Your liver thinks your bogus “detoxes and cleanses” are cute. Really, it’s nice that you’d try to recreate the detoxing and digestive powers of this badass organ with temporary changes to your diet, but the truth is, your liver is the only real detox you’ve ever needed (although your kidneys help out, too).
Plus it has hundreds of functions o.jpeg)
n top of filtering chemicals out of the blood—a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that often goes unnoticed in healthy individuals. It makes components of plasma, platelets, bile, cholesterol, and a critical protein called albumin, which prevents blood vessels from leaking fluid (which is why patients with liver failure are often simultaneously bloated with fluid and dehydrated). It stores energy and iron for later use. It even aids the immune system by cleaning out bacteria and producing immune factors—molecules that help trigger and tamper immune responses.
n top of filtering chemicals out of the blood—a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that often goes unnoticed in healthy individuals. It makes components of plasma, platelets, bile, cholesterol, and a critical protein called albumin, which prevents blood vessels from leaking fluid (which is why patients with liver failure are often simultaneously bloated with fluid and dehydrated). It stores energy and iron for later use. It even aids the immune system by cleaning out bacteria and producing immune factors—molecules that help trigger and tamper immune responses. Despite all that, we tend to give our largest internal organ (three pounds!) a run for its money with fatty foods, alcohol, and medications that mess with its function. But the liver has a rare resilience in biology: like skin, it regenerates quickly, and never takes a break from its routinely scheduled duties. That’s great news for us, because we’d die pretty quickly without it, and even modern medicine hasn’t been able to replace its functions. Don’t filter this out.
So how bad is booze for you, really?
Alcohol is primarily processed in the liver, and it’s not an easy job. In the process of breaking down booze, the liver creates a carcinogenic chemical called acetaldehyde, which causes the liver to accumulate fat. This fat attracts more inflammatory immune cells, which can release chemicals signaling the cells to die.
Alcohol is primarily processed in the liver, and it’s not an easy job. In the process of breaking down booze, the liver creates a carcinogenic chemical called acetaldehyde, which causes the liver to accumulate fat. This fat attracts more inflammatory immune cells, which can release chemicals signaling the cells to die.
As mentioned above, though, most of the time the liver can regrow its cells. Irreversible problems, which can be fatal, begin when alcohol routinely overwhelms the liver, without giving it time to heal. And although scientists know that drinking correlates with elevated risks for other conditions, including heart disease and other cancers, the exact amount of alcohol consumption over a lifetime that directly causes them is still unknown.
Healthy individuals’ livers don’t actually need to go through any periods of abstinence, like Dry January, although there’s certainly no harm in cutting back. The real benefit to taking time away from drinking actually comes from reshaping your habits, so that you’re more likely to drink less when you come back to it.
“We have mechanical ventilators to breathe for you if your lungs fail, dialysis machines if your kidneys fail, and the heart is mostly just a pump, so we have an artificial heart. But if your liver fails, there’s no machine to replace all its different functions, and the best you can hope for is a transplant.” — Anna Lok, president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases
More about your liver (a controversial delicacy, and your soul): https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1535825/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=quartz-obsession