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The Liver is the largest internal
organ weighing approximately 3-4 pounds.
Your liver performs over 500 functions working
24 hours a day to keep you alive. The Liver
is the lynchpin of your immune system staving of infections, detoxifying
toxins, facilitating the clotting of blood and regulating hormones.
7 days a week and 24 hours a day, your liver performs 500
vital functions that keep you alive such as cleansing
your blood, neutralizing poisons and toxins, emulsifying fat, producing and storing glucose for quick energy, metabolizing
alcohol, drugs and chemicals, producing and regulating hormones, and it goes on and on.
The liver's importance to the health of your blood is particularly significant: consider for instance that at any point in time 10-15% of the blood in your
body is in your liver being cleansed.
An OIL FILTER does for a CAR
what the LIVER does for the HUMAN BODY
Everything you eat, drink and breathe that is
absorbed into the bloodstream
must pass through your liver for processing.
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Fat buildup in your body can lead to fat buildup in your liver resulting in fatty liver disease which can impair
the ability of your liver to perform all of its functions. Whether you want to lose weight, have increased energy,
detoxify or even enjoy a healthy sex life, the
health of your liver is central to these goals and how your body can attain them.
Fatty liver, also known as fatty liver disease (FLD), steatorrhoeic hepatosis, or steatosis hepatitis, is a reversible condition where large vacuoles of triglyceride fat
accumulate in liver cells via the process of steatosis.
Despite having multiple causes, fatty liver
can be considered a single disease that occurs worldwide in those with excessive alcohol intake and those who are
obese (with or without effects of insulin
resistance). The condition is also associated with other diseases that influence fat metabolism. Morphologically
it is difficult to distinguish alcoholic FLD from non alcoholic FLD and both show micro-vesicular and macrovesicular
fatty changes at different stages.
Causes
Fatty liver is commonly associated with alcohol or metabolic syndrome (diabetes, hypertension, obesity and dyslipidemia)
but can also be due to any one of many causes:
Metabolic
Abetalipoproteinemia, glycogen storage diseases, Weber-Christian disease, Wolman disease, acute fatty liver of
pregnancy, lipodystrophy
Nutritional
Malnutrition, total parenteral nutrition, severe weight loss, refeeding syndrome, jejuno-ileal bypass, gastric
bypass, jejunal diverticulosis with bacterial overgrowth
Drugs and toxins
Amiodarone, methotrexate, diltiazem, highly active antiretroviral therapy, glucocorticoids, tamoxifen, environmental
hepatotoxins (e.g. phosphorus, toxic mushroom)
Other
Inflammatory bowel disease, HIV, Hepatitis C especially genotype 3.
Pathology
Fatty change represents the intra-cytoplasmic accumulation of triglyceride (neutral fats). At the beginning, the
hepatocytes present small fat vacuoles (liposomes) around the nucleus - microvesicular fatty change. In this stage
liver cells are filled with multiple fat droplets that do not displace the centrally located nucleus. In the late stages, the size of the vacuoles increases pushing the
nucleus to the periphery of the cell giving characteristic signet ring appearance - macrovesicular fatty change. These vesicles are well delineated and optically "empty"
because fats dissolve during tissue processing. Large
vacuoles may coalesce, producing fatty cysts - which are irreversible lesions. Macrovesicular steatosis is the most common form and is typically associated with alcohol, diabetes,
obesity and corticosteroids. Acute fatty liver of pregnancy and Reye's syndrome are examples of severe liver disease
caused by microvesicular fatty change. The
diagnosis of steatosis is made when fat in the liver exceeds 5–10% by weight.
Mechanism leading to hepatic steatosis
Defects in fat metabolism are responsible for pathogenesis of FLD which may be due to imbalance in energy consumption
and its combustion resulting in lipid storage or can be a consequence of peripheral resistance to insulin, whereby
the transport of fatty acids from adipose tissue to the liver is increased. Impairment or inhibition of receptor molecules (PPAR-a, PPAR-y and SREBP1) that control the enzymes
responsible for the oxidation and synthesis of fatty acids appears to contribute towards fat accumulation. In addition, alcoholism is known to damage mitochondria and other
cellular structure further impairing cellular energy mechanism. On the other hand non alcoholic FLD may begin as excess of unmetabolised energy in liver cells. Hepatic
steatosis is considered reversible and to some extent nonprogressive if there is cessation or removal of underlying
cause.
Severe fatty liver is sometimes accompanied by inflammation, a situation that is referred to as steatohepatitis.
Progression to alcoholic steatohepatitis (ASH)
or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) depend on persistence or severity of inciting cause. Pathological lesions in both conditions are similar. However, the
extent of inflammatory response varies widely and does not always correlate with degree of fat accumulation. Steatosis
(retention of lipid) and onset of steatohepatitis may represent successive stages in FLD progression.
Liver with extensive inflammation and high
degree of steatosis often progresses to more severe forms of the disease. Hepatocyte ballooning and hepatocyte necrosis of varying degree are often present at this stage.
Liver cell death and inflammatory responses
lead to the activation of stellate cells which play a pivotal role in hepatic fibrosis. The extent of fibrosis varies widely. Perisinusoidal fibrosis is
most common, especially in adults, and predominates in zone 3 around the terminal hepatic veins.
The progression to cirrhosis may be influenced
by the amount of fat and degree of steatohepatitis and by a variety of other sensitizing factors. In alcoholic FLD the transition to cirrhosis related to continued
alcohol consumption is well documented but the process involved in non-alcoholic FLD is less clear.
It is just common sense to learn more about your liver and take care of it. According to the American Liver Foundation, 1 in 8 or approximately 40
million Americans are affected by some form of liver disease including hepatitis and fatty liver disease.
We are constantly being exposed to materials that interfere with cellular processes or that are poisonous. Such
materials are described as "toxic" and are generally termed toxins.
Increasingly, the toxins in our environment are chemicals introduced as a result of industrial processes or as
part of products that we buy. There is an
enormous and growing number of these compounds. We are producing and using these substances in larger and larger
amounts.
Ranging from fertilizers and insecticides used in agriculture, to chemicals and solvents used
in manufacturing, to plastics, packaging
materials, dyes, food additives, and a host of other materials
that we have in our homes, handle, and eat on a daily basis. Various drugs and pharmaceutical
products are noted to be toxic to the liver
as well.
In many instances, the potential toxicity
of new chemicals and compounds is unknown.
However, if they are useful in some part of our economy, they are being produced and released in very large quantities.
It is not an overstatement that we are currently
running a massive experiment, asking in a
rather crude way whether the natural systems, and nature itself, can tolerate, eliminate, or in some other way
manage these substances.
Organisms, including humans, have a complex system of enzymes that act on substances that are not a part of our
normal metabolic system. A major portion of this system is built into a complex membrane system within each cell
called the "smooth endoplasmic reticulum." The smooth endoplasmic reticulum (SER) contains a large number of different enzymes. Among these is a group of enzymes that absorb light of particular frequencies, and are known as
"cytochrome p450" enzymes("cyto" for cell, "chrome" for color).
There are a number of p450 cytochromes. While they are different enzymes, they share a common activity,
that of adding oxygen (or otherwise oxidizing) the compounds that they modify. While much is unknown, the alteration of compounds by the p450 cytochromes changes their
chemical nature, and thus their toxicity to cells.
In many instances, cytochrome induced oxidation
destroys or diminishes the toxicity of a compound.
However, in some cases, cytochrome action may actually produce or increase toxicity. Indeed, some drugs are ineffective until they are activated by the p450 system. The general, if not universal,
effect of p450 action is to alter a compound
in a way that makes it possible for the body to eliminate it from the body.
Once again, the liver plays a central role. Liver cells have very highly developed SER and contain a large proportion
of the body's p450 cytochromes. They also
have a rich blood supply with good access to circulating compounds and ability to release modified compounds into
the blood. While effective, the liver's ability to detoxify chemicals is limited. Chronic exposure to some toxins, such as alcohol, leads to liver disease and can cause death from
liver failure. Similarly, the liver can be
damaged by brief exposure to high levels of some organic compounds.
A healthy human liver (top) contrasted with
a
liver from an individual with Cirrhosis (below).
*Note the extensive damage and scarring from chronic
liver disease.
We started this discussion by emphasizing the importance
of the liver to our health. We have seen that the liver is responsible for critical portions of our metabolism.
If the liver becomes seriously diseased a number of essential metabolic processes are compromised. These include:
1) The ability of the body to store and synthesize
glucose, compromising:
Central nervous system function and mental processing
The overall ability of the body to manage and use fuels leading to fatigue and a general sense of "not feeling
well"
2) The ability of the body to store and use
calories stored as fat with:
Wasting
Fatigue
3) The ability of the body to manage amino
acid metabolism and to remove nitrogen from the body with:
Decreased synthesis of glucose leading to CNS function and fatigue
Accumulation of nitrogen wastes with resulting toxicity to many tissues
Human liver cells infected by the hepatitis C virus. Note the killed liver cells scattered throughout the field.
4) Disturbances in water distribution with
Edema
Generalized alteration of cell function with resulting fatigue and malaise
Circulatory malfunction
5) Loss of the ability to detoxify and eliminate
foreign substances
Because of its crucial role, liver disease strikes at the very heart of the body's functions and processes. You
cannot live without a liver.
Maintain the inner terrain of your body with
Extreme Liver Support™!
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