Liver Functions

“If we are creating ourselves all the time, then it is never too late to begin creating the bodies we want instead of the ones we mistakenly assume we are stuck with.” Deepak Chopra

Think of the liver as a large city with thousands of houses and streets. There are underground pipes for delivering water, oil, and gas. Sewage systems and garbage trucks remove the city's waste products. Power lines deliver energy to the homes and businesses. Factories, transport systems, communication networks, and stores meet the daily requirements of the residents. The organization of city life is such that it can provide all that it needs for the continued existence of the population. But if a major strike, a power outage, a devastating earthquake, or a major act of terrorism, such as the one we witnessed in New York City on September 11, 2001, suddenly paralyzes city life, the population will begin to suffer serious shortcomings in all these vital sectors.

Like a city's infrastructure, the liver has hundreds of different functions and is connected with every part of the body. Every moment of the day, it is involved in manufacturing, processing, and supplying vast amounts of nutrients. These nutrients feed the 60 to 100 trillion inhabitants (cells) of the body. Each cell is, in itself, a microscopic city of immense complexity, with billions of chemical reactions per second.

To sustain the incredibly diverse activities of all the cells of the body without disruption, the liver must supply them with a constant stream of nutrients, enzymes, and hormones. With its intricate labyrinth of veins, ducts, and specialized cells, the liver needs to be completely unobstructed in order to maintain a problem-free production line and frictionless distribution system throughout the body.