Your Liver: Your Coolest Organ
Medically Reviewed by Poonam Sachdev on July 22, 2024
Jack of All Trades
Your liver does three main jobs: It filters harmful things from your blood, stores fuel, and makes a liquid called bile that helps you digest food. But that’s just the beginning. This amazing organ plays a part in hundreds of other bodily functions.
Big Organ on Campus
Your skin is the only organ that’s bigger. The average adult liver weighs around 3 pounds and holds 1 pint or about 13% of your blood at any given time. Cone-shaped and colored a deep reddish-brown, it sits sandwiched between your diaphragm on top and your stomach on bottom.
Self-Starter
If injury or disease damages your liver, surgeons can sometimes take out as much as three-quarters of it without destroying it. It often grows back to its former size within a few weeks. And if you need a new liver, doctors can sometimes use just a piece of someone else’s -- it will grow to fit your body.
Pharmacist
Most medicines pass through your liver. In some cases, they have to so they’ll work the right way -- the organ has chemicals that “activate” some drugs so they can work. These chemicals also control how quickly the drugs are broken down, used, then “deactivated,” and gotten rid of through your pee or poop.