Location Of Liver In The Human Body – The liver, which weighs about 3 pounds, is the second largest organ in the body; only the skin is bigger and heavier. The liver performs many important functions related to digestion, metabolism, immunity and the storage of nutrients in the body. These functions make the liver a vital organ, without which the body’s tissues would quickly die due to lack of energy and nutrients. Fortunately, the liver has an incredible ability to regenerate dead or damaged tissue; it is able to grow as fast as a cancerous tumor to regain its normal size and function.

The liver is a roughly triangular organ that spans the entire abdominal cavity below the diaphragm. Most of the liver’s mass is located on the right side of the body, where it descends inferiorly towards the right kidney. The liver consists of very soft, pinkish-brown tissue, encapsulated by a connective tissue capsule. This capsule is covered and further strengthened by the abdominal peritoneum, which protects the liver and holds it in place in the abdominal cavity.

Location Of Liver In The Human Body

The peritoneum connects the liver in four places: the coronary ligament, the left and right triangular ligaments, and the falciform ligament. These connections are not true connections in the anatomical sense; rather, they are condensed areas of the peritoneal membrane that support the liver.

Liver Male Anatomy Posterior X Ray View Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 20902188

The tubes that carry bile through the liver and gallbladder are called bile ducts and form a branched structure called the biliary tree. Bile produced by liver cells flows into microscopic channels called bile ducts. Countless bile ducts merge into many larger bile ducts found throughout the liver.

Next, these bile ducts join to form the larger left and right hepatic ducts, which carry bile from the left and right lobes of the liver. These two hepatic ducts join to form the common hepatic duct, which carries all the bile away from the liver. The common hepatic duct eventually joins the cystic duct leaving the gallbladder to form the common bile duct, which carries bile from the small intestine to the duodenum. Most of the bile produced by the liver is pushed back through the cystic duct by peristalsis to reach the gallbladder for storage until it is needed for digestion.

The blood supply to the liver is unique among all organs of the body thanks to the hepatic portal vein system. Blood that travels to the spleen, stomach, pancreas, gall bladder, and intestines passes through the capillaries of these organs and is collected in the portal vein of the liver. The hepatic portal vein carries this blood to the tissues of the liver, where the contents of the blood are divided into smaller vessels and processed before being carried to the rest of the body. Blood leaving the liver tissues collects in the hepatic veins, which lead to the vena cava and return to the heart. The liver also has its own system of arteries and arterioles that supply its tissues with oxygenated blood like any other organ.

The internal structure of the liver consists of about 100,000 small hexagonal functional units known as lobules. Each lobule consists of a central vein surrounded by 6 hepatic portal veins and 6 hepatic arteries. These blood vessels are connected by many capillary-like tubes called sinusoids, which extend from the portal veins and arteries to meet the central vein like the spokes of a wheel.

Liver Anatomy 3d Images, Stock Photos & Vectors

. Bile is a mixture of water, bile salts, cholesterol and the pigment bilirubin. Hepatocytes in the liver produce bile, which then passes through the bile ducts and is stored in the gallbladder. When fatty food reaches the duodenum, cells in the duodenum release the hormone cholecystokinin to stimulate the gallbladder to release bile. Bile travels through the bile ducts and is released into the duodenum, where it emulsifies large masses of fat. Emulsification of fats with bile turns large chunks of fat into smaller chunks that have a larger surface area and are therefore easier for the body to digest.

Bilirubin in bile is a product of the liver’s digestion of spent red blood cells. The Kupffer cells of the liver capture and destroy old worn-out red blood cells and pass their components on to hepatocytes. Hepatocytes metabolize hemoglobin, the red oxygen-carrying pigment of red blood cells, into components

. The globin protein is further broken down and used as a source of energy for the body. The heme group containing iron cannot be processed by the body and is converted to the pigment bilirubin and added to bile to be excreted from the body. Bilirubin gives bile its characteristic greenish color. Intestinal bacteria further convert bilirubin into the brown pigment stercobilin, which gives stool a brown color.

Liver hepatocytes perform many important metabolic functions that support the body’s cells. Since all blood leaving the digestive system passes through the portal vein of the liver, the liver is responsible for metabolizing carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins into biologically useful materials.

Liver Location Images, Stock Photos & Vectors

Our digestive system breaks down carbohydrates into the monosaccharide glucose, which cells use as a primary source of energy. Blood entering the liver via the hepatic portal vein is extremely rich in glucose from digested food. Hepatocytes absorb much of this glucose and store it as the macromolecule glycogen, a branched polysaccharide that allows hepatocytes to pack away large amounts of glucose and release glucose rapidly between meals. Glucose uptake and release by hepatocytes helps maintain homeostasis and protects the rest of the body from dangerous spikes and dips in blood glucose levels. (See more about glucose in the body.)

Fatty acids from blood passing 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 in hepatocytes during gluconeogenesis. Hepatocytes can also produce lipids such as cholesterol, phospholipids, and lipoproteins that are used by other cells throughout the body. A large part of the cholesterol produced by hepatocytes is excreted from the body as a component of bile.

Dietary proteins are broken down into their constituent amino acids in the digestive system before being delivered to the portal vein of the liver. Amino acids entering the liver require metabolism before being used as an energy source. Hepatocytes first remove the amine groups of amino acids and convert them to ammonia and finally to urea. Urea is less toxic than ammonia and can be excreted in the urine as a byproduct of digestion. The rest of the amino acid parts can be broken down into ATP or converted into new glucose molecules during gluconeogenesis.

As blood from the digestive organs passes through the portal circulation, the liver’s hepatocytes monitor the contents of the blood and remove many potentially toxic substances before they reach the rest of the body. Enzymes in hepatocytes metabolize many of these toxins, such as alcohol and drugs, into their inactive metabolites. And to keep hormone levels within homeostatic limits, the liver also metabolizes hormones produced by the body’s own glands and removes them from the bloodstream.

Scientists Say: Liver

The liver stores many important nutrients, vitamins and minerals obtained from the blood passing through the hepatic portal system. Glucose is transported into hepatocytes under the action of the hormone insulin and stored as the polysaccharide glycogen. Hepatocytes also absorb and store fatty acids from broken down triglycerides. Conserving these nutrients allows the liver to maintain blood glucose homeostasis. Our liver also stores vitamins and minerals – such as vitamins A, D, E, K and B12 and the minerals iron and copper – to ensure a constant supply of these essential substances to the body’s tissues.

Unfortunately, one common inherited disease called hemochromatosis causes too much iron, which can lead to liver disease. Modern DNA health tests can help you find out if you are genetically at higher risk for this condition or another condition such as Gaucher disease or alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, all of which increase your risk of developing liver disease.

The liver is responsible for the production of several vital protein components of the blood plasma – prothrombin, fibrinogen and albumins. Prothrombin and fibrinogen proteins are clotting factors involved in the formation of blood clots. Albumins are proteins that maintain the isotonic environment of the blood so that body cells do not gain or lose water in the presence of body fluids.

The liver functions as an organ of the immune system through the function of the Kupffer cells that line the sinuses. Kupffer cells are a type of fixed macrophage that forms part of the mononuclear phagocyte system along with macrophages in the spleen and lymph nodes. Kupffer cells play an important role in trapping and digesting bacteria, fungi, parasites, worn-out blood cells, and cellular debris. The large volume of blood passing through the portal system of the liver and the liver allows the Kupffer cells to clear large amounts of blood very quickly. Stomach acid

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