What is the 2nd largest organ of the body next to the skin?
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The liver is the second largest organ in the body (skin is the first largest). Surprising, few people know about the liver and its importance to health and well-being. This article will tell about the functions of the liver, the challenges it faces, and what can be done when something goes awry with this very important organ.
The Liver
The liver is the second largest organ in the human body, and it is one of the five vital organs—meaning the body cannot survive without it. Situated below the right ribcage at the bottom, the liver is about 8 ½ inches in diameter, boomerang shaped, with the adult liver weighing about 3 ½ pounds. The liver conducts several hundreds of functions every second; it metabolizes nutrients and substances, helps with food digestion, and cleans the blood. It also stores many vitamins and minerals and helps to regulate the body’s sexual hormones. Its biggest function, however, is to clean the blood.
The condition of the liver is often ignored until something is discovered to be wrong with the liver. The most common “condition” to affect the liver is TOXICITY, as defined in the Taber’s Medical Dictionary as “being poisoned.”
All blood that circulates through the body passes through the liver for cleansing. The liver is one big cleaning organ, among other things. Whenever there are substances that may be harmful to the body, the liver takes them out of the blood. The liver then takes these harmful substances and tries to convert them into a substance that is less toxic or acceptable to the body. If the harmful substance cannot be converted well, the liver either puts it into the digestive system for flushing out of the body through stool, or puts it back into the blood stream to be flushed out of the body through urine (most often). On occasion, the liver stores the substance to keep it from damaging the other vital organs (brain, heart, lungs, and kidneys). Stored substances either stay in the liver or are put into fatty deposits in the body (such as the fat around a person’s waist).
