Look after your Liver

It’s National Liver Awareness Month and a good time to get clued up on how to keep you liver in tip top condition and what signs to look out for that could suggest your liver isn’t functioning as well as it should

What does the liver do?

The liver is an often forgotten organ, but its role in a healthy body’s functioning is huge.

Its main role is to remove toxins from the body’s blood supply, maintain healthy blood sugar levels and regulate blood clotting, but it has many hundreds of other vital functions as well.

For anyone who takes life-saving, or even headache-easing, medication you’ll be interested to know that without the liver metabolising or converting that medicine into an active form it would have absolutely no effect on your body and condition whatsoever.

Interesting Facts about your Liver

It’s the biggest organ in your body, after your skin, and weighs in at 1.5 kilos in a fully grown man
It can grow back. The liver is the only organ that can completely regenerate and repair.
It holds and manages a huge amount of blood. At any given point in the day your liver will contain 10% of all the blood in your body and filters it at a rate of around 1.4 litres per minute.
It takes your liver around one hour to metabolise an average, alcoholic drink (e.g. single measure of spirits).

How to look after your Liver

Get to and stay at a healthy weight
Avoiding obesity might be another way to help protect against liver cancer. People who are obese are more likely to have fatty liver disease and diabetes, both of which have been linked to liver cancer.
Limit exposure to cancer-causing chemicals
Limit alcohol and tobacco use
Drinking alcohol can lead to cirrhosis, which in turn, can lead to liver cancer. Not drinking alcohol or drinking in moderation could help prevent liver cancer.
Since smoking also increases the risk of liver cancer, not smoking will also prevent some of these cancers. If you smoke, quitting will help lower your risk of this cancer, as well as many other cancers and life-threatening diseases.

Is My Liver in Trouble?

While there are many conditions that can affect the liver, Cirrhosis and liver cancer would be the most common issues to look out for. Some of the most common symptoms are:

generally feeling unwell and tired all the time
loss of appetite
loss of weight and muscle wasting
feeling sick (nausea) and vomiting
tenderness/pain in the liver area
spider-like small blood capillaries on the skin above waist level (spider angiomas)
blotchy red palms
disturbed sleep patterns
Pain in the abdomen (belly) or near the right shoulder blade
Swelling or fluid build-up in the abdomen (belly)
Itching
Yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice)

Because your liver is responsible for so many different functions, if it stops working properly, a range of problems can result. So it’s very important to have your symptoms checked as early as possible - as with so many conditions, early detection and treatment are the most effective ways to combat the issues.

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October 2022