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Roles of the Liver
The liver’s main function is to filter everything you eat. It helps guard
you from infection and removes bacteria and other toxic substances from your blood
to help you stay healthy. Your liver is also responsible for storing energy that
drives your muscles, and it also plays an important role in regulating your blood
sugar, and controlling your cholesterol and several hormones and enzymes.
Choose a topic below to learn more about the liver’s functions in the body.
Purification
The liver changes toxic substances like alcohol and nicotine
into harmless substances.
Although this is good for the body as a whole, liver cells can be
damaged in the process. Detoxification of alcohol, for example,
can harm the liver, leading to cirrhosis.
The liver also changes certain medicines into a form your body can
use, and inactivates other medicines after they’ve worked.
Harmful chemicals
are changed into harmless substances.
Synthesis
The liver takes simple chemical building blocks and combines
them to manufacture (synthesize) more complex substances. For example,
the liver manufactures most of the proteins found in the blood,
as well as those needed to clot blood, make new cells, and cause
chemical reactions inside of cells.
Simple building blocks
are combined to manufacture (synthesize) complex substances
Storage
The liver changes blood sugar (glucose) into a storage form
(glycogen). When the body needs energy, the liver releases the sugar
into the bloodstream. The liver also stores vitamins and minerals
until they are needed in other areas of the body.
Sugars, fats, and
vitamins are stored in the liver until they are needed.
Transformation
The liver uses enzymes to transform small building blocks (amino
acids, sugars, and fatty acids) into other building blocks. An excess
of one of these enzymes, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), is found
in the blood when liver cells have been damaged.
The liver, which inactivates certain hormones, regulates the amount
of testosterone and estrogen in the blood. It also plays a major role
in breaking down and building up cholesterol.
"Transformation":
The body’s essential building blocks are changed (transformed) to
be used in other ways.
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