Speaker 1: Human anatomy: the liver. This video illustrates one of the most used internal parts of the human body: the liver. One can understand how the liver functions and aids the digestion of food in humans, apart from it producing vital nutrients and helping in the excretion of waste material from the body. The liver is the largest organ in the human body. The liver alone weighs about 1–1/2 to 3 kilograms in the body. The liver occupies much of the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, to the right of the stomach and immediately below the diaphragm.
The liver is divided into two unequal lobes, a large right lobe and a smaller left lobe. The liver plays a number of vital roles such as metabolizing the breakdown products of digestion and detoxifying substances that are harmful to the body. The liver also provides essential energy-producing substances and supplies vital vitamins, including iron, vitamin B12, and copper. The liver controls the production and excretion of cholesterol, and metabolizes alcohol into mild toxin. It also performs many important functions, including storing iron, maintaining a hormonal balance, producing immune factors to fight infections, regulating blood clotting, and producing bile.
The hepatic portal veins, which are blood vessels that carry blood from the gastrointestinal tract and spleen to the liver, pick up nutrients and toxins from the stomach and intestines for processing. The hepatic ducts and gall bladder send the processed bile to the duodenum, which is about 25 centimeters long and a C shape. The stomach opens up into the duodenum through a pyloric sphincter, a muscle that acts as a valve that controls passage of food from the stomach into the small intestine.
The abdominal aorta and hepatic veins supply and return blood to the liver. One of the most important functions of the liver is to produce bile. This digestive juice dissolves fat into watery contents much like detergents that dissolve grease from a frying pan. This juice is stored in the gall bladder between meals. During meals it is squeezed out of the gall bladder through the bile ducts and into the intestines to mix with the fat in the blood through the bile ducts.
When food, medicines, liquids, etc., are consumed and digested, the cells within the liver that contain a number of powerful enzymes break them down into many toxins. Ammonia, a toxin product arising from the digestion of proteins, is converted into a less toxic urea by liver. During exercise, the liver quickly breaks down the stored glycogen into glucose, which is released into the blood stream to be used by muscles as a source of energy.
Another function of the liver is to make cholesterol and other fats that are needed by the body. Maintaining a healthy digestive system is essential for the health of the liver and other organs so that they can continue to perform their daily tasks that are vital to the overall health and well-being of a person. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to our channel, eLearning, for the latest on high-end 3D anatomy videos. We will continue to discover the amazing human anatomy.