Location Of The Liver In Human Body – Weighing about 3 pounds, the liver is the second largest organ; only the skin is big and heavy. The liver performs many important functions related to digestion, metabolism, immunity, and storage of nutrients in the body. This activity makes the liver work vitally without body tissue will die quickly due to lack of energy and nutrients. Fortunately, the liver has an extraordinary ability to regenerate dead or damaged tissue; it has the ability to grow quickly as a tumor to adjust its size and function. Keep Scrolling To Read More Below…
The liver is a triangular shaped organ that extends throughout the abdominal cavity located below the diaphragm. Most of the liver is on the right side of the body where it goes down to the right kidney. The liver is made of very soft tissue, pinkish-brown encapsulated by capsule tissue. This capsule is extended and supported by the peritoneum of the abdominal cavity, which protects the liver and holds it in the abdominal cavity.
Location Of The Liver In Human Body
The peritoneum connects the heart in 4 places: the coronary ligament, the left and right triangular ligaments, and the falciform ligament. This connection is not a true ligament in the physical sense; rather, they are a condensed area of the peritoneal membrane that supports the heart.
Liver: Function, Failure & Disease
The vessels that carry bile from the liver and bladder are called bile ducts and form a tree structure called the biliary tree. Bile produced by the liver flows into small channels called bile canaliculi. Innumerable bile ducts join together to form many large bile ducts throughout the liver.
The channel then joins as the left and right channels, which carry bile from the left and right lobes of the liver. The two hepatic ducts join together to form the liver which drains all the bile out of the liver. Most of the liver cells eventually join the cystic duct of the gallbladder to form a common duct, carrying bile into the duodenum of the small intestine. Most of the bile produced by the liver is pushed back into the cystic duct by peristalsis until it is stored in the bladder, until it is needed for digestion.
Liver blood is unique among all organs of the body because of the portal venous pressure of the liver. Blood that travels to the spleen, stomach, pancreas, bladder, and intestines passes through veins in these organs and collects in the hepatic portal vein. The hepatic portal vein then sends this blood to the liver tissue where the blood contents are divided into smaller vessels and processed before being sent to the rest of the body. Blood leaves the liver tissue into veins that lead to the vena cava and back to the heart. The liver also has its own arteries and veins that supply oxygenated blood to its tissues like any other organ.
The internal structure of the heart consists of approximately 100,000 small hexagonal functional units called lobules. Each lobule has a central vein surrounded by 6 hepatic portal veins and 6 hepatic veins. This vein is connected by many veins like veins called sinusoid, which continue from the portal vein and veins to meet the central vein like the spokes of a wheel.
Definition Of Liver
. Bile is a mixture of water, bile salts, cholesterol, and bilirubin pigment. Hepatocytes in the liver produce bile, which then passes through the bile into the gallbladder. When fatty food reaches the duodenum, duodenum cells release the hormone cholecystokinin to stimulate the gallbladder to release bile. Bile travels through the bile duct and enters the duodenum where it emulsifies large amounts of fat. Emulsification of fat by bile turns large clumps of fat into smaller pieces that have a larger surface area and are easier for the body to digest.
Bilirubin in bile is a product of the liver’s digestion of spent red blood cells. Kupffer cells in the liver capture and destroy old, worn out red blood cells and transfer their contents to hepatocytes. Hepatocytes metabolize hemoglobin, the red pigment that carries oxygen in red blood cells, into products.
. The globin protein is further broken down and used as energy for the body. The heme group cannot be recycled by the body and is converted into bilirubin and added to the bile to leave the body. Bilirubin gives green color to bile. Intestinal bacteria further convert bilirubin to the brown pigment stercobilin, which gives stools their brown color.
Liver hepatocytes function with many important metabolic functions that support the cells of the body. Since all blood from the digestive tract passes through the liver, the liver is responsible for the metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins into biological products.
Liver Disease Stages: Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment
Our digestive system breaks down carbohydrates into the monosaccharide glucose, which cells use as a source of energy. Blood entering the liver through the hepatic portal vein is rich in glucose from digested food. Hepatocytes absorb more of this glucose and store it as macromolecular glycogen, a branched polysaccharide that allows hepatocytes to store more glucose and release glucose quickly between meals. The absorption and release of glucose from hepatocytes helps maintain homeostasis and protects the rest of the body from dangerous spikes and drops of blood glucose. (See more about glucose in the body.)
Fatty acids in the blood through the liver are absorbed by hepatocytes and metabolized to produce energy in the form of ATP. Glycerol, another lipid component, is converted to glucose by hepatocytes through the process of gluconeogenesis. Hepatocytes can produce lipids like cholesterol, phospholipids, and lipoproteins that are used by other cells throughout the body. Most of the cholesterol produced by hepatocytes is removed from the body through bile.
Dietary protein is broken down into amino acids by the digestive system before being sent to the portal vein of the liver. Amino acids entering the liver require metabolic activity before they can be used as energy. Hepatocytes begin to release amino groups of amino acids and convert them into ammonia and finally urea. Urea is less toxic than ammonia and can be excreted in the urine as a digestive waste product. The remaining amino acids can be broken down into ATP or converted into new glucose through the process of gluconeogenesis.
As blood from the liver passes through the portal circulation of the liver, liver hepatocytes monitor the blood content and remove many toxins before they can reach the rest of the body. Enzymes in hepatocytes metabolize many toxins such as alcohol and drugs into inactive metabolites. And to keep hormones within homeostatic limits, the liver also metabolizes and removes hormones produced by the body’s glands.
Seven Body Organs You Can Live Without
The liver stores many important substances, vitamins, and nutrients that come from the blood through the hepatic portal system. Glucose is transported to hepatocytes under the influence of the hormone insulin and stored in the form of glycogen polysaccharides. Hepatocytes also absorb and store fatty acids from digested triglycerides. The preservation of this nutrient allows the liver to maintain the body’s homeostasis of blood glucose. The liver also stores vitamins and minerals – such as vitamins A, D, E, K, and B12, and the minerals iron and copper – in order to supply these important substances to the body’s tissues.
Unfortunately, a common disease called hemochromatosis causes the liver to store too much iron, which leads to liver disease. DNA testing can now help you find out if you have a higher risk of developing this disease or others such as Gaucher disease and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, all of which put you at risk for liver disease.
The liver is responsible for the production of plasma proteins: prothrombin, fibrinogen, and albumin. Prothrombin and the protein fibrinogen are coagulation factors involved in the formation of blood clots. Albumin is a protein that maintains the isotonic environment of the blood so that body cells do not gain or lose water when there is fluid in the body.
The liver acts as the body’s immune system through the activity of Kupffer cells that line the sinusoids. Kupffer cells are a stable type of macrophage that form part of the mononuclear phagocyte system and macrophages in the spleen and lymph nodes. Kupffer cells play an important role by capturing and digesting bacteria, fungi, parasites, blood cells, and cellular debris. The large volume of blood through the portal system of the liver and liver allows Kupffer cells to be cleaned
