What Is the Liver Organ? Understanding the Processes of the Liver

So you ask “what is the liver organ?” The liver is the body’s heaviest organ plus one of its largest to boot. It is located in the upper right hand part of your belly under the ribs. It is crucial to allow your body to work properly and keep you in tip-top shape.

The liver has a variety of functions from processing nutrients from food, making bile, removing toxins from your body and the building of proteins. The liver is quite a hardy organ and even an inflamed liver in most cases is not too much of a medical concern.

Still it doesn’t mean you can take your liver for granted and it is vital to cleanse it from time to time so that it can work to its optimum level. However let’s take a look at the processes of the liver in more detail starting with making bile.

Processes of the Liver Organ – Making Bile

What is bile? Well it is a thick, green yellow fluid that the liver manufactures to help your body digest food and in particular fat as it passes through the intestines. It is actually stored in the gallbladder although it is made by the liver organ. When someone eats a foodstuff heavy in fat such as a steak the body will release bile to help break down the fats in the steak for digestion.

Processes of the Liver Organ – Building Proteins

Proteins are complex chemicals that are essential to all living things such as plants, animals and of course all of us. They are everywhere in the body and have to be constantly produced for us to live. For example if it wasn’t for proteins we produce then our body would not be able to clot and we would bleed out.

Processes of the Liver – Processing Nutrients from Food

The digestive system begins to break down the food we eat into smaller pieces straight away. These nutrients will enter the blood and travel through the hepatic portal system which is the major pathway that blood takes from the digestive system to the liver.

What happens is that the liver organ will then process these nutrients in different ways depending what the body requires. It will often store many of these nutrients ready to be released for when the body needs energy. The rest will be used to make other crucial chemicals that the body needs.

Processes of the Liver – Removing Toxins from the Blood

All your blood will eventually pass through the liver. The reason that this happens is that the liver takes out all the bad toxins and compounds and removes them from the body.

These can be anything including drugs such as antibiotics or aspirin and other substances such as damaged cells, proteins and old hormones. The liver prepares all of these particular toxins to be removed from the body.

What Is the Liver Organ? A Conclusion

As you can see the liver organ is vital for the body for it to maintain balance and keep you healthy. Although it is a resilient organ you still have to look after it. It could do with a liver cleanse every six months or so to allow it to work in tip-top shape.