Guide to Your Liver
Your largest internal organ is a master at multitasking. Here’s how to keep it running.
What Your Liver Does
Think of the organ as a refinery. Everything you consume—from your breakfast burrito to any medication you take—your liver filters, processes, stores, and/or turns into something new (it even makes cholesterol). The organ also puts in the hard work of regulating glucose, which involves holding on to that sugar and then deploying it when your body needs energy. And your liver helps handle the dirty work of sending whatever you don’t need out into the toilet.
What Keeps It From Working
All of the factors below get in the way of your liver doing all of its jobs—and eventually prevent it from doing any of them. These drive the first stage of liver disease, which is inflammation. The second stage is called fibrosis, which occurs when chronic inflammation leads to liver scarring. In the third stage, cirrhosis, the refinery starts to function less efficiently. When cirrhosis goes too far, your liver begins to shut down, and eventually you’ll need a liver transplant.
