Gallstones in the liver, a major health risk.
Think of the liver as a large city with thousands of houses and streets. There are underground pipes for delivering water, oil and gas. Sewage systems and garbage trucks remove the city’s waste products. Power lines deliver energy tot eh homes and businesses. Factories, transport systems, communication networks and stores meet the daily requirement of the residents. The organization of city life is such that it can provide all that it needs for the continued existence of the population. But if a major strike , a power outage, a devastating earthquake or a major act of terrorism such as 9/11, suddenly paralyses city life, the population will begin to suffer serious shortages in all these vital sectors.
Like a city’s infrastructure, the liver has hundreds of different functions and is connected with every part of the body. Every moment of the day it’s involved in manufacturing, processing and supplying vast amounts of nutrients. These nutrients feed the 60 to 100 trillion inhabitants (cells) of the body.
Each cell is, in itself, a microscopic city of immense complexity, with billions of chemical reaction per second. To sustain the incredibly diverse activities of all the cells of the body without disruption, the liver must supply them with a constant stream of nutrients, enzymes and hormones. With its intricate labyrinth or veins, ducts and specialized cells, the liver needs to be completely unobstructed in order to maintain a problem free production line and frictionless distribution system throughout the body.
The liver is the main organ responsible for distributing and maintaining the body’s fuel supply. Furthermore, its activities include the breaking down of complex chemicals and the synthesis of protein molecules. Te liver acts as a cleansing device; it also deactivates the hormones, alcohol and medicinal drugs, Its task is to modify these biologically active substances s o that they lose the potentially harmful effects- a process known as detoxification. Specialized cells in the liver’s blood vessels (Kupfler cells) mop up harmful elements and infectious organisms reaching the liver from the gut. The liver excretes the waste materials resulting from the actions via its bile duct network.