The Liver - Your Body's Engine

The liver is one of the largest organs in the body with two main blood vessels which are called the 'hepatic artery' and the 'portal vein'. A healthy liver is normally dark pink/brown in colour and weighs about 1.3 - 3.0 kilograms in adults.

Where is it?

The liver just under your ribs on the right hand side.

Can the Liver regenerate?

The liver is an incredible organ. It is one of the few parts of your body that can rebuild/grow itself. This is called 'regeneration'. In fact your body can rebuild a whole liver from as little as a quarter of the organ.

What is the role of the liver?

The liver is a very busy active organ with several main functions such as:

a) Converter of food to energy and materials (metabolism)

It plays a major role in breaking down food to give your body energy and the materials it needs to live and repair itself - this is called metabolism. The liver does hundreds of jobs breaking down your food in this way so the body can use what it needs.

b) Cleaner

The liver removes harmful drugs and toxins from your body, cleaning these from the blood.

c) Bile factory

The liver makes a huge amount of 'bile' to help your body break down fat in food and to help it absorb valuable vitamins and minerals. Bile is essential and controls many aspects of digestion and other processes in your body that are needed by specialised tissues.

d) Hormone maker - balancing act

The liver helps to balance hormone levels in the body including sex hormones, thyroid hormones, cortisone and other adrenal hormones (notably adrenalin). This affects everything from energy levels, sexual desire, temperature, mood and much more. If the liver is not working properly there is the risk of emotional imbalance, mood swings, loss of sexual desire (libido), fatigue, lack of concentration and severe PMT-type symptoms.

e) Vitamin and mineral store

The liver stores sugars (eg. glycogen), fat, vitamins (eg. vitamins A, B12, D, E and K), and minerals (eg. iron. copper). It releases these when your body needs them to help make more energy or tissue for growth and repair.

Further Details

For further details we recommend the description of the liver in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia and on the British Liver Trust web site.