The liver

This weeks post will be a bit different to most of my other ones. I'm not going to write about autism. I'm not going to write about finishing my exams, or seeing rage against the machine. No, this week I'm doing a tribute.

A tribute to the liver.
Because lets face it, the liver is awesome. You need it to live, obviously, but for so many reasons. It controls the production of bile. It produces proteins for blood plasma. It converts glucose into glycogen for storage. It regulates the amino acids in the blood. It stores iron. It turns ammonia into urea. It regulates blood clotting. It resists infections in the body. It clears out drugs and poison.
But that barely scratches the surface of the liver's functions. In fact, more than 500 vital functions are performed by the liver. It maintains 2,000 enzyme systems and produces 13,000 chemicals. And does it ever complain? No.
Let me give you a little analogy. Imagine the body is an office. The brain is the manager, the stomach is a graphic designer and the liver is an underpaid IT worker.
One day the brain decides it's best to update all the computer systems again to one he (the brain is a guy because all it thinks about is sex) just saw on T.V. but doesn't really understand. He goes to the liver and asks her (the liver is obviously a woman, no way in hell a guy can do 500 things at once) to update the system. She tries to explain it's a bad idea but he won't listen. So the brain is happy with himself as he thinks he understands computers and has helped his company.
The liver spends all night frantically updating the system and the work load is so great that she has to side line some minor bug fixes. The next day the brain is furious as his computer is now not working as well as before and the bugs haven't been fixed. The stomach can't work on his (spends all day eating and making up crap, the stomach is a guy) designing because he can't use the new system. The liver tries to explain that she said it wouldn't work very well, but the boss doesn't listen.
To make sense of that just think instead of updating the system the brain wants to get drunk, so the liver has to process the alcohol, lowering its functioning in other areas. The fallout is a hangover.
And whose fault is the hangover? The brain's.
See, the liver doesn't complain anywhere near as much as other organs that do less. Think about it, the liver does 500 times as many things as the heart, but heart failure is much more common. Even though liver failure does cause a lot of deaths, it doesn't cause 500 times the number of deaths heart failure does.
One more fact about the liver: it is the only internal organ that regenerates. From as little as 25% the liver can time lord itself back to health. Come on, even superman can't do that.
So, I propose a big thank you to the liver. A be nice to your liver day on the 18th of July (a week after the world cup final).
On this day drink no alcohol, don't smoke, eat few greasy foods, more fibre and drink more water.
Most importantly, get a marker pen and draw an outline of where your liver is, so you can gently stroke it and tell it that it's doing a great job.
Now, spread the word. Tell your friends (if you have them), write a blog or post it to facebook and let the world know!
Let's all raise a glass to the liver.