Cirrhosis - Introduction

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Processing Healthful Nutrients. The liver processes all of the nutrients the body requires, including proteins, glucose, vitamins, and fats.

Bile Production. The liver produces bile, a green-colored fluid that helps the body absorb fats and fat-soluble vitamins. Bile contains bilirubin, a yellow-green pigment produced from the breakdown of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component in red blood cells. Bile also contains bile salts, fatty acids, cholesterol, and other substances. Bile travels from the liver to the gallbladder, where it is stored until after a meal. It is then secreted into the intestines where it helps digest fat. Because bile can also travel directly from the liver to the intestines, patients who have had their gallbladders removed can still absorb fat normally.

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Eliminating Toxins. One of the liver's major functions is to render harmless potentially toxic substances, including alcohol, ammonia, drugs, and harmful by-products of digestion.

Structure of the Liver

The vital processes the liver performs rely on well-organized liver architecture.

The basic building blocks of the liver are the following structures:

• Bile ducts
• Blood vessels
• Working liver tissue (called the parenchyma)
• Supportive (connective) tissue

The liver is a built on a framework of lobes:

• Lobes. The liver is divided into two major lobes, a right and a smaller left, which are separated by tough, fibrous connective tissue.
• Lobules. The liver's two major lobes contain about 100,000 smaller lobes, called lobules. Each lobule contains microscopic columns of liver cells and blood vessels. Bracing the corners of each lobule column are an artery and a vein that carry blood and a bile duct that drains bile.
• Bile ducts. The bile ducts in the column corners collect bile draining from tiny canals around the liver cells. These ducts eventually join to form the large common bile duct that leads from the liver to the gallbladder.
• Arteries and veins. The arteries bring oxygen-rich blood to nourish the liver cells. The veins supply the liver cells with blood containing the nutrients and toxins that the liver cells process. A central vein runs through each column and collects the processed blood from both sources. These veins join to form the hepatic vein.