In these days in which whoever else lives with a certain excess of both calorie intake and alcohol intake that does so much damage, I have considered it appropriate to end the year by paying tribute to an organ that works hard, without noise and without rest. , and allows the rest of the organs, such as the heart, or the brain, to carry out their function and make possible the existence of love and reason and also, as is perhaps more frequent lately, hate and unreason. What organ am I referring to? Perhaps you have already guessed it. I’m talking about the liver.
Anyone knows what the heart, lungs, or brain does, but fewer know why we need a liver and what functions it performs in our body. Why should we take care of our liver?
The liver is an essential organ, one of those that, unlike the spleen, for example, cannot be removed without causing death, and it carries out countless activities to keep us in good health. To begin with, it acts as a filter for the blood that constantly cleanses it.
The liver functions as the reception port for materials that enter the body, a port in which food and nutrients are organized according to the category to which they belong, are cleaned of any toxins that may accompany them, and are finally distributed. to the rest of the organism. The liver also performs the detoxification and primary metabolism of many drugs and environmental toxins.
The liver processes carbohydrates and stores them in the form of glycogen, made up of long chains of glucose linked to each other, and which are stored in this way until it is necessary to undo the chains and release the glucose molecules for distribution and use as fuel for the generation of metabolic energy. The liver also metabolizes lipids, organizing them for distribution to the muscle and heart, which use them as a source of energy, or for storage in adipose tissue, which will make them available to the rest of the body when needed, for example. , in periods of low energy input. Cholesterol metabolism is also carried out in the liver, and if the liver does not work well in this regard, we can suffer from circulatory problems caused by an incorrect accumulation of cholesterol in the arteries, which causes atherosclerosis. The drugs used to control cholesterol, known as statins, act on the liver.
This organ is also fundamental in the metabolism of proteins, for their conversion into amino acids that are then equally distributed to the rest of the body through the blood, and also for the conversion of part of these amino acids into glucose and their storage in glycogen, since the liver is the main responsible for the brain never lacking glucose, the main source of energy for its functioning. Yes, our thoughts and emotions are only possible thanks to the energy stored in glucose that, in a regulated and balanced way, the liver continuously provides to the brain. In this task, the liver is helped by the pancreas, which produces the two main hormones that regulate the concentration of glucose in the blood, the well-known insulin and glucagon, to which the liver responds, either by storing or by releasing glucose into the blood. , as conditions require.
The liver also performs important functions unrelated to metabolism. Except for immunoglobulins, also called antibodies, the liver produces all the proteins in the blood plasma, including the proteins necessary for the transport of lipids and for coagulation, without which we would suffer from haemophilia. In addition, the liver secretes into the blood complement proteins, a very effective antimicrobial defense system – which I have talked about several times in the programs dedicated to the immune system in Speaking with Scientists – without which we would constantly fall ill with bacterial infections. The liver also produces acute phase proteins, complement-binding defense proteins that the liver produces in response to substances released by immune cells located on epithelial surfaces that have detected bacteria or other pathogens that have entered the body. Lastly, the liver is the main storehouse for macrophages, essential cells for antimicrobial defense and for cleaning the blood of foreign particles, including aged or damaged red blood cells themselves.
I hope that this brief walk through the multiple functions of the liver has made clear its importance and why it is necessary to take care of it, as much as we have to take care of our hearts. In fact, we should take care of it more than the heart, since if artificial hearts have been able to be developed, for the moment it has turned out to be impossible to develop an artificial liver, not even a semi-natural one, that is, it has not been possible to develop functional devices that house liver cells either. It is not surprising, given the numerous and dissimilar functions that the liver performs and all the regulatory molecules of its function to which it must respond.
Liver diseases are therefore serious. We all know cirrhosis, caused more frequently by excessive and continued alcohol consumption, which the liver is ultimately unable to detoxify, which ends up damaging it. We are also familiar with hepatitis, particularly viral hepatitis, transmitted by intravenous drug abuse. However, recently, it has become clear that around 25% of the population in Europe and more than 30% in North America suffer from a silent disease with the strange name of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. It is a liver disease, not caused by alcohol consumption, in which it accumulates fat improperly. There are two varieties of this disease, one not accompanied by inflammation, and another, more serious, accompanied by the latter. This disease often progresses to cirrhosis, liver failure, cardiovascular disease, and even liver carcinoma.
If not alcohol consumption, what is the cause of hepatic steatosis? From what is known, 90% of the obese, 60% of diabetics, and up to 20% of people with normal weight develop non-inflammatory fatty liver, and 3-12% of the population develop the inflammatory variety. The causes of these enormous incidence figures are attributable in some cases to genetic risks, but above all to over nutrition or lack of physical exercise. Excessive intake of fructose and omega-6 fatty acids may be decisive for the development of the disease.
Interestingly, habitual snoring while sleeping is a risk factor for the development of hepatic steatosis. Snoring is associated with apnea and low blood oxygen levels, that is, with hypoxia. Chronic hypoxia can eventually cause insulin resistance and liver damage leading to steatosis. Snoring is the most likely cause of steatosis in thin people.
What signs are the most important to know if we may be developing hepatic steatosis? As far as is known, elevated levels of liver enzymes in the blood, revealed by routine blood tests, which ideally all of us should perform regularly, may be the first signs. If the elevated levels of these enzymes are not punctual and appear regularly in successive blood tests, it may be a clear sign that we are developing this disease and we must try to remedy it or, at least, slow down its progress, following, of course, our doctor’s instructions, which will probably include weight loss and more physical exercise. Otherwise, we can begin to suffer the consequences of liver malfunction, which can include blood clotting problems and, therefore, internal bleeding, frequent infections, accumulation of toxins that can affect brain function, and metabolic problems. .
So far, there are no effective drugs to treat hepatic steatosis and when things get ugly, liver transplantation is the only option left to stay alive. Research on new drugs that may be useful to stop the progress of this disease is intense and is using new study methods with the so-called organoids, or three-dimensional cell cultures that try to imitate as much as possible the real conditions in which the Liver cells carry out their function, including the blood flow that constantly supplies the liver. These three-dimensional organoids can be manipulated to recreate the conditions of liver disease and thus allow the study of innovative therapeutic strategies to treat it.
Finally, it is important to mention that one of the most interesting research avenues on hepatic steatosis arises from the study of the intestinal bacterial flora, the so-called microbiome. This has changed remarkably in recent decades due to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, not only those prescribed by doctors to treat infections, but also those supplied to farm animals to prevent disease and promote growth. The accumulation of antibiotics in the environment has ended up affecting the balance of the intestinal microbiome and this may have had a negative influence on the liver function of many people, which would explain the high incidence of hepatic steatosis, even in thin people and physically active. As we can see, human activity has not only caused planetary climate change, but has also generated a microbiotic change that also affects our health. The hope remains that understanding the nature of this change through research may one day allow intervention on it to reverse it, which will also help the rational use of antibiotics in the long term.
Jorge Laborda (08/01/2023)
Works by Jorge Laborda.
WE ARE SURROUNDED!
WE ARE SURROUNDED!
Your defenses against coronavirus
Your defenses against coronavirus
Deflamed immunology: An introduction to the immune system and its pathologies
Deflamed immunology: An introduction to the immune system and its pathologies
Deflamed immunology: An introduction to the immune system and its pathologies
Kilo of Science Volume XII eBook
Kilo of Science Volume XII Paper
Kilo of Science Volume I. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume II. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume III. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume IV. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume V. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume VI. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume VII. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume VIII. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume IX. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume X. Jorge Laborda
Kilo of Science Volume XI. Jorge Laborda
Matrix of homeopathy
Chained circumstances. Ed.Lulu
Chained circumstances. Amazon
One moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One Moon one civilization why the Moon tells us we are alone in the universe
The thousand and one bases of ADN and other science stories
Adenius Fidelius
The intelligence funnel and other essays
The gods have been cloned