25 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Liver | Amazing Facts 4U
- ‘Hepar’ is the Greek term for the liver. It is because of this Greek name that most liver related medical terms actually start with ‘hepatic or hepato’.
- Any living creature with a spinal column or a backbone has a liver. In short every vertebrate including humans has a liver.
- Our liver is the largest glandular organ of the human body, its weight is around 1400 gms. It’s the second largest organ besides skin. It is reddish brown in color having two parts the right lobe and the left lobe. The right lobe is bigger than the left lobe.
- Amazing fact is that liver consists of 96% water stored in the cells.
- Our liver is the biggest detoxifying agent in our body A variety of substances and chemicals, counting alcohol, wine, beer, drugs and unlawful substances all are detoxified. It performs over 500 vital functions for the body simultaneously. Liver is the most complex and the largest of all metabolic organs. We are still not fully aware of all it’s functions.
- Amazing fact about liver is that it never uses sugar for energy. It only stores sugar. In fact liver is the storehouse of any excess sugar that we consume which is stored as glycogen.
- Whenever needed the liver breaks down the glycogen to form glucose to be used as energy fuel. Without this express mechanism to provide sugar in crisis situations , the blood sugar can drop drastically and you would fall into a coma.
- Glycogen characteristically absorbs nearly 6 times its weight in water, so your liver is also important for water storage.
- Liver is made up of about 10% fat. In fatty liver especially among alcoholics , this percentage rises. Fatty liver fails at storing glycogen made by glucose from food.
- Human liver is actually an iron warehouse. It also contains extra minerals and vitamins which allows a person to perform throughout the day.
- At any given point in time, liver contains 10% of the total blood in the body filtering about 1.4 liters of blood every minute.
- The liver protects our body from the toxins by cleaning the blood from chemicals that are produced spontaneously within our body because of daily metabolism.
- Liver is responsible for protecting our body from harmful substances or toxin that we put in our body either deliberately or unintentionally through food we eat or drink.
- Liver is responsible for making proteins which our body requires for growth.
- The chemicals removed from the blood by liver are either sent into our intestines through bile to be removed in form of feces or stool or to the kidneys to be filtered out through urine.
- Liver is responsible for producing bile. Bile is very important because it helps in digesting food in the intestines by helping to breakdown fats into smaller particles so that the pancreatic lipase can digest fat better.
- Bile produced by liver is responsible for the characteristic brown color of the stool. This color primarily comes from destruction of blood in the liver.
- Almost all medicines that we consume are processed by the liver. Because our body is not capable of using the medicines as is, the liver breaks them down in a form that the body can use.
- The liver is responsible for producing enzymes and chemicals that helps the blood to clot in the event of bleeding anywhere in body.
- Liver is responsible for making 80 % of the cholesterol in the body from other fats that we eat. While high levels of low density lipoprotein or bad cholesterol is actually bad, cholesterol is required for building cells as well as hormones. Hormones are the messengers in our body which communicate to various organs.
- We survive because of the blood. Before birth , liver is the organ where blood is produced.
- When liver is damaged temporarily or permanently due to virus, alcohol or tumors , blood pigments that are processed by liver accumulates in blood and your eyes and skin turn yellow.
- Artificial liver replacement is not possible but liver transplant is possible. Liver can sustain and survive heavy damage and can grow back.
- The first ever liver transplant in human history was carried out by Dr. Thomas Starzl in year 1963 at Colorado. The transplant was not successful because of the lack of effective immunosuppressive drugs. He made another attempt in 1967 which was successful.
- Liver transplant usually involves cutting out a certain part of the liver from the donor and giving it to the receiver. Liver is the only organ in the body that can actually grow back making transplant possible! In fact even if only 25% of it is still healthy , it can regenerate itself into a full liver again!
A great thought to start your day! Follow our blog on: www.informativequotes.com
