accident or fatal explosion. Be grateful that I don’t get mixed up in what I’m doing!

Another substance I make is albumin. It keeps fluid from leaking out of your blood vessels into surrounding tissues. And to provide you resistance against infectious disease I make globulin, which contains immune bodies.

Yet another of my marvelous productions is bile​—that bitter, green-yellow liquid. I form it continuously​—up to a quart a day—​dribbling it into your nearby gallbladder for storage. It’s amazing what goes into it. For instance, each second ten million of your red blood cells die. As they pass through me, I pick them out, salvage parts for making new blood cells, and use some of the debris in bile production!

By means of bile I expel unwanted materials from your body. The bile is discharged into the intestinal tract, and from there it finds its way out of your body.

But bile is also important in the digestion of fats, being passed into your intestinal tract at mealtime. It aids, too, in the absorption of fat particles and vitamins from the intestinal tract into the bloodstream. Thus, I make and deliver bile to the intestinal tract so that important nutrients can be released and sent back to me by way of the bloodstream!

After I finish processing food materials, producing the nutrients your body needs, I may send them immediately into the bloodstream. This food-laden blood goes up to your heart, from where it is pumped to every cell of your body. Or, if they are not needed immediately, I store nutrients for later use​—sugars, fats, proteins, vitamins and iron being my principal storage staples. Then when these are needed, I send them out. I can also convert nutrients from one form to another​—sugars into fats or fats into sugars—​to satisfy your body’s needs.

Giving Proper Credit

I’m sure you must be impressed by the complex tasks I perform. But don’t get the idea that this is a complete survey. It only gives you some idea of what a masterful organ I am. Really, the more a person learns about me, the greater is his awe and astonishment.

But I can’t take the credit. I didn’t make myself. And certainly you didn’t make me! Why, the most informed medical scientists haven’t even learned how I perform many of my marvels of chemistry.

It should be obvious, therefore, that my maker is the Supreme One, the very Creator who designed your entire body so that it functions in such marvelous harmony. As the inspired Bible writer said: “Know that Jehovah is God. It is he that has made us, and not we ourselves.” (Ps. 100:3) He certainly made me!

You Can Cooperate

Do you respect God’s creations? I do hope so! For then you will not abuse me. It distresses me when I look around and see how so many of my neighbors are abused by their owners. Did you know that in 1967 nearly 28,000 persons died of cirrhosis of the liver in the United States alone? This is a disease that destroys liver cells and replaces them with useless scar tissue.

And what causes cirrhosis? Overindulgence in alcohol is a principal factor. I convert alcohol into carbon dioxide and water, preventing a fatal buildup of it in your blood. But when a person daily consumes large amounts of alcohol, his liver cannot take it. It breaks down, becoming shrunken, hard and knobby. If this is not stopped, death will ensue.

This does not mean I am a delicate organ. Far from it! Actually my regenerative powers are amazing. Should part of me be removed​—even up to 80 percent or more—​I could keep you going until I grow new tissue. In a few months I would be back to normal size!

Still, I need your cooperation to keep healthy, and to keep you healthy. A balanced diet of wholesome foods is my chief requirement. This means eating foods that contain the basic nutrients​—carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Particularly do I need protein in which all the essential amino acids are present in the right proportion. Foods of animal origin​—eggs, meat, chicken, fish—​are an important source of this.

My greatest enemy perhaps is too much of the wrong kinds of food. You simply can’t expect me to keep healthy if you live on a diet of pastries and devitalized processed foods. Nor can I function properly if you put on too much weight, or fail to get adequate physical exercise.

Do you want to be healthy? Then remember that I am one of your best protections against disease. So take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.