The liver, smooth, cone-shaped, red-brown and rubbery, is situated in the upper right part of the abdomen where it is partly protected by the rib cage. It is your largest and heaviest internal organ, weighing around 3.5 lb.(1.6 kilos). It contains 300 billion cells.
It is the centre of your metabolism, a complex chemical factory and filter that controls the body's absorption of food. It carries out more than 500 separate processes concerned with regulating all the main chemicals in blood and many other life-supporting functions. Despite its complexity, the liver is remarkably resilient. It can keep going even if it loses as many as 80 percent or even 90 percent of its cells through disease or surgery.
The liver is divided into a large right lobe, subdivided into three sections, and a smaller left lobe that tapers towards a tip, which is in contact with the stomach, intestines and oesophagus. Each lobe contains 50-100,000 small segments known as lobules. Each of these, in turn, contains hundreds of cells arranged like fine spokes radiating out from the central vein in a network of blood channels called sinusoids. These act like the holes in a sponge, carrying oxygenated and nutrient-rich blood to the liver cells.
What does the liver do?
It aids digestion by helping the absorption of fat and vitamins.
It distributes nutrients in food.
It helps to cleanse the blood by removing toxins.
It provides coagulation factors essential for clotting blood after injury.
It supplies globin, a constituent of oxygen-carrying haemoglobin in the blood.
It makes cholesterol and proteins which help carry energy-supplying fats around the body.
It regulates the blood level of amino acids, chemicals which are the building blocks of proteins.
It protects the body by removing bacteria and neutralising toxins that would otherwise accumulate.
It stores vitamins A, B, D, E, K and others for release into the bloodstream when supplies get low.
It turns sugars and fats into protein, and vice-versa, maintaining the blood sugar level.
It regenerates itself - it creates new cells as old or damaged ones die off.