The liver is a very important organ of our body, it carries more than 500 vital tasks. It plays a central role in carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism, participates in the metabolism of vitamins, stores vitamins A, D and B12 up to their subsequent use. It plays an important role in defense against infection. It cleanses and disposes of toxins from the blood like alcohol, drugs, hormones, and bacteria. It produces an indispensable fluid of digestion, the bile.

The liver is our only internal organ that can regenerate, rebuild itself after a serious injury, and replace its missing cells.

In our industrial world, even with a health conscious lifestyle, our liver had to deal with a lot of toxins. The chemical industry produces about 400 million tons of chemicals a year. There are more than 100,000 different human-produced chemicals, so our body contacts tens of thousands of artificial compounds every day.

Liver disorders may have a characteristic early symptom, as the liver is unable to remove toxins. Changes in metabolism (which are also related to liver problems) may also cause nausea.

If we are always tired, and even the slightest task makes us exhausted, it may be a sign of liver disease. Our liver functions as an energy store, and if it does not work well, our body needs to work harder to get the energy needed. In addition, accumulating toxins can increase our fatigue.

Healthy urine is pale yellow, but due to the liver disease, it may be much darker, even with adequate water consumption. The substance called bilirubin comes from the liver through the blood stream into the urine. Bilirubin is responsible for the brownish tint of the stool, so if the bile or liver is damaged, there is no bilirubin in the stool so it becomes lighter, whether it is gray or pale yellow.

The liver has a major role in the digestion of consumed foods, in the production of certain enzymes and bile. If our body cannot digest foods properly, it leads to loss of appetite, weight loss, and deficiency diseases. Non-digested food may also cause other problems such as heartburn, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Abnormalities of epidermal production may, among other things, cause bloating, gallstones, and constipation.

Characteristic symptoms are yellow skin, nail bed, eye protein, or tongue and fingerprints. It is also caused by bilirubin, from which normally our body effectively get rid of it, but if the liver does not function properly, bilirubin get into the blood stream

The most common illness is infectious hepatitis typically among of children or adolescents caused by type A liver virus. Influenza-like symptoms begin with headaches, loss of appetite, chills, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. A few days later, jaundice appears but it does not necessarily happen.

Another acute liver disease may be the liver abscess, where symptoms indicate severe inflammation: fever, liver pain, or vomiting.

Unfortunately, chronic liver illnesses occur more frequently and the most common cause is excessive alcohol consumption.

It is also worth mentioning the liver’s autoimmune diseases, viral hepatitis, and congenital iron storage and copper storage liver disease. In cases of chronic hepatic disease, the symptoms appear in all cases at an advanced stage and end to the liver cirrhosis. The functioning cells of the liver suffer a considerable loss and accumulate connective tissue. As a consequence, all functions of the liver deteriorate and the flow of blood from the intestine becomes more difficult for the liver. Loss of function causes jaundice, urine becomes dark.

In addition to liver failure, there is often a case of gallbladder disease, which can cause severe pain in the form of cyst or tumor.

Physical examination of the liver is important, during which the doctor palpates the patient’s abdomen and senses the shape and size of the liver, giving a rough picture of the organ’s condition.

Liver function tests alone do not produce targeted results for the liver, but the extent of the enzymes produced by the liver, pancreas, and kidneys serves useful information depending on whether the values are elevated or lower than normal.

Ultrasound examination of the liver and other abdominal organs provides further information on possible causes of elevated liver enzymes.

Liver biopsy is an invasive procedure that is needed when other methods do not give enough information about the suspected disease and the histology evidence is a progression in the treatment.

During liver biopsy (sampling from the liver via the needle), after the disinfection of the skin, the process is done with a special needle after local anesthesia. Sampling usually causes no pain as a result of preliminary local anesthesia.