Show 1429: How to Love Your Liver and Protect its Superpowers

This week, Joe and Terry discuss liver health with two specialists. You may not have spent much time thinking about your liver. It is, however, an absolutely essential organ. When the liver is working properly, every part of the body gets the nutrients it needs and no parts are exposed to damaging toxins. These are among its superpowers. Find out why you should love your liver.

Nutrients don’t go directly from the intestines to the rest of the body. Instead, they pass through the liver first. There, this master organ breaks them down into compounds that can be recognized and utilized by individual tissues and cells. Moreover, if it finds nasty chemicals that shouldn’t be there, it utilizes its superpowers to transform them into less damaging compounds that can be more readily excreted.

You should also love your liver because it can store nutrients for unanticipated periods of fasting and hold off starvation. This was a tremendous benefit during earlier periods of human evolution. These days, we have less need for a hedge against starvation. In fact, when we overload our livers with alcohol or sugar, even its superpowers may not be adequate. The liver’s response to this kind of insult is fibrosis, a condition in which it stiffens and stores fat.

One of the liver’s superpowers is that it can regenerate itself so long as we remove the source of injury. That’s pretty remarkable! But what if we keep on eating ultra-processed foods (Nutrients, May 10, 2023) and drinking soda or alcohol?  In that case, the liver continues to try to repair itself. That can change the architecture of the tiny blood vessels that run through the liver, raising the pressure within them and ultimately leading to serious complications. Fatty liver disease, correctly termed metabolic-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), is the first step; cirrhosis and ultimately liver failure might follow.