The liver is a large organ that processes food and drinks. One of the liver’s functions is to detoxify harmful substances like alcohol. This blog post will discuss the liver function in digestive system.
The liver has many functions in the human body, including detoxification of the blood and production of bile. These two functions are essential to the digestive system because they allow us to break down and absorb nutrients from our foods.
For this reason, it’s often said that you could survive for a time without a stomach but not without a liver!
The liver is the largest gland in the human body and is responsible for several jobs, including producing bile to help digest food.
The speed at which it works can be seen during a fatty meal. After consuming a meal high in fat, watch as the color of your urine changes from clear to light brown or even cola-colored.
This shows that excess fat has been absorbed by your body and sent straight to the liver, where it was converted into bile so it could be excreted from your body via your kidneys and bladder.
Scientists have found glucose molecules in bile samples – this indicates that some carbs are being broken down to be digested better!
Here’s an example:
When you eat a meal, the food first enters your mouth and is chewed – this breaks it down into smaller pieces. Now, these small pieces enter your stomach – here they are churned around thanks to peristalsis (rhythmic muscle contractions), which mixes them with gastric juices produced by the stomach lining. The contents of the stomach then pass through a sphincter known as the pyloric valve. This allows them to enter the duodenum, where bile salts secreted by your liver help break down fats for digestion.
The liver also produces glucose using glycogen stored there from carbohydrate foods consumed earlier in the day.
This makes sure you don’t get hypoglycemia when you sleep at night! If blood sugar levels become too low, you tend to wake up with feelings of tiredness.
Read Reverse Your Fatty Liver By Susan Peters>>
Liver Function In the Digestive System
| Liver Function | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Bile Secretion | The liver produces bile, a greenish-yellow fluid, which is stored in the gallbladder. Bile plays a vital role in the digestion of fats by emulsifying them into smaller droplets, making it easier for lipase (an enzyme) to break them down into fatty acids and glycerol. | When you eat a fatty meal, the liver releases bile into the small intestine to aid in the digestion and absorption of fats. |
| Metabolism of Carbohydrates | The liver regulates blood sugar levels by storing glucose as glycogen when blood sugar is high and releasing it back into the bloodstream when blood sugar levels drop. This helps to maintain a steady supply of glucose for the body’s energy needs. | After a meal, when blood sugar levels rise, the liver takes up glucose and converts it into glycogen for storage. When the body needs energy between meals, the liver breaks down glycogen into glucose and releases it into the bloodstream. |
| Detoxification | The liver plays a crucial role in detoxifying harmful substances, such as drugs, alcohol, and metabolic waste products. It breaks down these toxins into less harmful compounds and facilitates their elimination from the body. | When a person consumes alcohol, the liver works to metabolize and detoxify it to prevent harmful effects on the body. |
| Protein Metabolism | The liver is involved in the synthesis of various proteins, including blood clotting factors and albumin, a protein that helps maintain osmotic pressure in the blood. It also metabolizes excess amino acids, converting them into useful compounds or energy. | The liver produces fibrinogen, a protein essential for blood clotting when there is an injury. |
| Storage of Vitamins and Minerals | The liver stores essential vitamins (e.g., A, D, B12) and minerals (e.g., iron, copper) for future use by the body. It releases these stored nutrients when the body needs them. | When the body needs vitamin A for vision or vitamin D for calcium absorption, the liver releases the stored vitamins into the bloodstream. |
| Synthesis of Bile Salts | The liver synthesizes bile salts, which are essential for the digestion and absorption of dietary fats and fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K). Bile salts aid in the emulsification of fats, enabling enzymes to break them down into absorbable components. | Bile salts are recycled in the enterohepatic circulation, where they are reabsorbed in the small intestine and transported back to the liver for reuse. |
| Regulation of Cholesterol | The liver helps regulate cholesterol levels in the bloodstream by synthesizing cholesterol and converting excess cholesterol into bile acids. It plays a key role in maintaining a healthy balance of HDL (good) and LDL (bad) cholesterol. | When the body needs cholesterol for various functions, the liver produces it. Conversely, when there’s an excess of cholesterol, the liver converts it into bile acids, which are eventually excreted in the feces. |
| Storage of Glycogen | The liver stores glycogen, a stored form of glucose that serves as a quick energy reserve for the body. During periods of low blood sugar (e.g., fasting, intense physical activity), the liver breaks down glycogen and releases glucose into the bloodstream to maintain energy levels. | When someone skips a meal or engages in strenuous exercise, the liver releases glucose from its glycogen stores to keep the body energized. |
| Vitamin Conversion | The liver converts some vitamins, such as vitamin D, into their active forms. For instance, the liver converts vitamin D into calcitriol, the biologically active form that regulates calcium and phosphorus metabolism and supports bone health. | When the skin is exposed to sunlight, the liver helps convert vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) into its active form, calcitriol. |
| Synthesis of Blood Proteins | The liver is responsible for producing several important blood proteins, including albumin, globulins, and clotting factors. These proteins play vital roles in maintaining blood volume, transporting substances, and ensuring proper blood clotting. | Albumin helps maintain osmotic pressure and transport various substances in the blood. Clotting factors are essential for blood coagulation when there is an injury. |
| Regulation of Amino Acids | The liver regulates the levels of amino acids in the bloodstream, ensuring a proper balance for various bodily functions. It takes up excess amino acids and converts them into other compounds, such as glucose or lipids, depending on the body’s needs. | When there is an excess of amino acids after protein consumption, the liver processes and converts them into energy or stores them as fat. |
| Removal of Old Red Blood Cells | The liver is involved in the breakdown of old and damaged red blood cells. Hemoglobin, the protein responsible for carrying oxygen in red blood cells, is broken down into heme and globin. The iron from heme is recycled and reused, while the rest of the heme is converted into bilirubin and eventually excreted in bile. | Red blood cells have a lifespan of about 120 days, and the liver assists in their recycling process. |
| Regulation of Blood Volume | The liver helps maintain the balance of blood volume in the body. It responds to changes in blood pressure and blood volume, releasing stored blood into the circulatory system when needed and absorbing excess blood when pressure is too high. | When a person experiences blood loss due to injury or other reasons, the liver can release stored blood into circulation to help stabilize blood volume. |
Maintaining Proper Digestion
The liver helps maintain proper digestion by secreting bile so that food can be broken down and made into small molecules that can be absorbed, monitoring blood sugar levels so that energy is available to break down food, and helping the pancreas produce certain digestive enzymes.
The Pancreas: Aid or Competitor?
Depending on your professor, you may hear about these functions as part of discussing how the liver works with the pancreas to digest food. The pancreas is an organ that appears very similar to the liver, and it has many of the same functions!
Indeed, they work together in certain ways, but in other ways, they’re actually competitors with one another.
In fact, people who have had all or part of their pancreas removed because of pancreatic cancer will often develop liver problems. That’s because the pancreas and liver work together to regulate blood sugar (or glucose) levels, but for different reasons.
The Liver Helps Regulate Blood Glucose Levels
Your body works hard to maintain a consistent level of glucose in your bloodstream around the clock. The most important organ involved in glucose regulation is the liver.
It releases stored glucose into your bloodstream as needed to maintain stable levels, and it breaks down any extra when blood sugar levels are too high. If you’re not active and your energy needs drop, then glucose production also slows down.
At the same time, one of the liver’s main functions is metabolizing proteins. It has a special protein-metabolizing process that specifically breaks down excess blood sugar into an inactive form.
When the liver can’t do its job properly due to disease or damage, your body’s ability to maintain normal blood glucose levels becomes compromised, which can lead to diabetes.
The Pancreas Helps Regulate Blood Glucose Levels
At the same time, the pancreas is constantly producing a hormone called insulin. Insulin enables cells in your body to absorb glucose and use it for energy. It also triggers cells to store any excess glucose that can’t be used immediately as fat or glycogen, stored in the liver and muscles for later use.
In other words, the pancreas helps maintain normal blood glucose levels by releasing insulin when your body needs more energy and absorbing extra glucose from the blood when you don’t need it right away. In this way, it’s a competitor of the liver!
Most people with type 1 diabetes have little or no producing pancreas, but that’s not true for everyone with the disease. In fact, only about 20% of those who have type 1 diabetes also have a problem with their pancreas.
The rest may have insulin resistance or problems related to high blood sugar levels, such as neuropathy (nerve damage), kidney and retinal damage, or heart disease. These people would be better described as having a problem with the liver, not the pancreas!
The Pancreas and Liver Both Produce Cholesterol
Another reason that we describe you can live without a stomach but not without a liver is because of their shared function in breaking down dietary fats.
People who have had part or all of their pancreas removed during surgery may develop high cholesterol because the liver will produce more cholesterol in response to increased dietary fat.
The liver and pancreas also secrete bile, a substance that helps break down fats as part of the digestive process. The liver secretes about three times as much bile as the pancreas.
If you’ve ever had your gallbladder removed, then you know just how important this function is!
High Cholesterol Isn’t Always Bad for You.
But how does all this relate to digestion? It turns out that certain types of dietary fat are actually good for maintaining health. So what’s going on here? Why do we want our livers to produce cholesterol at some times and our pancreas at other times?
One answer is that your body needs different types of cholesterol for normal function, and it needs the liver to synthesize two special forms of cholesterol.
The first is a form called low-density lipoprotein (LDL), known as “bad” cholesterol because people with high levels of LDL in their blood tend to get heart disease over time. The second is high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which carries excess cholesterol away from cells and back to the liver. HDL can be thought of as “good” cholesterol because higher levels are associated with a lower risk for heart disease.
There’s actually a third type of cholesterol, but this one doesn’t come from food – it comes from your liver and is called very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL). VLDL is a precursor to LDL and HDL, so it’s actually useful for transporting cholesterol throughout the body.
In fact, there may be an important connection between your liver health and heart disease risk.
The recent Framingham Heart Study of more than 10,000 people found that those with high levels of liver enzymes had much higher rates of fatal heart attacks than those with lower levels!
Fortunately, there are lifestyle strategies you can follow to achieve good liver health and reduce your chances of getting diabetes or other diseases related to poor blood sugar regulation. Stop drinking alcohol completely, eat healthy fats such as olive oil instead of trans fat-laden processed foods, exercise regularly, and eat just enough healthy food to maintain a normal weight without counting calories or worrying about portion size.
Natural Ways to Regulate Blood Sugar Levels While You Wait for Surgery
Many people with liver disease have pre-diabetes, insulin resistance, or type 2 diabetes. The good news is that you don’t need to rely on drugs from your doctor to keep your blood glucose levels under control while waiting for surgery. There are several natural strategies available!
One of the best ways to regulate blood sugar is actually remarkably simple: exercise regularly!
In fact, the latest study from the National Institutes of Health shows that even 30 minutes of moderate physical activity 3 days per week can reduce your chances of getting diabetes by 58%! Regardless of your activity level, the study also showed that even a little bit of exercise could make a big difference.
Another powerful strategy for managing your blood sugar levels is to reduce your intake of added sugars, particularly fructose, from sources like high fructose corn syrup and agave syrup. These sugars are being directly linked to the current epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and liver problems!
Conclusion
It is important to keep your liver healthy if you want a happy digestive system. Healthy eating with plenty of fiber, and eliminating processed foods from our diet are the best ways we can take care of our livers. We hope that you find this post-liver function in digestive system useful.
If you have any questions about the function of your liver, please contact us. We hope we’ve answered some common misconceptions and given you a better understanding of how this important organ works in our digestive system.
With proper care, it can keep working for many years to come!
Also read, How Long Does It Take for A Fatty Liver to Heal Itself?
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References
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325018
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000305.htm#
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110505142730.htm