How to take care of your Liver
A wedge-shaped organ, your liver is about the size of a football. Weighing in around 3 pounds, it's your largest organ -- other than your skin. It’s on the right side of your body, just under your rib cage.
What doesn't your liver do? Besides taking toxins out of your blood, your liver has about 500 jobs, including making bile -- a liquid that helps you digest food. Your liver takes what you eat and drink and turns it into energy and nutrients; it helps your body use carbs, for example. It also plays a role in helping your blood clot.
Liver function tests are blood tests that doctors use to check the liver for injury, disease, or infection. These are usually a series of blood tests done at the same time. Your doctor might call the tests a hepatic function panel or liver profile.
The liver is the only organ that can grow back when part of it is damaged or removed. That's why people are able to donate parts of their livers. You don't have to be related to someone to give them part of your liver, although most donors are usually relatives or close friends.
Your liver breaks down the alcohol you drink to help get it out of your body. But drinking more alcohol than your liver can process may cause damage. There are several types of alcohol-related liver disease: fatty liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis, and alcoholic cirrhosis. If you find it hard to cut back on alcohol, ask a doctor or counselor for help.
Your skin and eyes can turn a yellow shade when there's too much of something called bilirubin in your blood. Bilirubin is a yellow pigment your body makes when it breaks down red blood cells. Normally, the liver filters out bilirubin. But if you have too much of it or if you have liver damage, you can get jaundice.

Hepatitis A is one example of an illness that results in jaundice. Also, newborns often have jaundice because their livers are still developing, and they have trouble filtering the bilirubin.
Cirrhosis, scarring of the liver with worse function, is the most serious type of alcohol-related liver disease. Up to 1 in 5 heavy drinkers gets it. You can't reverse liver damage from cirrhosis. But if you stop drinking, it can stop the disease from getting worse.
Liver disease can be silent for a very long time. As many as half of people who have it don't have any symptoms at all. If you do have warning signs, they're often vague, like being really tired and having achy muscles. You may also have itchy skin, swelling in your belly, dark urine, confusion, or yellowing of the eyes or skin. You'll need to see a doctor for blood tests to find out for sure if your liver is the problem. more