Located just under your rib cage on the right side of your abdomen, your liver is about the size of a football, weighs three to four pounds, and performs more than 500 vital functions that you keep healthy and alive.

Our Best Friend

The liver is one of the largest and most important organs in your body. It functions as your body's internal chemical' power plant. It stores certain vitamins, minerals and sugars, regulates fat stores, and controls the production and excretion of cholesterol. The bile, produced by liver cells, helps you digest your food and absorb important nutrients. It neutralises and destroys poisonous substances, and metabolises alcohol. It helps you resist infection and remove bacteria from the blood stream, helping you to stay healthy. Arguably, your liver isn't just your silent partner - it's your best friend.

As you can see by the list of functions, the liver is no slouch.

However, all these activities make it highly susceptible to damage. For this reason, the liver tissue has the amazing ability to regenerate itself to keep functioning. But like anything, work it too hard and eventually it will wear out. And this is what we are seeing today: more and more, seemingly healthy people have the signs of poor liver health.

What Happens When The Liver Fails?

Liver failure can be a slow and insidious process such as in those patients who consume too much alcohol or have a chronic infection that affects the liver such as hepatitis B or C, autoimmune liver disease and genetic/inherited conditions.

Sometimes, when the liver becomes overwhelmed by toxins such as a drug overdose, liver failure can ensue very quickly.

A seriously damaged liver develops a condition called cirrhosis. Cirrhosis develops when normal liver tissue is replaced by scar tissue. Scar tissue distorts the functions of the liver and restricts the flow of blood According to the Malaysian Ministry of Health, 80 percent of liver cancer can be attributed to Hepatitis B, and liver cancer is the 10th most common cancer among men.

Another liver condition is called fatty liver. Unlike its name, fatty liver has nothing to do with eating too much fat. The condition involves excess fat inside the liver cells. The leading causes include low protein diets, poor nutrition, starvation, hormone disorders, obesity and alcoholism. Fatty liver is associated with large amounts of free radical formation and inflammation of the liver disease.

In the early stages, liver diseases often manifest without any signs and symptoms, and it also varies from disease to disease. However, some of the signs and symptoms of liver disease may include:

• Discoloured skin and eyes that appears yellowish

• Abdominal pain and swelling

• Itchy skin that doesn't seem to go away

• Dark urine colour

• Pale stool colour

• Bloody or tar-coloured stool

• Chronic fatigue

• Nausea

• Loss of appetite

“Being kind to your liver means understanding how it works, avoiding activities that harm it, and supplying it with the right nutrients for optimum function”

The Cure

Treatment for liver disease varies according to the type of disease. It may include lifestyle changes (e.g., avoiding alcohol), medications (e.g., corticosteroids) or surgery (e.g., a shunt surgical procedure). In advanced cases of liver failure, the only treatment option is liver transplantation.

There's no doubt you should take good care of your liver, an organ that is so critical to your health and well being. Being kind to your liver means understanding how it works, avoiding activities that harm it, and supplying it with the right nutrients for optimum function. To do so, follow these basic guidelines:

• Drink beer, liquor and wine in moderation-for example, one or two glasses of wine or other alcoholic beverage each day.

• Be careful about the drugs you take. The American

National liver Foundation advises: "All drugs are chemicals, and when you mix them up without a doctor's advice, you could create something poisonous that could damage (your liver) badly".

• Don't mix other drugs with alcohol. Acetaminophen (Tylenol or others) can be toxic to the liver even if you drink alcohol in moderation.

• Take care about the aerosol sprays you breathe. Your liver detoxifies what you breathe in. When you're around aerosol cleaners, mildew sprays and paint sprays, for example, make sure the room is well ventilated or wear a mask.

• Every time you are around insecticides, cover your skin with gloves, long sleeves, a hat and mask. These harmful chemicals can enter your body through your skin and destroy cells in the liver.

• Avoid contact with other people's blood and body fluids. Hepatitis viruses can be spread by accidental needle sticks, improper clean up of blood or body fluids, and sharing intravenous needles. It's also possible to become infected by sharing razor blades or toothbrushes or by having unsafe sex.

• Avoid fried and processed foods. Hydrogenated fats and the chemicals found in processed foods cause the liver to work harder, increasing the burden on an already taxed organ.

• Eat a well balanced, healthy diet that's low in fat, sugar and salt but high in fibre and take lots of vegetables, fruits, beans and whole-wheat cereals. A balanced diet with its good mix of nutrients can actually help a damaged liver to regenerate new liver cells. Since most of what we eat, breathe, and absorb through our skin must be refined and detoxified by the liver, special attention to nutrition and diet can help keep the liver healthy.

• Get vaccinated. If you're at an increased risk of contracting hepatitis or if you've already been infected with any form of the hepatitis virus, talk to your doctor about getting the hepatitis B vaccine. A vaccine is also available for hepatitis A.

In the future, liver disease treatments may include genetic therapy, as well as new vaccines and anti-viral drugs to prevent and treat hepatitis C and other hepatitis viruses that cause permanent liver damage. Researchers are also working to develop an artificial liver that performs the liver's filtering functions, just as dialysis filters blood in people with kidney failure.

For now, though, the best way to control liver disease is to keep it from starting. When you take care of your liver's health on a daily basis, your body's immune system becomes strong and healthy, and this allows it to help fight off any potential liver problems that might otherwise develop.