Diminutive though in weight the liver is a complex chemical factory that works around the clock. It processes virtually everything you eat, drink, breathe in or rub on your skin and that's just naming a few of the over 500 different functions it is in charge of that are vital to life.

Hard at work 24 hours a day, your liver helps your body everyday by providing it with energy for all bodily functions, warding off infections, flushing out drugs, alcohol, poisons and other toxins, helping clot the blood, regulating hormones and hundreds of other functions necessary to maintain your good health.

The liver has a multitude of important and complex functions, some of which are detailed below:

Detoxification -Cleanses blood by filtering harmful substances:

• metabolizing alcohol and other drugs and chemicals,
• neutralizing and destroying poisonous substances.

Regulates the supply of body fuel by maintaining the proper level of glucose in the blood:

• producing, storing and supplying quick energy (glucose).
• producing, storing and exporting fat.

Protein Synthesis: Manufactures many essential body proteins involved in:

• transporting substances in the blood,
• clotting of blood,
• providing resistance to infection.

Regulates the balance of many hormones:

• sex hormones,
• thyroid hormones,
• cortisone and other adrenal hormones.

Regulates body cholesterol by producing it, excreting it and converting it to other essential substances.

Regulates the supply of essential vitamins and minerals such as iron and copper.

One of the liver's major functions is the manufacture and secretion of bile, which is stored in the gall bladder and released in the small intestine. Bile eliminates toxic substances from the body and aids digestion