odds & ends item from SPRING 2005
Marvels of the Human Body
A Little Miracle Called Your Liver
If you were asked what the most important organ in the body is, what would be the first thing to come to mind? Would you think about your heart? What about your brain? How about the lungs? All of these are very important and essential for survival. However, a strong case could be made that the liver is the most important organ in the body.
If one needed a new heart, man now possesses the knowledge and technology to perform heart transplants—whether a donated heart or prosthetic heart. For the brain to endanger one’s life, it would need to suffer significant organic damage. People can live with one lung, one kidney, and no appendix. However, if one’s liver shuts down, he would only live a day or two. There are no prosthetic livers. This organ is too complex for man to copy. Let’s find out why this organ is so important—an everyday miracle at work.
The liver weighs three pounds and resides at the top right corner of your abdomen. The purpose of this organ is to purify the blood. It receives two quarts of blood per minute from organs and tissues! It then goes to work, purifying the blood by taking the toxins—poisonous substances that are produced by living cells or organisms and are capable of causing disease—and dumping them into the gall bladder. Once it has completed this process, it puts the clean blood back into circulation. After you eat a meal, the content of the gall bladder is mixed with digestive enzymes produced by the liver and dumped into the small intestine to aid in the digestive process. Then the toxins, along with unused digested food, are carried into the colon and expelled from the body. If the liver stopped working, we would all quickly die from the diseases brought on by toxic build-up!
The liver is continuously at work purifying the blood stream. But it also performs other functions. As mentioned earlier, the liver is instrumental in digesting food. It is also responsible for saving and storing water during times of fasting. Naturopaths and holistic doctors pay close attention to the liver when trying to help a patient heal. It is the most active organ during fasting and cleansing diets.
God is amazing. He has put within each and every one of us the ability to correct illness. And the liver is the organ central to that process.
When we look at items as complex and important as the liver, we get a glimpse into the superior and awesome mind of God. Now you know that there is a continuous miracle occurring in your body every single day.