The Best Presentation You'll See in the Next Ten Minutes or So
by Jon Clever
Liver
The liver...
- creates bile
- detoxifies your blood
- turns ammonia into urea
- metabolizes nutrients
Liver cont.
Hepatic artery: delivers blood and oxygen from the heart
Hepatic portal vein: brings blood from body to be processed
Common bile duct: tube shared by liver and gallbladder, delivers bile to duodenum
Gallbladder: helps store bile
- Functional unit of liver is "lobule"
- Liver cells called "hepatocytes"
- Blood goes into liver to be filtered
- toxins hydrolyzed, sent to be excreted
- Sugars can be stored as glycogen
- when blood sugar is low glycogen is broken down and glucose released
- Creates blood cells (eg. platelets > stop bleeding)
- Secretes bile
- hydrolyzes fats in duodenum so they can be absorbed
- 2 ammonia + carbon dioxide form urea
Cirrhosis
This disease affects the liver
Cirrhosis
- Cirrhosis is the damage of liver cells and their subsequent replacement by scar tissue
- technically end stage of liver damage
- Usually caused build up of either fats or acetaldehyde (acetaldehyde = toxic byproduct of alcohol metabolism)
Lobule
Bile duct: transports bile
Hepatic vein: brings blood from body
Hepatic artery: supplies liver with nutrients
Sinusoid: space between hepatocytes
Kupffer cell: breaks down toxins into bile
Stages
Treatment
Initial Liver Disease (Stage 1): inflammation of liver cells, left untreated can cause liver damage, is treatable
Fibrosis (Stage 2): scar tissue forms and begins blocking blood flow, through treatment can heal normally
Cirrhosis (Stage 3): tissue scaring is now permanent, focus on managing symptoms and preventing liver failure
Liver failure (Stage 4): all normal liver functions cease, immediate medical attention and liver transplant required, can lead to death
What it does
- When large amounts of alcohol are consumed, large amounts of a toxic byproduct (acetaldehyde) accumulate in the liver
- causes damage to liver cells
- Alcohol metabolism also stimulates fatty acid production
- fat build up can swell and inflame liver cells
- also blocks flow of blood into liver, so blood doesn't get filtered
- Portal hypertension (high pressure in portal vein) can divert blood from liver and cause it to accumulate in other organs
- Early stages: improved diet, abstain from alcohol, Alcohol recovery programs may be necessary
- Allow liver to recover (75% of liver can be destroyed and it still works)
- Actual Cirrhosis: medications (steroids and antivirals)to help deal with liver complications
- In case of liver failure, transplant may be necessary to regain a healthy liver
Symptoms
- Build up of fluid in the abdomen
- Bleeding from veins in the esophagus or stomach
- Enlarged spleen
- Kidney failure
- Liver failure
- Yellow skin