How many jobs does the liver do?

Answer 1

What does the liver do? The liver performs over 500 different functions! In fact it is so important that we cannot live without our liver. Maybe if you become a medical doctor you will learn all about them but right now we are going to look at the main things that the liver does. Let's look at the main three Your liver acts as a chemical processing factory to change most of the food that you eat into stuff that your body can use, and it gets rid of the things that are no use or are toxic (this word which means harmful to your body.) # Your liver makes bile which travels from the liver into the small intestine

Bile is a digestive juice which helps the body absorb fat from the gut into the bloodstream. The liver makes this thick, yellow-green substance then stores it in the gall bladder until the body needs some to digest fats.

# Your liver cleans your blood

Your liver takes toxins out of your blood. These may have been made by your body when breaking down proteins (say pro-teens), or been brought into your body through breathing or ingesting (say in-jest-ing) (this means taking into your body) something like alcohol, drugs or other harmful substances.

Your liver sorts things out and changes them chemically into what your body can use and turns what can't be used into something that dissolves in blood so that it can be carried to the kidneys. For example the liver makes urea (say you-rear) from parts of proteins that can't be used. It is poisonous so the body has to remove it. Blood collects this urea from the liver and sends it to the kidneys. They filter urea from the blood and it is then expelled from the body as waste in your urine. (See 'Your waste disposal system' if you want to know more about this.)

If you drink too much alcohol for a long time it can damage the liver so badly that it cannot do its job. This is called cirrhosis (say si-row-sis).

# Your liver makes and stores fuel

Your liver makes glucose from carbohydrates (say car-bow-hi-drates) that you eat, such as ones in bread, fruit and dairy products. Some of this glucose travels in blood to the rest of the body where it is used for energy.

Some of the glucose is stored in the liver as glycogen (say gly-co-jen) and it is there until your body needs to use extra energy, like when you have to run fast, react quickly or have to work your body hard for a long time.

It also helps to keep blood sugar at the right levels.