Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Liver an important amazing organ

Liver is the heaviest organ in our body. It weighs about 1.2 to 1.8 kgs. Liver is situated in the right side so that most part would be within our rib bones; the lower end of the liver is palpated with finger in the lower border of ribs in the right side.
Anatomically liver is divided as right and left lobe based on the ligament which divides. But surgically liver is divided as right and left hepatic lobe based on the blood supply to the liver. In turn the both lobes are divided into eight total lobules.
The liver parenchyma has other cells about 20% other than hepatocytes. The lobules which divides to form as hepatic sinusoids. But they are not functional unit. The functional unit of liver is hepatic locules.
Liver has the major role in our body. It is the organ which has the major part in our food metabolism and storage. When the food is digested most part of the glucose formed is absorbed from our blood and stored in liver as glycogen. Thus it acts a vital role in the blood glucose maintenance. When the body goes for starvation without food, the glycogen thus stored in our body is break down to glucose for the usage. Another process in the liver is gluoneogenesis. In this process the glycogen is formed from non glucose content. For that proteins are the major content.
Along with glycogen, amino acid formation is also an important process. The amino acids are formed in the liver and carried to the organ using it for the body building and other purposes. The most important enzymes present in liver is Alanaine amino transferase (ALT) and Aspartate amino transferase (AST). They are the important enzymes for the amino acid transfer. Hence it is an indicator for the liver functions. Another enzyme named Alkaline Phosphatase present in most part of our body and it is more in liver too. It is another important indicator to find the pathology in the hepatic region or any obstructive cause when there is alteration in the liver functions.

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