What is your favorite organ in the body?

For me, the Liver is near the top of my favorites. Why, you ask? The liver is the ultimate team player within the body. The liver interacts with nearly every other organ in the system and usually plays nice. In fact, the liver can still do its job even if 70% of it is removed. So, at 30% capacity it can often function at near 100%. Pretty impressive.

The liver has many functions within our body. It is the major detoxifier of all toxins including alcohol, medicine, and environmental toxins.  The liver helps process fats with the gallbladder and sugars with the pancreas. In fact, when these two organs shut down due to disease, the liver picks up the slack and processes the fats and sugars overtime. The thyroid relies on the liver to help it function, the hormones look to the liver for assistance in doing their job, and the heart relies on the liver to produce cholesterol for processing and storing fats. The liver has a lot on its plate, yet it keeps on working.

So why, if the liver is so incredible at doing its job, are we still so sick as a country? It is the classic situation of "give them an inch and they take a mile." We are so accustomed to our liver picking up the slack that as a whole our country has given up being kind to this vital organ.

It has been the recommendation since the late 1970s to limit total fat intake to less than 30% of all calories consumed and limit saturated fat to less than 10%, yet we continue to fight heart disease (#1 killer in the United States) and obesity in alarming numbers. Many studies warn against high sugar consumption and the ill effect it can have on our bodies, yet in 2006 Americans consumed on average of 180 lbs. of sugar,  up from 12 lbs. in the 1800s. The pancreas has to work overtime when too much sugar is present in the blood. Once the pancreas runs out of steam, the liver takes over and stores the extra sugar as glycogen in our muscle tissue. Glycogen is our reserve fuel tank. It is there waiting for you in case you ever run out of gas, ie. food intake. Once that reserve fuel tank is full the liver converts blood sugar to body fat. Once again this leads to heart disease and obesity concerns over time. In addition, the excess stress on our pancreas makes it more susceptible to Type II Diabetes. Lastly, the toxic nature of the American lifestyle is constantly taxing our livers. Of course, there are always going to be toxins the liver filters out of our bloodstream to protect our body. According to a 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, most Americans take medication on a weekly basis and 1 in 6 Americans take herbals each day as well. Even the norm has the liver working overtime to detoxify the system.

Now I have painted a nice picture of the liver picking up the slack of other organs, maintaining non-toxic states within our systems, and generally keeping homeostasis for our bodies. While this is all true the liver can only do so much. Once it begins to fatigue or even decides to take a "vacation" each of these functions no longer happens, or they are weaker and delayed. Thus begins an even further cascade of ill health in many americans bodies.

This holiday season I hope we can all remember to treat our Livers well and carry those nice behaviors into the new year. Moderation is a great tool for health. Remember it not only now but for continued health always.