The liver

By Al Lowe
Contributor

Some More About Your Fantastic Liver
Part 2
Last time we noted that your liver is an amazing storehouse. But it has a lot more functions than that.
The liver has a great deal to do with the digestion of fats. It produces bile salts. These are used to emulsify fats. Big drops of fat cannot be taken into the digestive system just the way they are. So bile salts break these large drops down into little tiny ones. This is much the same kind of action as a detergent on greasy dishes. It is not really a digestive process, but rather a mechanical one, a change in size. This ‘bile’ is taken by ducts to the gall bladder, where it is stored until it is needed. If necessary, your liver can produce a cup or more of bile each day.
Incidentally, bile is an orangey fluid. It contains a couple of pigments, and here are a couple of terms for you. The red pigment is called ‘bilirubin’ and the green one is ‘biliverdin’. These are formed when red blood cells in your blood become worn out, and the red pigment, hemoglobin breaks down. The iron is extracted for storage, and the bili rubin gets back to the liver cells. Your liver can then get rid of worn-out hemoglobin and some other wastes, which could wreak quite a bit of damage on your body if they stayed inside it.
Speaking of getting rid of wastes, that is another function of this marvellous liver of yours. If you eat a big meal which is rich in protein, a great big steak, for instance, your blood may have way too many amino acids in it. In your liver, these acids are removed and split up. Some parts do go to make sugars, but other parts are converted into urea, one of the major waste products of your body. This urea gets to your kidneys, where it is removed as part of urine. So your liver gets rid of this poisonous waste, in addition to its other major functions. It also does away with certain drugs and even alcohol. Some hormones are de-activated by your liver, when they no longer have any useful function.
That liver of yours is also a manufacturing machine. Among other things, it produces the protein which is needed for the clotting of blood. Some other very special proteins, such as gama globulins, pop up here as well. Vitamin A can also be produced in your liver, as well as being stored there.
And, of course, your liver can have problems, like everything else.
One of the major ones is hepatitis, which is caused by a virus. There are two types of this disease. Infectious hepatitis is mostly characterized by jaundice, in which the skin and whites of the eyes become yellow. It is an inflammation of the liver, and often occurs in crowded , unsanitary conditions. The other kind , serum hepatitis, is usually transmitted by needles, especially among drug users. The use of unsterilized needles helps the spread of this fearful heath problem
Another dangerous condition for your liver is cirrhosis, which really means hardening. This is often associated with overindulgence in alcohol over a long period of time. And that fairly common scourge of mankind, cancer, can also cause the liver to harden.
So there is a very simple report on your liver. A couple of columns in a newspaper can’t even begin to cover all of the magnificent things which your liver does for you.
One of the marvels of your body, it is quietly working away everyday, all day. You should take the best care of it that you can.