Welcome to another edition of Daily MedSorter’s Health Bulletin where we strive to make health topics easy to understand. In today’s edition, we’ll take a look at some interesting facts about our liver.
As you all know that liver is an important part of our body and this organ keeps working day and night to keep us healthy. The liver is located on the right side of the abdomen, inside the ribs.
The average weight of the liver is 1 to 1.25 kg. The liver is 10-15% smaller in women than in men and it is the second largest organ of the body after the skin. The main function of the liver is digestion and protection of the body and it contains a variety of enzymes that help in the digestion of food.
The liver carries nutrients to the heart and every part of the body. During digestion, ammonia gas is produced in the body, which the liver converts into urea and expels through urine. The liver also makes a protein called albumin, which gives energy to the body. By now you must have understood how many roles the liver plays.
You will be surprised to know that two large blood vessels are attached to the liver. One comes from our stomach which contains many nutrients, but the amount of oxygen in it is less. A vessel is attached to our heart, which provides pure oxygen to our liver. But only about 20% of the blood comes from the heart.
Then from here the process of the liver starts and blood starts reaching the liver. There are more than one million hepatic cells inside the liver. Their structure is hexagon shape. Within this, the liver processes the nutrients from the blood and stomach and puts them to work. The liver digests food in our body and produces bile.
Controlling blood sugar, detoxifying toxins, converting glucose into energy, balancing protein nutritional intake, etc., are the many tasks our liver has to do every day. Do you know that the liver makes the blood in the body and it starts this work even before birth? You will also be surprised to know that even after 75 percent damage, it repairs itself. Plasma glucose and ammonia levels are controlled by the liver. If this gets out of control, a disease called hepatic encephalopathy can occur and a person can go into a coma. So we can say that if we want the brain to function properly, then it is essential for the liver to function properly.
Did you know that vitamins A, D, E, K, and B12 are also stored in the liver along with iron and copper? It also helps convert vitamin D into its active form. We all know that protein is needed for the growth of the body, so the liver produces proteins and even helps enzymes and chemicals to form blood clots, which are needed to stop bleeding.
People who have an unhealthy liver may bleed more easily. The medicines we eat are not consumed directly in our body, rather the liver converts the medicine into a form that our body can easily accept. Therefore it would not be wrong to say that without the liver, it is useless to take medicine.
If the liver is fatty, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides will form. We can say that liver produces cholesterol which synthesizes certain hormones and generates new cells.
Fatty liver is a medical condition in which fat accumulates on the liver. Due to fat, the liver is not able to function properly which gives rise to many other diseases. There are also two types of fatty liver. The first is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the second is alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Now you must be wondering what is a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and why does it happen? Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a disease in which fat accumulates in the liver even if the patient does not consume alcohol. In this disease, a large amount of fat starts accumulating in the liver cells. The main reason for this disease is our lifestyle.
If we consume excessive amounts of pizza, fast food, and soft drinks, then there is a risk of fatty liver. Consumption of unnecessary medicines and some types of virus infections such as hepatitis C can also give rise to this disease.
But in today’s era, the main reason for this is our uncontrolled lifestyle. This means that if you want to avoid non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, then you have to control your lifestyle. At the same time, you have to sleep on time and wake up on time.
Now you must be wondering what is alcoholic fatty liver disease. As the name suggests, alcoholic fatty liver disease is caused by excessive consumption of alcohol. Alcohol is like a poison for our body and the job of the liver is to remove this poison from the body. If the liver is heavily stressed by alcohol, the risk of developing this type of fatty liver increases significantly.
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