Human body
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Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.
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Life, Human body, s.v. "Liver," accessed March 19, 2024.
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Liver
Every drop of blood coming from the intestines must pass through the liver before it goes anywhere else. The body’s largest internal organ, the liver performs over 500 functions. Its main job is to process blood rich in nutrients arriving directly from the digestive system. It also makes substances needed by body cells and removes poisons, drugs, and debris from the blood before passing it to the rest of the body.
What the liver does
Blood that is rich in nutrients absorbed from the small intestines is brought to the liver by the portal vein. One of these nutrients is glucose, the body’s main energy source. This is converted by the liver cells into a substance called glycogen. It is stored in the liver when levels in the blood are too high, and released into the blood when levels are too low. Excess amino acids, which come from protein digestion, cannot be stored but are converted into carbohydrates and a waste substance called urea which is passed to the kidneys, from where it leaves the body in urine.
The liver stores certain vitamins, such as vitamins A and D, and minerals, including iron and copper. It makes the proteins found in blood plasma, including those involved in blood clotting. It also collects up old, worn-out red blood cells and cleans out poisons, drugs, alcohol and other impurities from the bloodstream. Some of the chemical waste is turned into bile, which is stored in the gall bladder. This empties out back into the small intestine where it helps the digestion of fats by mixing with them.
How the liver works
Blood from the intestines containing nutrients enters the liver through the portal vein. The blood is channelled into branches which reach out into all parts of the liver. The liver is made up of about one million tiny, six-sided lobules. These contain the liver cells, called hepatocytes, where all the processing and waste-disposal work is done. Blood passes through the lobules, and, once it is processed, collects into branches that take it to the hepatic vein, and from there on to the heart.
Branches of the portal vein deliver nutrients into tiny reservoirs called sinusoids (shown in deep red in the illustration), surrounded by rows of hepatocytes (pale yellow) inside each lobule. The cells take in and process the nutrients and other substances. Waste is sent to the gall bladder via a branch of the bile duct (green). The blood then drains back via the sinusoids into the central collecting vein, leading to the hepatic vein.
Consultant: Richard Walker