The liver serves as your body's engine, refinery, food processor, garbage disposal, and "guardian angel".

What does the liver do?

The liver plays a vital function in our own day-to-day activity and functioning of the body.

At about the size of a football, it is the largest organ in your body. It plays a vital role in regulating life processes, with its primary function to refine and detoxify everything we eat, breathe, and absorb through your skin. The liver is our body's internal chemical power plant, converting nutrients in food eaten into muscles, energy, hormones, clotting factors and immune factors.

The liver also stores certain vitamins, minerals (including iron) and sugars, regulates fat stores, and controls the production and excretion of cholesterol. The bile, produced by liver cells, helps us digest food and absorb important nutrients. It neutralizes and destroys poisonous substances and metabolises alcohol. Added to this it helps us resist infection and removes bacteria from the blood stream, arguably one of the most important organs of our bodies.